Chapter 2: How Do Leaders Learn?

Overview

Note: We are indebted to the work of our colleague Ronald Heifetz of Harvard University for his insights about technical and adaptive work.

To answer the question posed in this chapter title and to understand how the passages facilitate leadership learning and growth, we need to define our terms. There are two major categories of leadership learning: (1) classroom learning and (2) experience-based learning. Classroom learning, as the name implies, focuses on cognitive understanding, on absorbing case histories, and listening to other people share their knowledge. Although executives need to know certain theories and facts in order to improve their performance, committing data to memory may not actually influence leadership behavior, especially emotional intelligence, which cannot be acquired in a linear, cognitive setting.

The second type of learning is experience-based—what you learn by doing. Although experts differ on how people learn from experience, all seem to agree that learning involves a change in behavior relative to the individual’s interaction with the environment. Typically, you have an experience, then you reflect on it and talk about it; your awareness of what you’re thinking and feeling then changes how you lead, better preparing you for the next experience.

But are all experiences useful in the same way? As you’ll recall, it’s the mix of adverse, diverse, professional, and personal experiences that catalyzes effective leadership. Repeating the same narrow range of experiences won’t do much good, even if they are successful. Although significant passages provide the needed mix of experience, not everyone learns equally well when going through the passages. To understand why some people emerge from a passage as wiser, more effective leaders and others don’t, we need to know a little about what goes on in people’s minds when they’re confronted with new learning.