As a leader, you want to foster a culture of continuous learning in your team or organization. This means creating an environment where people are encouraged and supported to learn new skills, improve their performance, and adapt to changing needs and challenges. But how do you create such a culture? Here are some tips to help you.
One of the best ways to create a culture of continuous learning is to model it yourself. Show your team or organization that you are committed to your own learning and development, and that you value feedback and growth. Share your learning goals, challenges, and achievements with others, and seek out opportunities to learn from different sources and perspectives. By setting an example, you will inspire others to follow your lead and see learning as a priority and a benefit.
Modeling is an amazing way to show people that you’re not just filled with words and good intentions, but that you actually practice what you preach. The biggest opportunity in modeling your own growth, though, is to have transparency. Share the struggles along with the wins, speak openly about the journey and allow others to see you as a real person who adapts and evolves just like them. Often leaders share the ideals of their growth and not the length of time it took them to push through, or the setbacks they came across to meet their milestones. When we share that side of our story, we propel people to take their own steps, in their own time, and adjust according to THEIR reality.
In addition to modeling, we need to give team members room to grow. Learning without the opportunity for activation will be demotivating and the knowledge will not likely remain with the person. Leaders should always be looking for room to let team members grow. From a management standpoint, it’s a productive force multiplier. From a leadership standpoint, it shows we care about our team members as people and not resources.
Once again, when one has become a Master Teacher, The heart of the Teacher can provide the learning atmosphere for the student. When a staff or disciple sees and knows that the Leader is truly a Master Teacher and chooses to sit under their teachings, sometimes this is done just on the inside of a heart towards one's leader or manager. Master Teachers MUST HAVE the knowledge, understand and experiences that can be used to help others to grow and mature. A Master Teacher will have a reputation, an spirit about them that provides the evidence of a learned Manager and Teacher. The Master Teacher sees the staff as their disciples, sort of a Father and Mother figure of learning. The Leader MUST have set under a Master Teacher Themselves.
Strategic planning is a valuable benchmark to set. This allows you to create shorter term goals within your career progression. A sound strategic plan will only have minor short directional changes, but still contribute to the overall direction of your strategic plan. When change is planned as a constant. You gain fluidic lateral transition, because it becomes part of the plan's progression. This sets an example of proactive thought. People can distinguish between a bare minimum behavior and a planned execution of action. Be a positive example with confidence. Not a bad one with the bare minimum of job expectation.
There are some great insights here that highlight the importance of modelling at the CEO and Executive level - all incredible valuable and relevant. One of the most impactful ways a leader can set an example is by holding themselves accountable to the expectations that they set in service of their personal development, their teams and organization. Open share your areas of focus and what you have set as your learning goals then offer updates on learnings etc. This is especially applicable to leadership training. There are no experts in leadership, only long-term students.
Another way to create a culture of continuous learning is to provide your team or organization with the resources and support they need to learn effectively. This could include offering training programs, coaching, mentoring, online courses, books, podcasts, or other learning materials. It could also mean giving them time, space, and flexibility to pursue their learning interests and needs. Additionally, you should provide them with constructive feedback, recognition, and rewards for their learning efforts and outcomes.
A third way to create a culture of continuous learning is to encourage your team or organization to collaborate and share their knowledge and skills with each other. This could involve creating opportunities for peer learning, mentoring, coaching, or cross-functional projects. It could also mean fostering a culture of openness, trust, and curiosity, where people are willing to ask questions, seek help, and offer advice. By encouraging collaboration and sharing, you will create a sense of community and mutual learning among your team or organization.
Collaboration and sharing can include setting aside time on a meeting agenda for a team member to share what they recently learned at a conference, webinar, or other learning event. The team member can share how the learnings relate to the company's strategy and goals. This often fosters discussion about ideas to improve the organization and be better leaders.
Creating a culture of continuous learning may involve creating spaces where conversations by team members about work and the tasks that each one is working on, how those are progressing, the challenges encountered and how those have been resolved. Importantly, team members can ask for help from their colleagues, offer useful and practical insight as well as challenge one another into digging deeper and crafting solutions together. There can be much learning that takes place while relationships are built and a culture of trust is strengthened
Start by fostering a culture of curiosity, adaptability, and collaboration within your team and encourage open communication where ideas are valued, and mistakes are seen as opportunities for growth. We say this as leaders, but do we really use "mistakes" in this way? You can also implement regular training sessions, workshops, or knowledge-sharing forums to keep everyone updated on industry trends and advancements. Have your team share out and give a voice. By nurturing a mindset that values learning as a continuous process, you empower your team to stay agile and innovative in the ever-evolving landscape skills shirts and expectations!
A fourth way to create a culture of continuous learning is to challenge and empower your team or organization to take ownership of their learning and development. This could mean giving them autonomy, responsibility, and accountability for their learning goals and plans. It could also mean exposing them to new situations, problems, and opportunities that require them to stretch their skills and learn new ones. By challenging and empowering them, you will foster a mindset of growth, resilience, and innovation among your team or organization.
Leaders create leaders. Effective leadership includes recognizing opportunities to empower others to lead. When you're at a crossroads, it can be tough to relinquish control for others to speak on behalf of the team, take ownership of a creative process, or make the tough call. They were hired for a reason, just like you, and humble and supportive leaders aren't forgotten by the next round of leadership. Your deference makes a difference.
The individual's performance goals should include learning and development goals. The leader and the employee should collaboratively develop such goals. For example, one goal may be that the employee attends one educational session on how to be a more inclusive leader.
It is critical for leaders to build a culture of learning through challenging and empowering teams to embrace learning gaps wider than any one person can bridge. An essential tool in curiosity is to introduce learning gaps, which cause a person to work and find a means to get from their current place of understanding to a desired destination by traveling through unknown territory. In the workplace, great leaders ask questions they don't know the answer to, and they listen to ideas and perspectives they hadn't considered. To be a leader who learns continuously, you must continue to learn more of what you don't know, and invite, empower, and even challenge your team and colleagues to join you in traversing the unknown gaps ahead.
A fifth way to create a culture of continuous learning is to review and celebrate your team or organization's learning progress and achievements. This could mean conducting regular reviews, assessments, or surveys to measure and monitor their learning outcomes and impact. It could also mean celebrating their successes, milestones, and learnings, and acknowledging their efforts and contributions. By reviewing and celebrating them, you will reinforce the value and importance of learning, and motivate them to keep learning and improving.
Dr. Gary Chapman’s @5lovelanguages is on-going language in my household and it’s been especially helpful for my husband and I to practice empathy and strengthen understanding between our 2 very different love languages. It occurred to me that leadership is very similar. Leading from empathy is such an important muscle to build, and recognition is a prime example of how leaders have all the best intentions to give recognition and reward for a job well done, but don’t pause to consider differences in how it’s received. Just like love languages, the purpose of exploring recognition “types” isn’t to put people in boxes, but rather generate understanding and curiosity so we can all be more inclusive leaders!
Review, review, review! Too often I hear leaders say we didn't have time for that. Can you imagine training for a marathon, collecting data on your but never reviewing it? How would you know what needs to get improved? How would you know what changes you can make to be at your best on game day? Reviewing the a project, team performance (monthly, quarterly, etc) is a great way to model that we don't need to take a class to learn. A simple reflection on what we did and what we can do better is learning for the sake of improvement.
What spurred engagement, excitement, and ownership around continuous learning for a past team I led was relinquishing control and being the follower for weekly team meetings. Following can be difficult for leaders. Following meant putting them in charge of their weekly team agenda. Each week, they would rotate. One led the meeting and another presented a topic they learned since the prior meeting. Every team member wrote agenda items on a white board between meetings. Not only did it foster continuous learning, it created team trust and appreciation between team members.
In my experience, it works well when the work environment provides space and opportunity for staff at all levels to think, explore, apply, make mistakes and learn. Senior managers and leaders can display this by sharing their own experiences and demonstrating that they are not infallible, rather they learn from the challenging situation they face daily and they make continuous improvement.
Generally, it could be helpful to foster an environment that is psychologically safe, where people are invited to the table, they ask questions, offer opinions, and at the top of the safety heirarchy, challenge (or disagree) with anyone, including leadership. It is unsafe when it looks like people are afraid to speak up in meetings, when someone is belittled or disregarded by leaders, or when the best ideas are only volunteered at the water cooler.
I would build upon suggestions for empowering employees to be continuous learners, to expect them to tie learning to their performance or improvement goals set at annual review time. Then make review of progress a standing agenda item at supervision meetings. And take the supervision and team meeting time to share your own progress. Allow time during team meetings to discuss learning progress. Perhaps start a voluntary or mandatory book/journal club. Give people a budget to use at their discretion to buy books, journal subscriptions, workshops etc. ask for accountability as to how they use that money. Offer and pay for coach services.
Something that really resonated with me... If you and your team are not continuously learning and evolving, you're not supporting your organization to perform and remain competitive.