Leadership and Learning: Analyzing Maxwell's Leadership Principles

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of John C. Maxwell's quote, which posits that a leader is someone who knows, goes, and shows the way. The essay delves into the core components of effective leadership, examining how 'knowing' involves understanding situations and setting targets, 'going' encompasses leading by example and taking action, and 'showing' emphasizes the importance of vision and guiding others. The essay integrates various leadership theories, including Bolman and Deal's organizational frames, transformational leadership, and instrumental leadership, to provide a multifaceted perspective. It also highlights the significance of organizational learning and how leaders can foster it by creating learning channels and showing the path to success. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of optimizing these aspects to realize leadership's full potential for organizational and societal growth. The essay also refers to studies by Chadwick and Raver (2015), Salas-Vallina et al (2017), and others to support its arguments.

Running head: LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING
LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING
The essay evaluates and analyzes the quote by John C. Maxwell in which he says that a
leader is a person who knows, goes and shows the way. This thinking of Maxwell points towards
some of the basic elements that go on to build good and effective leaders. The quote will be
analyzed in relation to its significance concerning the essential leadership aspects. The knowing,
showing and going ways of effective leadership need to be essentially discussed for better
understanding of leadership. Leadership oriented wisdom will be gathered in order to understand
how greater levels of effective leadership can be reached.
The essay is a reflection on my understanding and analysis of the factors that were
pointed out by Maxwell. The factors are related to knowing, showing and going the way in order
to implement effective leadership. According to Bolman and Deal (2017) leadership depends on
how effectively, various frames can be harmonized and inventive response to various new
circumstantial challenges are managed. They have essentially divided the organizations into four
frames model. The frames are namely factories, families, temples and jungles. The ideas of these
four are the basic things to be considered in an organizational context. As opined by Dixon
(2017) organizational learning can be effectively enhanced through better collective actions of
people. It is further noted that organizations act as strong social systems focused towards the
development of individuals, the organization and the larger system of which the organization is
an essential part. In my opinion these point towards the knowing part more in the organizational
context. In my opinion knowing is the primary important part in leadership. This is because
knowing creates a better understanding of the situations that need to be managed for effective
leadership. According to Chadwick and Raver (2015) learning is very important for
organizations as they need to keep on adapting to situations. In order to achieve the same,
specific goals need to be set. This will enhance the prospects of “knowing”. I believe fixing

2LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING
specific targets helps to know better, whatever the person wants to achieve. This is very
important in case of a leader. This is especially true in the social context. A person is deemed to
be a leader if he/she knows better ways of achieving things. Very commonly we see that the most
knowledgeable person is selected as the leader in the society. A leader should have knowledge of
how success can be achieved. For this target needs to be set as this is the first step towards
successful achievement of target.
Another significant aspects that has been discussed is in relation to going the distance in
leadership. According to me this is the next step towards effective leadership after knowing. In
face relevant studies have pointed that failure to do this step properly leads to ineffective and
failed leadership. This is as true in organizational setup as much as social or other scenarios.
Salas-Vallina et al (2017) opine that transformational leadership can help towards generating
better organizational learning. It was found that workplace happiness can be enhanced along with
organizational learning through transformational leadership. This is a kind of leadership that also
focuses a lot on leading by example. The actual sense of going the way in terms of leadership is
to do exactly what is required for effective action. Hence, for being an effective leader I have to
perform on the same level on which I require the people I lead to perform. Leading by example
is a significant trait of transformational leadership. In this type of leadership, the leader identifies
necessary changes, creates a vision to approach the changes required and executes the changes
through cooperating with subordinates or team members (Shafritz, Ott and Jang 2015). Doing
himself what a leader wants to be done is important as it establishes the confidence of the
followers on the leader, on the team and on themselves. If a leader merely directs the
subordinates of followers to do certain tasks it does not go a long way towards increasing the
effectiveness of the functions necessary for success. Moreover, if the leader is not aware of the

3LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING
performance requirements, the team will also not be able to provide effective performance.
Leading by example in this case means that the leader is completely aware of the necessary steps
that need to be taken to realize significant goals. The theory of instrumental leadership further
develops on the concept of “doing” concerning effective leadership. Instrumental leadership
theory states that the degree to which tasks or people are provided attention by the leadership
determines the effectiveness of the process towards achieving success. Instrumental leaders plan,
emphasize, engage and motivate at the same time (Antonakis and House 2014). This leads to the
achievement of greater success concerning their leadership. Socially, an effective leader can be a
person who understand problems, analyzes situation and takes necessary actions in accordance
with the gathered implications. In any given scenario, doing becomes the next level of leadership
after knowing significantly increasing effectiveness.
Now, we come to the final Leadership aspect that is, as pointed by John C. Maxwell is
showing the way. This is quite obvious as the study of leadership has helped me to understand
that a large part of the functional ability of the leader depends on how he/she shows the way. The
vision of a leader becomes extremely important towards establishing productive leadership.
According to Siemens (2014) a connective perspective need to be established for the better
understanding of organizational learning and leadership. The theory of connectivism states that
organizational learning in the present day need to be optimized through the creation of several
learning channels, the learning developed from which can be implemented across the various
organizational situations that a person faces during the course of corporate life. Learning
gathered through these can help towards developing better success paths for a leader (Li et al.
2014). A leader can hence, show the exact areas that need to be approached for gaining success.
Organizational learning depends greatly on the path that can be shown by effective leaders.

4LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING
Hence, the effect of leaders showing what need to be done to the organization, subordinate
mangers or teams becomes significant for an organization. Organizational learning is a
continuous process that requires the collective abilities of all the people that are connected to the
organization. This involves much planning, meetings and controlling on the part of the
leadership. These are the functions for which showing the path becomes necessary as all the
people connected to an organization can never have the same perspectives. Hence, showing in
context of leadership is pointing out the perspectives that are the most significant and effective
towards the achievement of organizational goals (Chadwick and Raver 2015). In a wider social
context it can be said that people often trust those people to lead that have significantly broader
outlooks about the given context. Experienced people are thus preferred as leaders as they can
show the way better and establish proper knowledge base. In accordance with the words of
Maxwell, this is definitely another significant trait of an ideal leader. In essence, leadership is a
quality that is a mixture of different skills and other qualities. Vision and the ability to show
success path is a much significant such quality.
In conclusion, I have been able to find the relationships that exist between leadership and
organizational learning. The quote of Maxwell in regards to a leader knowing, going and
showing effective progress paths helped in developing relative understanding of the same. It can
be said that leaders are significant personalities that can shape the growth and development of
organizations, societies or individuals. It becomes very important that leadership in the light of
the three identified aspects is optimized for realizing its complete potential.

5LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING
References
Antonakis, J. and House, R.J., 2014. Instrumental leadership: Measurement and extension of
transformational–transactional leadership theory. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(4), pp.746-771.
Bolman, L.G. and Deal, T.E., 2017. Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership.
John Wiley & Sons.
Chadwick, I.C. and Raver, J.L., 2015. Motivating organizations to learn: Goal orientation and its
influence on organizational learning. Journal of management, 41(3), pp.957-986.
Chadwick, I.C. and Raver, J.L., 2015. Motivating organizations to learn: Goal orientation and its
influence on organizational learning. Journal of management, 41(3), pp.957-986.
Dixon, N.M., 2017. The organizational learning cycle: How we can learn collectively.
Routledge.
Illeris, K., 2018. A comprehensive understanding of human learning. In Contemporary Theories
of Learning (pp. 1-14). Routledge.
Li, Y., Chen, H., Liu, Y. and Peng, M.W., 2014. Managerial ties, organizational learning, and
opportunity capture: A social capital perspective. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 31(1),
pp.271-291.
Lozano, R., 2014. Creativity and organizational learning as means to foster
sustainability. Sustainable development, 22(3), pp.205-216.

6LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING
Salas-Vallina, A., López-Cabrales, Á., Alegre, J. and Fernández, R., 2017. On the road to
happiness at work (HAW) Transformational leadership and organizational learning capability as
drivers of HAW in a healthcare context. Personnel Review, 46(2), pp.314-338.
Shafritz, J.M., Ott, J.S. and Jang, Y.S., 2015. Classics of organization theory. Cengage Learning.
Siemens, G., 2014. Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age.