Leadership Development Through Action Learning at Tesco: Report

This report analyzes the application of action learning within Tesco, focusing on its role in leadership development. The report begins by defining action learning and explaining its operational cycle within Tesco, highlighting the roles of facilitators, issue holders, and set members. It then explores how Tesco utilizes action learning as a leadership development technique, emphasizing its ability to engage learners, enhance problem-solving skills, and integrate new knowledge with existing frameworks. The report details the ways in which action learning fosters skill development, increases complexity, and reduces external feedback, allowing individuals to focus on their chosen leadership skills. It also outlines the key leadership skills developed through action learning, such as motivation, organization, and decision-making. Furthermore, the report highlights the broader impact of action learning on an individual's personality, including the development of learning strategies, organizational learning, and various personal attributes like confidence and patience. The report concludes by referencing key sources that support the analysis of action learning within a corporate setting.

1
ACTION LEARNING

2
Contents
ACTION LEARNING.................................................................................................................................1
Task1:....................................................................................................................................................3
How action learning works in Tesco?....................................................................................................3
Action Learning Set:...............................................................................................................................4
Facilitator or advisor:.........................................................................................................................4
Issue holder or presenter:...................................................................................................................4
Set members:.....................................................................................................................................4
Task 2:...................................................................................................................................................5
‘Action Learning’ as a Leadership Development Technique..................................................................5
REFERENCES:.........................................................................................................................................7

3
Task1:
Tesco defined action learning as solving problems, lime lightning on gathered information
and solving them in a group. As Action learning is helpful in many ways,
 Enables to handle difficult situations
 Learning of new knowledgeable skills
 Provides group participation
 Adaptation to changing environment
 Problem solving in innovative ways (Pedler, 2016)
How action learning works in Tesco?
Tesco follows a typical action learning set cycle and procedure is being followed as described
below,
Figure 1: Action Learning Cycle
1. A group of individuals from distinct backgrounds and experiences comes together for an
Action Learning Project.
2. The group is addressed about an unsolvable problem that needs to get solve.

4
3. One of the members is appointed as the presenter who is the head of the group. He directs
the leaning of the group.
4. The in and out examination of the problem is being done and questions are exchanged to
understand the problem better.
5. A blueprint of the planning and attaining the goals is prepared.
6. The groups examine the strategies and takes action appropriately.
7. Regular team meetings are being conducted and reviews are set that how well the group is
working together.
Action Learning Set:
Tesco has made an Action Learning Set as a group of 6-8 people who solves a particular
problem. They have made 3 set roles for a particular set, (Morrison, 2017)
Facilitator or advisor:
I am appointed as an advisor. I am appointed to help manage the project. I am having
experience of problem-solving projects and I take care that the rules are being followed
properly, and the work should get completed on time along with the process the members are
undergoing to solve the problem. Along with these responsibilities I help the set in
developing skills during the learning. I do not takes part in solving a problem rather I focus
on managing the group.
Issue holder or presenter:
Whenever session meetings are being held an issue holder is the person who presents
the issue at that time. During the sessions, the issue holder presents the issue and the
likely conclusions which are expected out of that session at that particular time. The
questions are being discussed with the teams and actions are performed. For each
session there can be a different issue holder.
Set members:
The members who are in the team but are neither the advisor nor the issue holder are
the set members. The set members listens to the issue of the presenter, analyses it,
asking questions related to it and then finally provides specific actions that can be
taken. (Lee, 2010)

5
Task 2:
‘Action Learning’ as a Leadership Development Technique
According to me people learn more and better when they solve a problem not when
they go for a theoretical approach or by watching presentations. Leadership levels are
types of an action learning approaches. (Leonard, 2010)
Action learning is a process in which the live situations are being handled and hence a
person learns more. Tesco uses action learning as a leadership development technique
because it improves an overall personality of an individual. The ways in which action
learning is implemented as leadership development technique in Tesco is as follows,
1. They engages a learner in the process:
As the individuals will be made engaged in a particular project they will have no other
option but to learn. They learn new techniques and their problem-solving abilities
builds up.
2. They increases competence by adding more challenges to become more skilful:
In a particular team, there are many problems that need to be solved. As more and
more problems are solved the performance as well as skills of an individual
enhances.
3. They consolidate new knowledge with existing knowledge:
The individuals are made to work on projects which are related to the projects
completed by them earlier and hence while working on these projects an
individual looks up for the knowledge used by him earlier. This will not only
increase his knowledge but will also update his existing knowledge.
4. They increase the level of complexity:
As a team completes a particular project the level of complexity for each project
assigned to them is increased also when the goals are met and the answer to the
problem has to be given the complexity of merging gets high. Therefore, when an
individual learns the level of complexity increases and hence his skill gets better.
5. Less external feedbacks:
When the team members become more competent in dealing with the challenges,
the advisor gives less feedback and lets an individual become self-monitored.
The best thing about Tesco is that they merge action learning with leadership
development and gives an individual a chance to focus on the skill of his own

6
choice. The individual team members decides the leadership skill they want to
develop they are not pressurised by anyone. Any leadership skills that a team or
an individual chooses can be learned during the provided action learning project.
While undergoing a project, the main key skills of the manager empowering a
group are: motivating, positivity, directing, inspiring, organising and many more,
which on the other hand are also key skills of leadership. With this process a
advisor becomes a good leader. (Katulwa, 2015)
An advisor with the help of action Learning develops the following leadership
skills,
 When to get instructive and when to cooperate
 When to lead and when to follow
 How to organise and manage
 Makes sound and timely decisions
 Knows one self and seeks improvement for one self
 Takes the responsibilities of an action
 Engages new ideas (Richards, 2006)
Apart from leadership skills, my overall personality is enhanced by action
learning. I used action learning for my own overall development as I
mastered in my own skills and the skills I was interested in, along with
this I learned to be patient. The few leanings from action learning which I
gazed and which can result in an overall personality of an individual are as
follows,
 Learning Strategies
 Organizational Learning
 Self-managed Learning
 Psychology Development
 Attitude Development
 Sociological Development
 Team Learning
 Knowledge Management
 Leadership and Management Development
 Human Resource Management
Apart from this my confidence, patience, motivation, self-esteem are
enhanced.

7
For learning development it is mandatory for the individual to have the
capability to put learning into action.
REFERENCES:
1. Brockbank, A & McGill, I 2003, The Action Learning Handbook, Routledge, London.
2. Katulwa, B 2015, Leadership & Management Made Easy: An Assessment Guide for ILM
Qualifications, Anchor Academic Publishing, Hamburg.
3. Lee, A.Y 2010, Effective Action Learning Sets: An Analysis of Participant Experiences,
University of Huddersfield, England.
4.Leonard, H.K & Lang 2010, “Leadership Development via Action Learning”, viewed on 4
December 2017,<
http://wial.org/wp-content/uploads/Leadership_Development_via_Action_Learning.pdf>.
5. Marquardt, M 2006, Action Learning, American Society for Training and Development,
Virginia.
6. Marquardt, M 2010, “The evidence for the effectiveness of action learning”, viewed on 4
December 2017, < http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14767333.2010.488323>.
7. Morrison, M 2017, “Action Learning Sets”, viewed on 4 December 2017, <
https://rapidbi.com/action-learning-sets/>.
8. Pedler, M 2017, Action Learning for Managers, Routledge, London.
9. Richards, S & Rigg, C 2006, Action Learning, Leadership and Organizational
Development in Public Services, Routledge, London.
10. Weinstein, K 2012, Action Learning: A Practical Guide, Gower Publishing, Ltd.,
England.