Leadership and Learning Organization: A Reflective Essay Analysis

This reflective essay examines the concept of a learning organization, drawing upon Peter Senge's quote that leaders are stewards, designers, and teachers. The essay explores different leadership styles and the importance of communication, dependability, and competence in leaders. It delves into the roles of leaders as designers of systems and processes, stewards of organizational vision and commitment, and teachers who promote learning within the organization. The essay emphasizes the need for leaders to foster a culture of continuous learning and development, ultimately linking vision and practicality to achieve organizational goals. The author reflects on personal experiences within various organizations to support the concepts discussed.

Running Head: THE LEARNING ORGANIZATION
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The learning organization
Leadership and Learning Organization
(Student details :)
5/1/2019

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Reflective essay: Leadership and Learning Organization
The reflective essay is based on leadership and learning organization. In this context, a
famous quote given by Peter M Senge will be used to reflect upon learning organization as
well as leadership into that context. The quote says; in a learning organization, leaders are
stewards, designers, and teachers. In this way, I will discuss the above phrase while reflecting
on the wisdom of leadership as well as challenges of learning within an organization. In this
era, leadership within learning organizations focuses upon a leader's roles, which differ
vividly from those of the charismatic decision-makers. Besides, the different roles of the
modern leaders need new skills such as the capability to form shared vision, to challenge
predominant mental models, as well as to foster improved systemic patterns of modern
thinking (Infed, 2018).
Source: (Chawla & Renesch, 2009)
During my experiences of working as an employee, into large and medium-sized
organizations, exposure of many management styles as well as great personalities has
occurred. In this way, I have done realization about the concept of leadership. I observed that
leaders in learning organizations are communicative; which means that they are capable to
communicate their goals, plans of the organization along with associated challenges with
their sub-ordinates and team-members (Goldman, 2012). My experiences made me realize
that leaders are dependable in learning organizations. It means that they are reliable, punctual,
as well as available all the time for their teams (Infed, 2018). In addition, they are passionate
about forming a cohesive team, which can work unanimously for achieving the goals of an
organization. Furthermore, I learnt as well as observed that leaders are competent which are
capable to navigate from the requirements of the job and issue the company aspects. In
addition, in a learning organization leaders are win-win problem-solver, which means that

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their minds are solution oriented and capable to search solutions as well as apply the
outcomes over the whole employees (Chawla & Renesch, 2009).
Source: (Denehy, 2008)
As per the views of (Senge, 2010), leaders of learning organizations are teachers, designers,
and stewards. In other words, leaders within learning organizations are responsible for
building of the organizations where workers are constantly growing their abilities for shaping
their future, thus leaders are usually responsible for organizational learning. Furthermore, my
learning over this topic suggests that creation of an unpretentious learning organization
requires rethinking the role of leaders and leadership. In this context, (Senge, 2010) has
described the novel leadership concept as a blend of steward, designer, and teacher.
Leader as Designer
According to me, for promoting learning in an organization, a leader more often designs the
processes and systems so that employees, workers and other staff can learn with the help of
those designed systems. In this way, it can be easily said that a leader being a designer,
beautifully designs useful systems by which the firms endures to learn (Faozanudin, 2014).
As we know that designing of systems and processes is a before the scene process which can
also be seen as behind the scenes activity, hence the role of creators of these designs is very
important within learning organizations (Cambridge International, 2019). I agree with this
sentence of chosen quote given by Peter Senge; the leaders are the designers because I have
observed the same during my working at organization. As per my evolved views, a designer

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majorly predicts issues while designing systems for handling those potential problems before
they arise. Likewise, I observed the leaders of my own organizations making the critical
problems invisible for the people around them (Infed, 2018).
Furthermore, my evolved perceptions, views and learning is suggesting that leaders as the
designers also play a role of system architect. When the leaders take the role of the
organization system’s architect then they consider each potential problem including existing
and likely ones while designing the whole system (Donnithorne, 2009). I understood that
system of an organization is usually a living thing, which includes roles, metrics, and
processes. Hence, the leaders of a learning organization provide guiding ideas comprising the
vision, the purpose, as well as the core values, which would be normed by the organization.
In addition, I can further support the views of Senge with the help of three tools of leadership
include behaviour influencers, symbols creators and system designers. The above-mentioned
3tools of leadership were proposed by Macdonald & Stewart (2008) and supporting the
thought given into (Infed, 2018) on the leaders working into a learning organization
(Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2003).
Leader as Steward
In this context, stewards are majorly responsible for both embodying and operationalizing the
mutual commitment in order to deepen it, translate it, as well as cultivate it, for ensuring a
sustainable future of the firm. They usually focus upon steward a culture with the intention
and focus over achieving a sustainable future for in order to serve public’s requirements
(Goldman, 2012). As we know that leaders own the qualities like discipline, humility,
compassion, and possibility, thus I believe that leaders are stewards. In this context, i am
strongly agreeing with the above line because a steward considerably expands his or her
commitment with the responsibility for the company’s vision (DeRue & Ashford, 2010). The
leaders are trustees who manage learning organization’s vision for the profit of others as a
mutual vision, which lives within the community from their commitment (Bolman & Deal,
2017).
I also realized that stewards are rare, yet with the presence of these leaders in learning
organizations, an expressed stewardship has been demonstrated within business and
government. Besides, while agreeing with the views of Peter Senge, I would like to suggest
that all the people should spend more time on concern and care about achieving a sustainable
future, which can serve people’s requirements effectively (Infed, 2018). In addition, I also

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have spent considerable time over examining organizational leaders as stewards. In this way,
my research and examination suggests that servant leadership of the organizational leaders
also supports their stewardship being leaders (Hales, 2018). Thus, being a steward, the
organizational leaders demonstrate their genuine commitment towards something greater than
her or himself. Therefore, persuasiveness and clarity of the creative ideas of the leaders
makes them stewards who show openness to constantly learning more within learning
organizations.
Leader as Teacher
On integrating the above two dimensions; leaders as stewards and designers, it can be seen
that leadership within learning organizations is emphasised on promoting learning for the
other people. In this context, teachers are those leaders who promote learning within the
community, nation, and world. Post accepting the major challenges of teaching, I examined
the procedure of becoming a leader as teacher who can cultivate team learning at an
organizational level. As we know that an art and practice of learning and teaching challenges
us being individuals. Hence, in order to create a learning culture within learning
organizations the leaders need a team to guide, support, and face the shared understanding.
Leaders as teachers invite their team members to challenge and support each other towards a
novel level of awareness for increasing capacity to learn. Apart from this, being a teacher the
leaders become a person around whom other people learn while creating a space for
organizational learning. The reason behind the leaders has been seen, as teachers are that they
understand their one of the primary role of growing people into their organizations. I would
like to support my agreement with Senge, as leaders often understand the basic principle that
organizational people cannot work as machines but have values, believes, fears and
exceptions, thus they act as the teachers of the completely organizational community.
Furthermore, organizational leaders become teachers within a greater scope while building
organizational capacity to learn within an international business context (Grint, 2010). In this
way, the leaders are the teachers because they help people to comprehend the underlying
mental models as well as systematic structures despite just short-term events.
In conclusion, while reflecting as well as providing judgements over Peter Senge’s work, we
require emphasizing on his contribution within context. Besides, this essay has successfully
found that Peter Senge has written for aspiring managers and leaders within learning
organizations. I learnt that leaders’ work into learning organizations is related to fostering

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learning, for all. This discussion is suggesting that leaders assist people throughout the
organization by developing systemic understandings in the form of teachers, designers, and
stewards. In this way, my reflection over leadership and learning organization is suggesting
that by acting as steward, designer, and teacher, the leaders ultimately simplifies the
procedure of linking vision and practicality, fetching dreams as well as creative ideas into
being. Finally, according to me, even a complex organization can become most effective if it
works not as a bureaucracy but as a group of small businesses, each having their own
entrepreneurial spirits.
References
Alvesson, M. & Sveningsson, S., 2003. The great disappearing act: difficulties in doing
“leadership”. The leadership quarterly, 14(3), pp.359-81.
Bolman, L.G. & Deal, T.E., 2017. Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership.
London: John Wiley & Sons.
Cambridge International, 2019. Educational Leadership. [Online] Available at:
https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/support-and-training-for-schools/professional-
development-qualifications/curriculum/educational-leadership/.
Chawla, S. & Renesch, J., 2009. Learning organizations: Developing cultures for tomorrow’s
workplace. New York: Productivity Press.
Denehy, J., 2008. Leadership characteristics. The Journal of School Nursing, 24(3), pp.107-
11.
DeRue, D. & Ashford, S., 2010. Who will lead and who will follow? A social process of
leadership identity construction in organizations. Academy of management review, 35(4),
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Donnithorne, L., 2009. West Point Way of Leadership. England: Crown Business.
Faozanudin, M., 2014. Role of Local Leadership in Providing Quality of Basic Education.
US: Atlantis Press.
Goldman, E.F., 2012. Leadership practices that encourage strategic thinking. Journal of
Strategy and Management, 5(1), pp.25-40.

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Grint, K., 2010. Leadership: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hales, J., 2018. THE PROS AND CONS OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP. [Online] Available at:
http://blog.zingtrain.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-servant-leadership [Accessed 10 December
2018].
Infed, 2018. Peter Senge and the learning organization. [Online] Available at:
http://infed.org/mobi/peter-senge-and-the-learning-organization/ [Accessed 29 April 2019].
Senge, P., 2010. The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New
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