(PDF) The Learning Organization
Added on 2021-05-30
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Running Head: Learning OrganizationLearning OrganizationReflective Essay
Running Head: Learning OrganizationEssayLeadership is both a research area and a practical skill combining the ability of the individual to lead to guide organization or other individuals on the path of sustainedsuccess ensuring business sustainability. Leadership is not just restricted to organizational or societal level, it even extends to one’s own personal life. A leader is thus responsible for ensuring the success of his organization, society, community and also his followers (Yang, Sechi & Homberg, 2018). John Maxwell has aptly defined a leader by stating that Leader is the one who knows the way, goes the way and shows theway to other individuals. The essay here will focus on exploring the three ways of knowing, going and showing using the theories of organizational learning and reflect on one’s own leadership journey.There is plethora of literature on organizational learning, primarily because it was extremely pivotal to understand how organizational learning occurs and what can be done to overcome the challenges and obstacles in the way of organizational learning (Alavi et.al, 2014). There exists two schools of thoughts on organizational learning; eachhas its own focus area. Cognitive school of organizational learning focuses on “thinking” aspect of organizational learning while behavioural learning focuses on the act of “doing”. Cognitive school of learning states that an individual learns from mental models, schemas which help one understand events and situation and helps to respond to the environment((Theodorakopoulos and Figueira, 2012) On the other hand, the behavioural school of learning assets that an individual learns bygaining insight and understanding from experience thorough experimentation. It can be clearly said that organizational learning has two schools of learning, where in one focuses on “thinking” and other on “Doing” (Jung and Takeuchi, 2010).I personally believe more in behaviour school of organizational learning, because I believe in learning from the experiences and situation, which forms the rationale of my “doing” part of leadership.There are three unique theories of organizational learning viz. experimental learning derived from cognitive school, adaptive and generative learning theory which is also derived from cognitive learning and assimilation theory which is derived from
Running Head: Learning Organizationbehavioural school of learning (Molderex and Ceulemans, 2018). The theories will form the preamble of the art of knowing, going and showing in leadership. Kolb in the year 1984 propounded the experimental learning theory which is closely based on psychology, philosophy and physiology; the organizational learning theory significantly influenced leadership and contributed towards organizational development. The preamble of the theory is based on the learning process which begins through grasping of information and transforming experiences (Cotae, Musabende and Valladares, 2016). The theory has four components which influence leadership, which are as follows: concrete experience and abstract conceptualization which covers the grasping component, whereas reflective observation and active experimentation which takes care of transforming experience component (Kim, 2016). Both the component is the pillars which influence leadership. The learning process here is a cyclic process where the leader or the learner goes through the sequence of experiencing, reflecting, thinking and acting in a repeated sequence which contributes towards his learning experience. It can be thus said that a leader can enter the learning cycle at any stage but he has to sequentially follow all the steps to be an influential leader. I personally have been focussing on this experiential learning theory by following all the stages in my organization. Working at Amazon I have been enrolled into a leadership development program, wherein I have been learning numerous things on leadership by the virtue of teaching and by experiences which I have been seeing in the program. In accordance to adaptive and generative learning theory, Senge stated that adaptive learning is create on the foundation of existing wisdom and knowledge and modifying the same with new thinking to fulfil personal or organizational objective(Chiva, Grandio and Alegre, 2010). I use generative learning in my day to day activity in organization and in my personal life by the virtue of existing learning and being flexible enough to learn the new ways of learning and thinking to give an impetus to my leadership and mypersonality. Generative learning on the other hand is a different kind of learning which is needed to bring out radical new ideas for change or to create any kind of disruption inthe organization or one’s personal life(Sessa et al., 2011). I have a personal experience to share on the concept of generative learning, I understood very early in my business career that if I have to compete in the dynamic industry I need to acquire a couple of skills which are highly differentiated and valued in the business ecosystem. I was one of
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