The Leader as a Learner (posted by Oliver Nyumbu)
Posted by Oliver Nyumbu
March 7th, 2007
“In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists”. These words of Eric Hoffner , the American Social Writer, suggest an important challenge for anyone in leadership. It is the challenge of going beyond being learned to remaining a learner for life.
It has been my good fortune to meet leaders who are inveterate learners. I talked to one this afternoon – his name is Stephen Belling. So what characterises Stephen as a leader dedicated to learning?
- He is really good at asking questions
- He listens well – it is possible to ask questions with no real interest in properly engaging with the response.
- He is skilful at building on other people’s contributions
- I have always known Steve to have a robust learning agenda for himself.
Tools that can be helpful to become a Hoffner-type learner include questions such as: What am I really interested in learning over the next 6, 12, or 36 months? Over the past 6 months, what have I enjoyed learning? This gives something of a flavour of the approach of a more celebrated learner – the late Peter Drucker. This is how he put it:
“So I began to force myself to study afternoons and evenings; international relations and international law; the history of social and legal institutions; finance; and so on. Gradually, I developed a system. I still adhere to it. Every three or four years I pick a new subject. It maybe Japanese art; it may be economics. Three years of study are by no means enough to master a subject, but they are enough to understand it. So for more than 60 years I have kept on studying one subject at a time. That not only has given me a substantial fund of knowledge. It has also forced me to be open to new disciplines and new approaches and methods – for every one of the subjects I have studied makes different assumptions and employs a different methodology
You and I may not be a Peter Drucker but we certainly can be dedicated learners who, in terms of change, ‘inherit the future’.
March 26th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Does this not reflect a renewed emphasis on the values and trends that made social change possible in the early years of the 20th century, thinking in particular of the early Labour movement?
When we look at the early leaders of British socialism we see that they were not products of the then elitist education system, but rather products of a long held British faith in self-improvement. Let us look at the example of Keir Hardie, who from being an 11 year boy working the mines became a leading light in the newly formed Labour party.
Priviledge naturally gives people a head start in life, but it is from the ranks of the so-called ordinary, or even the down-trodden, that true change and visionary leadership comes. Leadership is the acculumation of experience, the willingness to reflect and an openness to change.
While the following quote from Vaclav Havel is directly referring to politicians, I feel it is valid for leaders in every field:
“A good politician of the future should be able to explain without seeking to seduce; he should humbly look for the truth of this world without claiming to be its professional owner; he should alert people to the good qualities in themselves, including a sense of the values and interests which transcend the personal, without giving himself an air of superiority and imposing anything on his fellow humans; he should not yield to the dictate of public moods or of the mass media, while never hindering a constant scrutiny of his actions.”