Report: Analyzing the Role of Leaders in a Learning Organization

This report explores the critical role of leaders in fostering a learning organization, as defined by Peter Senge. It delves into the leader's responsibilities as a designer, steward, and teacher, emphasizing the importance of innovation, flexibility, and employee motivation in today's competitive environment. The report examines the leader's function in designing policies, strategies, and systems, as well as integrating five technological components to drive continuous improvement and shared vision. It addresses the challenges leaders face, such as engaging members, motivating teams, and adapting to change, while highlighting the need for leaders to develop purposeful stories, manage tensions, and influence mental models to achieve organizational goals. The report concludes that the role of the leader has become more challenging in the learning organization and requires a compassionate and systematic approach to achieve success.

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Learning organization
The role of leaders
Student’s Name
4/29/2019

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Introduction
In the today’s competitive climate the role of a leader is not limited to an energetic hero who
controls lessor individuals but now the leader must have the spirit to bring innovation,
flexibility and drive motivation in the employees. According to Peter Senge, the role of a
leader is a combination of designer, steward, and teacher. He describes that the leaders are
responsible for developing the continuous capabilities to understand the complexities of the
business, clarify vision and improve the shared mental models. The wisdom of leadership
will help to turn the organization into the learning organization and develop the capacities
among the employees. The leader will apply its qualities to motivate and adapt the change at
the workplace. This report will cover the role of a leader in learning organization and the
challenges faced by the leader (Berson et al, 2015).
Apart from designing the policies, strategies, and system for the organization, the leader
integrates the five technological components. The leader performs the governing function
under which it designs the purpose, core values and the vision of the organization. It also
develops the shared vision which is essential for learning and long term orientation. The
leader also responds according to the particular situations. The main function of a leader is to
design a learning procedure where all the members can deal efficiently with the matters faced
by them and cultivate mastery in learning disciplines (Ciulla, 2017).
The designers co-create a shared commitment and enroll all the members to engage in future
activities. The designers develop the learning methods and techniques to develop
coordination and collaboration in the actions of the high performing teams. The designers do
not consider learning as the latest tactic or technique but consider is an as fundamental and
continuous process to achieve the organization visions (Guo et al, 2017).

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According to Peter Senge, the leader also plays the role of steward. The author has analyzed
that leader as a steward designs purposeful stories. It specifies what the organization has to
achieve and what the organization is doing to achieve all the visions. It combines its personal
vision with the vision of the organization and develops an integrating vision to integrate the
activities of the business towards the common vision (Baron, 2016)
The leaders are the steward of vision they are committed and responsible towards the vision
and consider organization vision as a larger part. They have the quality to effectively manage
the activities to work towards the shared vision and describe the stories in such a manner to
involve all the members towards the shared vision. It also listens to the vision of the other
members and makes the necessary changes in its vision to be committed towards the vision of
the organization. The leader designs the purposeful stories and provides a single set of vision
to manage the activities of all the employees and effectively achieve the goals of the
organization (Jackson, 2017).
The developing technologies and the increasing competition have redefined the roles of the
leaders which involves personal and moral authenticity. The leader makes the choices of
changing the visions for the organization and designs the stories in such a manner that it
becomes guiding action for the members and specifies what is morally right for the company.
The leader has the wisdom to convert the vision into reality (Shin et al, 2017).
Another role of a leader is as a teacher. It defines the reality and inspires the members
through its stewardship to get the more accurate, insightful and empowering view of reality.
The leaders influence the people on the basis of four levels which include system structure,
purpose stories, events and patterns of behavior while in the learning organization the leader
mainly focuses on system structure and the purpose and teach the people to act likewise to
showcase the reality. The leader manages the tensions and develops the environment that

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fosters learning it does not teach the members but develops the systematic understanding. The
leader manages the tension between vision and reality and creates the learning environment
to have a better understanding of the truth in the changing situations (Serrat, 2017).
It focuses on providing a deep insight into the realities and brings to surface people mental
model regarding the important issues. The mental models help to evaluate how the
organization works around the world and manages the challenges. The leaders influence the
people by evaluating the mental models and influence their system perspective. It influences
the members to see beyond the superficial conditions and events into the underlying causes of
the problem to reshape the new possibilities for shaping the future of the organization. The
leaders in the learning organization focus on the system structures to implement the necessary
changes that would provide a better insight into the realities. It allows them to see the bigger
picture and appreciate the structural forces that condition behavior (Chadwick and Raver,
2015).
It is analyzed that a wise leader is able to analyze the depth of the complexities of the
business situations and have a greater insight into the realities of the business. The wise
leader has the qualities of self-mastery and perception to have a better understanding of the
members and helps the leader to make effective choices in the charged situations. They have
the ability to perceive things in a better way and develop the learning environment in the
organization. The wisdom of the leaders is showcased in the way they conduct the business,
the generosity of the leaders is to do the righteous things and develop the tolerance,
forgiveness, selflessness, and compassion among the members of the organization (Keating et
al, 2017).
The leaders in the learning organization face various challenges in practicing change in the
organization. It becomes difficult for leaders to engage the members and develop a deeper

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vision of reality. Another challenge faced by the leader is to motivate and integrate the
actions of the leaders. It becomes difficult to change the existing perceptions of the members
and integrating the actions towards the shared vision. The employees often consider personal
vision as the highest priority while the smart leader will develop the purposeful stories in
such a manner that all the members can embrace change for the vision of the organization.
The resistance towards the acceptance of the change creates complexities for the leaders to
implement change and drive the action of the employees towards the shared vision. The
leader is not able to protect the interest of the stakeholders (Cunningham, 2017).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is concluded that the role of the leader has become more
challenging in the learning organization. It is not only limited to teach and guide its
workforce but to motivate and develop compassion towards systematic understanding. It
focuses on sharing the bigger picture and develops a shared vision for the success of the
organization. According to Peter Senge, the leader plays the role of designer, steward, and
teacher and effectively manages the changing complexities at the workplace. It focuses on
developing purposeful stories and manages the complex behavior of the individuals. The
leader applies all its wisdom to overcome the challenges at the learning organization.

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