Practising 21st century leadership - the work of the learning professional

The best leaders have learned that authority, accountability and well-defined systems are necessary but not sufficient. They understand that energy and engagement are crucial to competitive advantage as much as vision and strategy. Learning and development professionals need to go beyond the traditional offer of courses and programmes, becoming true organisational partners that facilitate the core capacities of leadership, and model these themselves; capacities such as:

• Collective Intelligence

• Finding 'enabling truths'

• Wisdom

• Working with the flow of social networking

• Being an ethical and purposeful leader.

This is all very well, but what does this mean in practice for leaders of 21st Century organisations, and those who support them? In other words, what are they supposed to do differently? A learning programme fit for the 21st Century will challenge and support participants to find ways to make leadership work in their own businesses, whilst at the same time working as co-researchers, investigating what is required in their experience to build on these capacities. Their findings will be published through a variety of channels, blogs and online feeds, including those provided by TJ.

Mayvin Ltd, in association with TJ, is piloting a practical learning programme to research these questions while equipping leaders who participate with the skills required in this environment.

Action Research

The core approach of the programme is Action Research in Action Learning Sets; that is learning about C21L by doing it, and reflection on this action within a Community of Practice. Broadly, Action Research proposes that knowledge (about leadership in this case) is best uncovered in the process of 'having a go', and that traditional knowledge about leadership can sometimes be behind the curve of experience in businesses. This is confirmed by the Center for Creative Leadership, in the U.S., and their 70:20:10 rule¹. Their research suggests that people learn about how to do their job in the following ratios:

• 70% of the learning is by doing it

• 20% of the learning is by being mentored or coached by people they respect

• 10% of the learning comes from formal 'classroom' teaching

This means that learning to lead is mostly about action and reflection around the day job. But in today's busy lives, leaders, although doing much acting, rarely get a chance for some wise reflection.

A leadership development process that equips 21st Century Leaders needs to provide a space for wise collective reflection, and behaviour and attitude change that emerges as a result. An action research approach enables the participants in the programme to practice and demonstrate leadership, rather than talk theoretically about leadership.

The need for this is exacerbated by the speed and complexity of the 21st Century world. It is expected that participants in such a programme will find out about:

- 1st person learning - that is know-how in their own practice as leaders, and partners of leaders

- 2nd person learning - that is know-how shared between practitioners within a small community of co-researcher peers

- 3rd person learning - that is know-how that is more widely relevant to the field of Leadership and Organisational Development

This suggests that the creation of a well-facilitated, self-determined Community of Practice is core to the success of this approach. This local, specific, timely skill in 'Action and Reflection', for self and others is both a key leadership skill in current times and essential to the creation of a viable research community.

The learning professional needs to be a good facilitator and role model of their own development in the Action Research process.

How this differs from traditional training and development

This approach advances on traditional leadership development in a number of ways:

• Whilst offering participants ideas to work with, within an overall frame of C21L, the development programme will be practice-based, in a series of 6 learning set meetings, rather than content-based.

• The primary aim of C21L will therefore to be of practical use at a number of levels, to the practitioners themselves, to their sponsoring organisations, and to the wider world of L&OD.

Get Involved

We are inviting individuals and organisations, as well as learning professionals to get involved in this pioneering programme, in the spring of 2012, to 'have a go', be part of an inspiring learning community and develop some useful skills and practices in the process. For further information contact James Traeger of Mayvin at james.traeger@mayvin.co.uk or Debbie Carter at TJ at debbiecarter@trainingjournal.com