An Analysis of Leadership Roles in The Learning Organization

This essay delves into the concept of leadership within a learning organization, emphasizing the multifaceted roles leaders play in guiding their teams. It explores the critical importance of leadership in decision-making processes, highlighting how leaders must possess clear visions, understand the paths to achieve goals, and effectively communicate these to their teams. The essay also examines the key traits of successful leaders, including the ability to adapt to changing circumstances, motivate team members, and foster a climate of trust. Furthermore, it analyzes the leader's responsibilities in showing the way, which includes providing guidance, designing plans, and motivating team members, as well as the concept of "leading from behind," where leaders empower their teams to make decisions and take risks. The essay concludes by underscoring the leader's ability to adapt their approach based on the situation, utilizing various leadership styles to achieve organizational objectives.

Running head: THE LEARNING ORGANIZATION
The Learning Organization
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
Leadership is one of the growing concepts in every organization. This is because o its
role it plays in every activity in the workplace or anywhere else. It is a type of skill that a person
has within it to lead others in achieving their targets. However, a leader has been defined to
know the way they have to lead and also goes the way they or their team members decide or
shows the way to other members in the group to follow. Leader has to be courageous to accept
all type so failure and success. There are many more traits that a leader holds to be successful in
their leadership (Northouse, 2015). The paper discusses about different traits of the leadership
and the roles in plays while carrying out a successful leadership strategy in a decision making
process. Further, it analyses the role of a leader to support the saying that a leaders knows the
way, follows the way and shows the way to others.
Discussion
Leadership is not a simple context as it seems to be. It involves a lot of responsibilities
and understanding to carry out tasks appropriately and with proper understanding. A true leader
is always focused with their work and the path they are going. A true leader is said to have a
clear vision and knowledge about whatever they do. This is because they are the one that lead the
way for others and help them reach a correct place. Thus without knowing the destination it is
not possible for the leader to take others to that unknown journey. A leader has been the one that
lead others to the correct path that he/she has already experienced himself/herself after being in
that position (Antonakis & Day, 2017). Thus, it is important that a leader knows where they are
leading itself and the team. Moreover, along with knowing the destination it is also important for
them to know the path they will follow to reach there. It has been stated by Antonakis and Day,

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(2017) that this path should be the most effective and easiest path compared to other alternative
paths. However, the vision of the leader also changes overtime due to the changing situation and
the objective of the leader. However, even with the change in vision a leader has to be clear with
the new vision that is been created. As long as the leader knows the way through which it will
reach its goals or vision, there is no problem in altering the vision in the way he/she wants.
As people say that everyone loves to be on the position of a leader, however it is difficult
to stay in that position with the type of responsibilities they will have to handle. Moreover, the
position also calls for a lot of challenges to be taken by the person for handling its fellow
members, explaining the vision to the members, motivating them to take part effectively and
leading them to the right path (Zhang et al., 2015). A person failing to do this being a leader will
never become successful in that position. Moreover, knowing the vision clearly is solely the
responsibility of the leaders. This is because in that position there is no one to guide him/her and
provide them a road map to success. It can only be done by their knowledge, experience and far
sightedness (Heath, Martin & Shahisaman, 2016). Thus, a leader is said to move ahead with
surety of its action and with the assurance that his/her actions will only benefit the people
walking behind them.
Zuka (2016) in his paper explained that along with knowing the way, a leader must also
go the way they have decided. This is the most difficult part a leader has to follow in that role.
This is because directly others to follow the path are an easy task; however, itself moving on the
same path requires a lot of cautiousness. However, an effective leader is the one that himself lead
first and ask its team to follow him/her. This requires that they know the path that they will walk
is safe and appropriate. However, it is seen that most leaders fails to realize their actual role and
only be in the position for the sake of their name. This is not the quality of a real leader as a real

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leader is always concerned about its members that are following him/her (Zuka, 2016). Thus,
there are certain important steps a leader should take up in order to lead the team. The first step is
to get a clear picture about the goals of the company in which it acts like a leader. This is
necessary as the leader in order to lead the team should know the goals where the need to reach.
Secondly, it is necessary to draw the schedule to take u one on one session with the team
members to know them efficiently so that they can follow the leader with trust. Thirdly, it is
necessary that the leader diagnose its team effectively to understand their capability to
understand the path the leader is leading them to (Zuka, 2016). In this stage the leader needs to
understand the development level of the team members and this requires them to use different
leadership style to control them. Fourthly, the leader also needs to form a team charter in which
it will state the objectives behind the formation of the team. Further it also sets the goals of the
team and the way they will achieve the goals together. Last and the most important factor that a
leader must consider in order to lead the team successfully is to maintain a climate of trust with
the team members. These steps help the leader to get the confidence of leading the team by
moving first towards the goal.
The last responsibility that a leader carries out is to show the road map to its team
members to reach the objective that the business needs. In this responsibility the leader does not
lead the way. It helps in showing and guiding the members to their actual goals (Hinojosa et al.,
2014). They are the one that helps the team members step by step to move up to the goal.
However, the method of showing the way differs from leader to leader and organization to
organization. There are certain organization that has a much matrix and flat system. In this
situation a leader has to carry out persuasive nature in order to motivate the team to take part in
the activities. Moreover, it is the duty of the leader to ask the members to think outside their own

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job and give their best to whatever they are doing (Mann & Harter, 2016). To encourage the
teammates and help them reach a goal, a leader can design a plan it which it can state all the
necessary things required to move towards their objectives (Gopee & Galloway, 2017).
However, they should also make the team aware about the criticality and the challenges they
might face on the way. Thus, it is also necessary that the members are motivated by their leader
to keep them active in the goal path. This shows that role of the leader in showing the way
towards the objectives to their teammates(Smith, 2016). This is called the leadership from behind
as the leader does not walk in front. This is another type of role that a leader has to carry out in
order to be successful in its leadership responsibility. Even though the concept is bit confusing as
we have mostly heard that leaders always leads his/her team, yet leading from behind has gained
importance in recent times (Bottomley, Burgess & Fox III, 2014). Leading from behind has a lot
of importance to the company and the leader if it is guided properly. This shows that leaders also
allow their team members to operate on their own, make their own decision and take up risk
while doing their job effectively. This is because it is difficult for the leader to allow their
members work according to the decision and actions taken by them. Hus, in order to keep the
team intact and working leaders find it beneficial to keep individuals autonomous in many cases.
Conclusion
The above analysis can help to deduce about the nature and role of the leaders in various
situations. Leaders are the one that needs to take up various decisions for the team as well as for
the organization. For the purpose they have to act differently in different situations depending on
the criticality of the issues to be dealt. This shows that a leader knows the way it has to go and
help its team lead to their objectives. Moreover, a leader also goes the way and shows the way.
This shows that a leader acts from front such as taking initiative of the actions and road that it

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has planned to achieve the target. A leader also moves from behind in certain situations where
the members can move by themselves and act autonomously. Thus, a leader led different types of
role depending n the type of objectives to be achieved. Moreover, it also uses different leadership
styles such as participative, authoritative and others according to the situations.

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References
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