Leaders and Learning: The Importance of Learning for Effective Leadership

This article discusses the importance of learning for effective leadership. It explores how leaders and learners are dependent on each other and how organizational culture plays a significant role in promoting learning. The article also covers the three levels of learning in organizational learning theory and provides strategies for promoting learning within leadership.

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Leaders and Learning
9/1/2018

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Leaders and Learning
John C. Maxwell quotes that a leader is the one who knows the way, goes the way
and shows the way. By his statement, my opinion for leaders and learning has been
transformed. Previously my opinion was that leadership and learning were two
separate aspects that are not related to each other. However, post getting an
understanding about the quote by Maxwell, my outlook has changed and I have
come to realize that leadership and learning are not only related but also work in
close coordination with each other. In this paper, I am going to talk briefly about
leaders and their learning. In addition, how leaders and learners are dependent on
each other.
A leader is bestowed upon with the responsibility of guiding team members and
motivating them in an effective manner. In order to do the same, the leader must
know the future course of action, follow that course, and also guide team members in
the right direction. A leader is recognized by the level of innovation and creativity
depicted by offering new ideas and solutions to team problems. The leader is the
inspiration or role model for the team. Effective leadership requires various skills and
characteristics that make a person a successful leader (Davies and Sinclair, 2013).
For leaders, the ability to learn plays a critical role in analysing their efficacy in
leading a team (Alajmi, 2010). Learning is the technique of gaining new information
and using this information appropriately. It is essential for a leader to continue
learning in order to motivate team members (Xiong, et al., 2017). A leader which is
not willing to learn remains misguided and may not be as respected by team
members.
As per my view previously, I considered that leadership and learning were two
unrelated aspects about an individual’s personality. My opinion on the idea of
leaders and learning were completely different from each other. I considered leader
as the one who accomplishes all responsibilities as well as inspires a collection of
individuals in a well-organized way so that it will add more value to the organization
and community at large. Therefore, leader is a mixture of ability, information, and
knowledge that aid in monitoring individual. On the other hand, learning is the
procedure where we get to understand new advanced things or adjust current things,

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behavior, value, skill, etc. Learning is a type of modification that takes place in an
individual’s life due to knowledge. Learning is the method, which enables
transformation in which an outcome happens. Through learning, we can distinguish
correct responses and overlook the incorrect responses (Muijs and Reynolds, 2017).
Through this course, I came to know that leadership and learning are both connected
to each other. My view earlier about these two concepts was totally wrong. These
two terms are interconnected to each other. That means in order to be an effective
leader, the leader must know the way, go the way and show the way. This requires
the leader to be open to learning. This means that in order to become a leader with
effective and efficient working knowledge the leader should have a learning
experience. Through learning experience, leaders can get trained day by day and
this helps them in developing good leadership skills and become better leaders.
Through increased learning, leaders automatically improve upon their leadership
qualities. On the other hand, the leader with a skilled and confident personality will
directly lead us to achieve learning capabilities (Priyanga, Kumari and Dharani,
2018).
Organizational Learning Theory categorizes three levels of learning: -
 Single loop learning: -
This can be defined as the improved result or response on the unpredicted or
unpredictable outcome. Single loop contains one reaction loop when the policy is
improved in response to an unpredicted outcome. This policy aims to be made to
solve the problem of increase in the changes and problems. This will be arrived
at the time of consequence of learning.
 Double loop learning: -
This can be defined as the learning phase in the teaching in which going in deep
is the reason. The reason of the problem can be find out when going in deep.
The feedback of this problem is used to understand and analyze past actions
(Baleghizadeh and Zarghami, 2012).
 Deuteron Learning: -

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In this learning the style has been improved to develop the better
understanding.. Learning takes place in structural and behavioral elements.
Therefore “learning how to learn” is known as deuteron learning.
For management to understand the importance of learning, various strategies can be
implemented:
 Leadership focuses on teaching and gives learning to the individuals for
their future. Providing the supplement to the organisational and
management projects are not the focus pf the leadership in the organisation
and it is also called as the instructional leadership. Other names has been
also given which includes the learning- adjusted leadership, leadership for
learning, or leadership of teaching and learning (Goetsch and Davis, 2014).
 Leadership must focus to have a unusual result on teaching and learning. If
it was not controlled by the belief of the leader then it should be distributed
by the higher and central level leaders in school and colleges.
 Leadership will able to involve more and more person in the teaching and
grabbing the new things. This will work as the procedure that will be
developed and scattered.
 Principles and other leaders of the school also play a significant role for
management to be functioning in inspiring student knowledge.
 The idea of learning within leadership must flow from the senior most
leaders in the organization to the bottom most leaders (Wagner, 2016).
Efforts must be put by organizations to develop the Maxwell’s knowing, going and
showing leadership culture. For a leader it is imperative to be dependable with
executing a knowledge ethos rather than providing the vague information. Every
person in the company is compulsory to complete the teachings strategies used at
the time of teaching. The teaching strategies have to be executed at the time of
learning in the class sessions. People must be motivated when they are gaining new
skills. People should also be motivated to provide feedback in order for leaders to
evaluate their performance (Smith, et al., 2012).
Strong-minded learning suggestions are -

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 Include the learner in planning his or her own learning information and
procedure as a partner. This would ensure increased sense of ownership
towards the learning process.
 Make the prospectus procedure elastic so that new queries and
understanding can be discovered as new gateways are developed.
 Modify learning.
 Use community media to spread alertness around web learning.
 Provide an elastic or replaced valuation (Solansky, 2010).
 Allow the learner to contextualize ideas, material, and new opinions.
 Deliver resources and permit the learner to learn significant information.
 Inspection and examination
 Inspire learners in mutual learning.
 Differentiate between material and skill accomplishment and deep
learning.
 Distinguish the implication of casual learning and appreciate that we only
want to allow it rather than regulating it.
 Have trust in the learner
 Recognize that teaching can grow a block to learning (Lindegaard, 2010).
From the analysis, it can be concluded that an individual should get rid of these
positions that teach and teacher are same things. On the other hand, start thinking
about the “learning phase in the life of a leader. This will promptly alter the
importance from the teacher-centered to learner-centered concepts. Due to this, it
has been analysed that the teaching is actually foremost acativitiy to be doen. The
broad capabilities are similar and identical whether the leading students or leading
people are there in the administration.
Leaders must inspire learning through a diversity of relationships. This includes
sharing direct information with peers or simply creating a culture of learning
throughout the organization. They should advance relations that will bale to motivate
and inspire the discrete learning in the environment. Leaders should be motivated to
admit to the dissimilar beginner viewpoints and concept favorable circumstances for
motivating companies in their learning performance (Lindegaard, 2010).

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The intelligent leaders has been identified from this study. They are the high players
who recognized the thinking and want to approve a strong degree of suggestion-
learned likeness. This should be brought out through organizations they focussed.
Employees from the most basic level must be encouraged to learn and be open to
new thoughts and ideas. In order to promote that, organizational culture plays a
significant role. Similarly, at the school level too, students must be encouraged and
motivated to share new ideas. The opinions must be respected by each and
everyone in the community. This will make them feel comfortable in sharing their
opinions. The culture of learning is critical to induce learning leadership throughout
organizations. To attain this study recognized important activities that resourceful
leader holds, each of which is reinforced by a range of knowledge areas, skills, and
qualities (Ortmeier and Meese, 2010).
Conclusion
From all the discussion, it can be concluded that previous my opinion on leaders and
learning was totally dissimilar from the present opinion about both. Earlier I thought
leaders and learning were extensively diverse from each other. The leader is the
individual who manage all the projects or actions in the business as well as works
towards motivating individual. At the end of the study, I have come to distinguish that
leadership and learning are connected to each other. Maxwell defines that leader as
someone who knows all the way, how to reach that way and the reason why that
way is important in the life of learning and teaching phase of an individual. Such a
leadership is only possible if the leader is willing to learn and pass on those
learning’s to others. The learning abilities of a leader can be built at an individual
level or can be embodies within the organizational culture. Either way it is imperative
to ensure the efficacy of the leader. It is important to note that consistent learning
also reflects positively upon the leader’s ability to guide and motivate the team. To
conclude, leadership and learning are related aspects and both the aspects are
correlated in the manner that effective leadership gives rise to a better learning
environment and consistent learning gives rise to effective leadership.

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