Analyzing Leadership Styles Through Adult Learning Theories

The essay investigates the characteristics and traits that define ethical and effective leaders through the Delphi Technique as discussed by Shaw (2008). It explores how these traits influence leadership development programs. Additionally, it evaluates the role of learning styles in leadership training, referencing Sarabdeen's (2013) insights on experiential learning methods. The essay further discusses the impact of adult learning theories on leadership education, drawing from Shutak et al. (2017) and Wang & Cranton (2017). Ultimately, the paper aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how integrating these elements can foster transformative leadership development.

Running Head: HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
Human Resource Development
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Introduction
Leadership is a very important aspect in work life. There has been increasing attention
towards the leadership qualities which is sought in the field of work as well as research. The
success of work depends on the leader and how it leads people to accomplish the goals. Success
in leadership requires leaders to have the appropriate skill set to become a leader and maintain
those leadership qualities within itself. A leader should be competent enough to manage people
subordinate to him or even the peers to achieve the target. A leader should have an employeeality
which is praised and adored by everyone for which the self-perception of a leader is very
essential. If a leader is not sure of him then he will not be able to lead and manage successfully.
Self-perception of a leader comprises of the factors as what a leader thinks of himself,
confidence, abilities and physical appearance and how an employee looks upto himself.
The following Reflective Learning Journal focuses on the leadership qualities and mainly
the self-assessment of a leader which makes him distinct from the others. The following
reflective journal comprises of three main characteristics of leadership quality which are how an
employee becomes a leader, Honey and Mumford Learning Style which is related to learning and
its outcomes in the process of becoming a leader and the last one is the Andragogical learning
experience and its evaluation. The discussion will elaborately analyze these three entities related
to leadership.
The Leader/ Taking the Lead
An employee is always in conflict in his mind about himself. There are many self-doubts
inside an employee which restricts him to perform and value himself above others. There is a
sense of inferiority which an employee is often prone to which keeps him from doing things

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which is in his capability (Bolman and Terrence 2017). To assess the potential in an employee it
is very important to keep testing the limits. To break these shackles of self-doubt and to do
proper self-assessment one can use the tool of Red and Green Negotiation Game. In this game an
employee understands the ways and means in which one can interact with himself, interact in a
team and assess his capabilities of performing a task by interpreting it and orchestrate an end to
it. In this game there comes a situation when an employee has to take the lead and become a
leader of the tem which is a tough task filled with responsibilities. An employee often panics in
this situation as it has the accountability of him as well as the team in context to a task assigned
to him (Calancie et al. 2017).
Being a team member to do a task is different than leading the team to accomplish a task.
It makes an employee more vulnerable to the situation and there exist many variables which need
to be taken care of. The moderators of this game have a close eye on the work done by each
member which includes the leader and the person who is playing the role of a leader gets scared
about the critical analysis of his intelligence and working competence. The leader starts to think
that if he is not able to accomplish the task then he may be considered and intellectually inferior
and will be rejected (Carpenter 2017). An employee is not always comfortable to address a group
of people as whole and a lot of self-doubts creep into the persons mind making him nervous and
he comes directly under the purview of public judgement. There is a Boyatzis’ Self-direct Adult
Learning Model which helps an employee to understand the psychology of his self-personality
and it also takes out the reasons that why an employee feels and thinks that way. If an employee
has an acumen to become a leader from the beginning but has not got any exposure in that field
this tool can help them to shape their career and help them to grow professionally their entire life
(Carter 2017).

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In order to lead in this game, an employee needs to have a good understating of the
process of the game, its aims and rules. One a leader along with his team understands the process
of the game then he can move ahead to know the practicalities of the game and how they can
work together to complete the task. If the team is collaborative then it gives immense amount of
confidence to the leader as it is the first blood in the game. The game will move ahead as the
other teams will try to compete with each other and each team leader along with the game
moderator will facilitate the points which they have observed (Cunningham 2011). At the end,
leaders will be facilitated with the points of strengths and weaknesses which they have shown in
the group dynamics, task delegation and establishing a mutual understanding among its team
members. The entire exercise is based on the notion of making leaders aware of their self-
perception which is a key factor in getting success in the corporate world. If the learning agenda
of the game is considered, the game exposes leader to the process of facilitation and leading of
their team which brings out the leadership qualities and identifies the weaknesses of the leader as
well (Darling and Victor 2011). This game tries to remove the negative perception which an
employee develops for himself in his mind to ensure that it can be mitigated and get over with to
make a successful leader with all its qualities of leadership to help in career building.
The Andragogical Learning Experience and Evaluation
The Andragogical learning is the science of learning and understanding through a
practical approach for adults which they carry it for their entire lives. It is mainly based on the
humanistic and self-directed methods of learning which also contains some teachers and
facilitators. It is also term as “adult education” in broader perspective (Delegach et al. 2017, pp
724-740). According to the following reflective learning journal an employee is introduced to the
Andragogical learning experience which is different from the pedagogical learning methods

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which is conventionally used for teaching through blackboards, memorization and recitation of
course content and then passing a test. Most people fail in their experience of pedagogical
method of learning as the real potential of an employee to succeed in life is neither taught nor
tested. People who have experienced the pedagogical method believe that it is a passive learning
and the retention of knowledge in that system is very less and limited to time (Goleman et al.
2002). As there is not practical application of the learning outcomes of the pedagogical method it
seems to be irrelevant in the real world. People believe that the real retention capacity of an
employee is developed when there is a participatory object in the studies and discussion which
keeps the information learned in practice.
Teachers find it easy to convey their knowledge with more success if the students have
participated in learning which is provided in the Andragogical learning method. They also feel
confident in their approach as they have also done the same thing practically when they were
learning the content, whereas the case would have been different if there was no element of
involvement when they have learned it (Green et al. 2017, pp 486-493).With the changes in
learning practices an employee can observe change in his behavior which can ensure
development in the teaching methods and even in learning by doing the practices of each
information and of the content to be learnt. This would highly raise the confidence of an
employee and it would make him believe in himself and his abilities to pursue a successful career
as a leader.It can be said that there was a mentality in every person that he can do things on the
basis of the knowledge acquired by him through studying and passing the exam which was a
pedagogical approach (Johnson 2017). But when the learning pyramid approach is taken into
consideration it can be realized that it was the wrong way which was taken in the before
practices.

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To succeed as a leader the Andragogical approach is more appropriate and efficient
learning technique which takes the practical way to make things learn in an adult. There is a
Kolbs experimental learning cycle which states that every week is a new beginning to the
learning experience which can be facilitated through workshops.In this particular approach an
employee is exposed to new learning experience in which he learns about the strengths and
weaknesses about himself and he can draw conclusions on the basis of the learning outcomes
(Jones 1996). An employee can also apply the feedback received from this approach to improve
its working capabilities. An employee who starts learning makes mistakes in the beginning but
the point is to convert those mistakes into their strengths by learning from those mistakes. If an
employee is weak in coordinating a team or he is not capable of managing a team and its
members the Andragogical approach can help them to identify the mistakes and the lacunar
which they are facing and to mitigate them in real real-time so that a learning process can be
accomplished (Kurvitsand Marina 2013). Evaluation of the previous mistakes and their
application to improve the performance of an employee can be very instrumental in developing
leadership qualities which will be to self-assessment technique.In the beginning an employee
will face serious implications as he will be open to public justification but that same problem will
develop a sense of confidence in the person if the weak areas are stressed upon (Massagli et al.
2017, pp 154-158).
Honey and Mumford Learning Style
Another learning style which includes the self-assessment of an employee is honey and
Mumford style of learning which is based on the theory of Kolb. These particular learning styles
have certain preferences which are activist theorist pragmatist and reflector styles. This learning
style is a natural preference of an employee who wants to enhance its personality to become a

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leader. Using the Honey and Mumford style of learning an employee can become smart as he can
understand better learning opportunities (Northouse 2017). Best learning style makes learning
very easier more effective and very enjoyable. The basis of this learning style is hit and misses.
An employee adopting this style can choose between the hits and the misses which he encounters
during the learning process. This learning style also facilitates the expansion of learning
bandwidth which is made from the experiences which an employee derives for his own benefit
(Sarabdeen2013). The advantages which an employee can accomplish is that he can become an
all-rounder can increase his versatility which is the result of an all-round experience. Some of the
environments of learning to which an employee can be exposed to using this learning tool are
formal spontaneous planned and informal (Shaw 2008).
Using the Honey and Mumford learning method an employee can enhance his skills of
learning and processes. Does learning method increases awareness as to how an employee can
learn and it also paves the way for the method of self-scrutiny and development. Since the
capacity to learn is the Gateway to every success factor this method provides the exact same
system of learning with the help of which an employee can develop his character and personality
holistically (Shutak et al. 2017).Now coming back to the definitions of the learning styles and
their attributes the first style is of the activist. Activist people are those who believe in learning
by doing things which day want to learn. They have an open minded approach two words
learning in which they do not mind to get their hands and feet dirty if the outcome of which
install on something. The activities which are involved in this theory are brainstorming, problem
solving, group discussions, puzzles, competitions and role play (Smith 2011).Another style is of
the theorist which are more inclined towards learning the theory behind every action. This is
style contains concepts models and facts which are relevant to the learning process. The

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following style contains synthesis of information and drawing logicalconclusions to the things
which are learnt. The tools used in this learning style are models, statistics, stories, quotations
and background information.
The learning style of the pragmatist revolves around to put the information which is
learnt into practice. This is style is more concerned about the real world implementations of the
knowledge which is acquired (Wang et al. 2017, pp 34-48). This style believes that the Abstract
concepts and games which are used for learning are useless if there is no way to put those ideas
into implementation. This style advocates experimentation trying new methods techniques and
theories to check if they really make a difference. This is style includes case studies discussions
problem solving sessions and it needs time to make sure that learning can be applied or not.
Reflectors are those who learn buy thinking and observing. They use paired discussions,
personality questionnaires, feedback, interviews and coaching to make sure that things are learnt.
They also collect data to make their own perspective about the learning outcomes (Wlodkowski
et al. 2017).Reflectors approach is used to build up rules and guidelines with the help of some
question as which are related to one's personality or can even be for self-assessment of an
employee. The answers or the results of these questionnaires are measured through different
perspectives until an appropriate conclusion is not reached. These perceptions and conclusions
are used to establish factual experiences which are further used for the development of an
employee's personality. Using these styles of learning cumulatively an employee can gain a lot as
he can get a holistic idea about personality development in context becoming a leader.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above reflective learning journal that self-assessment in
making a leader is the key. Having a successful career in the corporate world requires high level

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of competence in an employee especially when he has to play the role of a leader. Managing
oneself and team a member collectively at the same time requires a certain skill set in an
employee which makes him the leader and a distinguished personality from rest of the world.
There is a huge requirement for self-assessment and self-proclamation for an employee to
become a leader as everyone is filled with lots of doubts and uncertainties about oneself. There is
a need of confidence building inside an employee which may be developed through certain
learning styles. In the above reflective journal the learning styles of honey and Mumford as
discussed in details. It can further be concluded that using Andragogical learning experience and
its evaluation in synchronization with other learning styles can make an employee competent
enough to become a leader. As, the need of leadership qualities has increased over the years
these learning styles can be very handy for an employee in a comprehensive career development.
Thus, it can be said that adult learning techniques play a very important role in shaping up
careers of many working professionals in a positive and comprehensive way. It can be
established that cognitive learning with the use of practical modes of information gathering is
more appropriate than pedagogical methods of learning.

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