Learning organization: The influence of leadership and organizational design

The learning organization has proven to be the most effective in today’s global business environment dominated by technology and constant change. The learning organization is defined by Senge in his interview to Meen and Keough (1992) as a vision. That means, the learning becomes part of the strategic planning to ensure that the organization is prepared for unpredictable by teaching to people to be able to adapt to change very quickly. The entire learning process needs to be design around ideas that make it interesting for people to learn. Moreover, this organizational dynamic encourage people to learn not because they have to, but because they want to. This approach enhances individual’s capacity within the organization to create, to share, to grow as part of the organizational strategy. The aim of this paper is to analyze the leadership influence in building a learning organization while making a parallel between the traditional organizational management versus the application of the systems thinking approach.

Traditional Versus Learning Organization’s Characteristics

From the IT driven model of management to the circular-reengineering model, the researchers are working on discovering a single coherent model to knowledge and management process. In the meantime, team leaders recognized that the skills and knowledge that had made of them effective leaders in the past would now be counterproductive commented Senge (1990). The rigid traditional view of leaders as special people who set the direction, make the key decisions, and energized the troop is considered to be rooted in an individualistic and nonsystemic worldview, as explained by Senge (1990). That means, the old model which where a centered decision making while the employees where following stated orders for tasks completion seem to be far away.

The workplace is considered to become a learning environment that may “facilitate, inhibit, or impede individual feelings of competence, satisfaction or value place on work” states Sims (1983). For that reason, Noe (2010) suggested that a “worker-focused” approach may be more effective than a task centered model of learning, as the worker-centered model augments employees’ job satisfaction. That is, the circular engineering process built around the general circle of decision making needed to be re-engineered to integrate the communication and learning aspect as described by Romme (1998).

With many new challenges facing by businesses in a constant world changing environment, the organizations need to create flexibility in order to be proactive rather than being reactive. According to Noe (2010), tying training and development into the company’s mission and vision statement is a great start to build a learning organization. The learning plan should also adapt to external environmental challenges; in addition to the organizational talent development and retention strategy in order to attain organizational goals. The myth that people are learning from daily operation doesn’t stand anymore, it becomes very crucial for the organization to create a well design learning system sustained by a dynamic team ready to learn new concepts and business practices, to develop learning programs which will increase individual desire to be part of the learning organization as a whole. This approach is called by Senge (2003) the systems thinking which is entailed in the organizational shared vision built in a smooth flow of organizational communication, constant learning, quick adaptation to change, and a broader loop of the consequences each decision may have over the whole organization.

Comparison between Two Types of   Organization

One of the models retained for the old management style is the industrial companies, such as auto makers which have maintained a chain of production with rigid command and established rules. Romme (1998) stated that the fundamental problem with hierarchy is their learning disability. Moreover, they suffer from centered and unilateral decision making process, closed feedbacks loop, and lack of communication. Despite the industrial companies have maintained for the most part their centered decision making approach, the technology and the customers’ needs have imposed improvement in creating a more participatory decision making approach. For example, the Toyota Company has recognized the need to empower employees in the chain of production. They are entitled to share ideas for car design and are also able to stop the production chain for reasonable causes that can be damageable for the company’s reputation.

It started all in the 60’s when the emerging discipline system dynamics was founded on the idea of a new approach of organizational decision making process and organizational structure. This emerging movement was brought to a much higher level with deeper considerations when Gerard Endenbrug came in with the circular engineering process in the early 1970. He decided to stop organizational growth when he took over the Endenburg Elektrotechniek to focus his attention on organizational development and renewal (Romme, 1998). From this experience was born the learning organization model.

Nowadays, the University governance can serve as a model of modern organizational leadership approach. According to Chiang, H. & Lin, M. (2013), University governance includes now external and internal governance with emphasis on stakeholders such as government, industry, and communities as a whole. This modern approach constitutes an opened system turned towards the primary and secondary stakeholders in the decision making process.

The Types of Leadership Used in Each Type of Organization

In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards, and teachers. Their main responsibility is to building organization where people are constantly expanding their capacity to understand shared vision or mental model, are ready to face new challenges, are aware of business complexity, and are ready to clarify new objectives linked to the organizational vision and values (Senge, 1990). The transformational leadership style fits the learning organization because the main purpose of a transformational leader is to inspire, to empower followers in order for them to develop their own capacity (Northouse, 2010).

On the other hand, the traditional leadership in a centralized decision making organization may feel as being at the center of the action (Senge, 1990). According to Senge (1990), this kind of leaders leads out of a desire of control. They are using clear direction and manipulative artifacts to get people to work toward common goals. Consequently, employees with a great sense of personal value and carrying their own vision will be reticent to get manipulated and will reject the leader’s efforts to dominate them.

Mistakes May Happen in a Learning Organization

The systems thinking is defined by Czarnecki (2012) as the process of understanding how a group of interacting, interrelated, interdependent components influence each other within the whole. However, building a learning organization, squeletal of the systems thinking, may not be without pain. A learning organization can be very problematic when it is not well managed. One of the factors mentioned by Hardy (1996) is management must be ready to handle mistakes differently. Because of the inherent nature of the learning system that encourages individual to derive observable patterns of behaviors from the system that they apply to improve the processes, mistakes may happened. Management must be trained in order to have a productive approach of mistakes. However, the processes that create organizational learning are frequently problematic (GCU, 2013). If the organization archives little explicit knowledge to guide employees’ decision making, mistakes may happen more often. In addition, if the whole wok environment is not satisfactory, performances are not rewarded, many employees with tacit knowledge may leave the organization bringing with them the knowledge acquired. And finally when management is not trained to handle the potential risk of mistakes, the employees may feel dehumanized and the whole work environment may suffer. Most often, observed Hardy (1996) management may be intolerant of anyone who made the occasional mistake or stumbled in their judgment. The decision to blame the employee in front of other colleagues may hinder the learning process. The chance to overcome manageable difficulties must be given. However, it may also cost money to the organization. Generally speaking, a well-written training program and policy manual do not mean authority over employees’ capacity to always make sound judgment, noted Hardy (1996).

When Innovative Leadership Take Over Traditional Organization

The same way a transformational leader may transform an organizational culture from toxic to ethical, it is possible for a modern leader to transform a traditional organization by making it, a learning organization. Northouse (2010) suggested that leadership style is crucial in impacting organization on many levels including the respect of others, services, justice, honesty, and community building. The leader may redesign the organizational structure (Daft, 2010) if it is necessary, craft a well planned learning program, and encourage people to be part of the decision making process. At first, to build on the traditional structure, circular re-engineering approach may be engaged. In addition, fundamental change in the organizational communication system may be initiated in order to be sure the shared vision will be transmitted, understood, and followed by individuals throughout the organization. The transformational leader to succeed in this endeavor, may also create opened feedback loops by using integrative approach implying the stakeholder’s in the decision making process. As suggested by Romme (1998), the circular re-engineering will require reducing the learning disability by implementing communication and learning processes. In addition, measures may be adopted to reduce the burden of a rigid hierarchy.

A Non-Innovative Leadership May be Disastrous to a Learning Organization

Non innovative leaders present many of a toxic leader’s characteristics, such as information retention, favoritism, lack of vision, unclear goals setting, lack of trust, controlling, ambiguous and unilateral decision making process (Northouse, 2010). All the described traits will hinder the employees’ desire to learn and to be proactive. In addition, the organization may suffer from disturbed feedbacks as leadership may not be open to criticism. Lack of communication and a set of factors related to the weight of hierarchy may cause learning disability at all levels of the organization.

Conclusion

Based on the person-job congruence model, a work environment that promotes learning and growth is very important to job satisfaction. To survive the new business environment organizations may be very dynamic and ready to face both internal and external challenges. The learning organization has greater chance to be efficient and effective when communication is used with efficacy by management to promote shared vision. Therefore learning is a shared vision (Senge, 2003) that must be tied to the whole organizational strategic plan (Noe, 2010) while leadership keep inspiring followers of the decision making process. But, because there is no learning without mistakes, if leadership style fails to be appropriate, the learning plan may serve to dehumanize employees instead of improving their performance.

References

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