ARTICLE 8: REFLECTION OF LEARNING ON “SELF” AS A MANAGER OR A LEADER
“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” (Nelson Mandela, 2003). The great leader Nelson Mandela believed in and emphasized the value of learning, which can do wonders to change the world. A journey of continuous learning will shape the roles of managers and leaders, helping them to adapt, inspire, and work toward success.
Reflecting on learning fosters growth in the profession, leading to making good decisions and enhancing leadership qualities. Let’s explore how learning impacts on ‘self’ as a manager and a leader.
- Personal
growth
Learning culture brings awareness of self and helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses of managers and improves leadership qualities as a leader. Reflecting on learning helps leaders identify areas to improve and develop. Gaining knowledge increases confidence and helps to take strategic decisions towards success. For example, journaling reflection of learning and critically examining self-progress will fill the knowledge gap. By attending trainings and using opportunities to experiment the learning outcomes will help to identify self-strengths and weaknesses.
2. Skills to adapt and change management
Learning is a key factor that helps leaders to face and handle uncertainty and changes in industries like technology advancement, market trends, and organizational changes. Learning enables managers to think strategically to face industrial crises. Learning encourages skills like finding innovative ideas to sustain in the market and keep them unique in the industry. For example, many industries faced and learned many challenges during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. It taught them to think and focus on tomorrow. Based on that incident, the global industry underwent rapid technological change, making it very strong to prevent future problems. Still, most of the companies are training and increasing the skills of their staff in advanced technology to overcome the uncertain changes in the world.
3. Change in leadership style
Change is inevitable. Identifying the change and applying an effective leadership style is based on skills gained from learning. A learning program brings more knowledge and skills to the leaders and helps discover unique leadership styles to implement in the organization. Leadership styles have different skills like effective communication, adapting to change, being a motivational person, planning effectively, and emotional intelligence.
For example, two years ago, the former president of Sri Lanka, Ranil Wickremesinghe, followed a pragmatic and technocratic leadership style to overcome the country’s economic crisis. His leadership style gave major concern to stabilize the economy by taking critical decisions to improve the country’s economy.
4. Ability to make strategic decisions and solve problems
Learning makes managers think critically to solve problems within the organisation. The problem-solving skills arise from doing case studies, learning theories, and experiencing learning in the real world. Leaders seek opportunities in their jobs to apply their learning outcomes as a strategic decision and which increases the skills of solving problems.
For example, in the early 2000s, the company Netflix found challenges in selling DVDs where their customers mostly preferred to digital version. Due to rapid growth in internet broadband, the customers started to choose a digital streaming option. The leadership style of Netflix’s CEO reflected the industry change and took a strategic decision to shift their business to online streaming. The company invested more in digital learning, and in 2007, it started its new version of business as a streaming platform on a subscription basis. As a result, Netflix is now a leading streaming company with over 250 million subscribers in the world.
5. True leader with social responsibility
Learning modifies a manager or a leader to take fair, socially responsible, and ethical decisions in their organization. Learning shapes a leader’s morals in being socially responsible. It encourages leaders with skills to lead with courage, fairness, integrity, and accountability. For example, the outdoor clothing company Patagonia follows ethics over profits. The company follows fair business practices such as fair wages to labour, providing good working conditions, and the company promotes a program called worn wear to encourage sustainability over consumption.
Even though the learning outcomes give a positive reflection, there are some drawbacks too. For example, as in a position of a manager or a leader, they might have busy schedules in their organization. They might need to allocate time and need to commit their selves to learning and development. Attending training programs, workshops and certification courses might take time in between their working schedules. This may bring some conflicts in the work routine.
Conclusion
Learning is a key to changing yourself into an improved version, and it reflects in your journey and shows how the learning outcomes have shaped you. But on the other it too has some drawbacks like being time-consuming, cost of investment in learning, and much more. To balance both, there are several ways to make yourself better by journaling self-work, continuous feedback from seniors, and having a learning culture by sharing knowledge with your team. Selecting the best version of learning and training method is based on the company’s resources and how importance that the employees prioritize.
References
- cengage (2020). The Importance of Self-Reflection in Learning - The Cengage Blog - Cengage. The Cengage Blog. Available at: https://blog.cengage.com/the-importance-of-self-reflection-in-learning/ [Accessed 26 Mar. 2025].
- Joseph, T. (2020). 7 Ways for Your Business to Overcome the COVID-19 Aftermath - Fingent. Fingent. Available at: https://www.fingent.com/blog/7-ways-for-your-business-to-overcome-the-covid-19-aftermath/#tomorrow [Accessed 27 Mar. 2025].
Mandela, N. (1994). Long Walk to Freedom : the Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Little, Brown and Company.
Management Concepts. (2025). A Federal Manager’s Guide To Pragmatic Leadership - Management Concepts. Available at: https://www.managementconcepts.com/resource/a-federal-managers-guide-to-pragmatic-leadership/ [Accessed 26 Mar. 2025].
Netflix (2024). About Netflix - About Us. About Netflix. Available at: https://about.netflix.com/en/leadership [Accessed 28 Mar. 2025].
Wikipedia Contributors (2019). Technocracy. Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy [Accessed 28 Mar. 2025].
Www.ft.lk. (2024). Ranil Wickremesinghe: the pragmatic leadership during challenging times | Daily FT. Available at: https://www.ft.lk/columns/Ranil-Wickremesinghe-the-pragmatic-leadership-during-challenging-times/4-764663 [Accessed 28 Mar. 2025].
The examples shared, such as Netflix’s strategic pivot to streaming and Patagonia’s ethical practices, effectively demonstrate how learning can shape leadership styles and lead to transformative organizational changes.
ReplyDeleteThe emphasis on the importance of a learning culture within organizations and the role it plays in fostering socially responsible leadership is compelling. However, the article also acknowledges the challenges leaders may face in balancing the demands of their roles with the time and financial commitments required for learning. This realistic view adds depth to the discussion.
Thank you for your comment! The real-world examples of Netflix and Patagonia clearly illustrate the importance of learning and its benefits for both individuals and the transmission of organizations.
DeleteAs a manager or leader, when balancing learning and organizational responsibilities, do you believe that the organization should take responsibility, or is it more related to the initiative of individual managers?
Your writing effectively highlights the important role of continuous learning in shaping managers and leaders. It presents well -structured points with relevant examples that suggests how to learn how to affect personal development, adaptability, leadership styles, strategic decisions and social responsibility. However, possible resistance to changes to the section on deficiencies, practically the challenge of applying theoretical knowledge or slightly expansion may be slightly expanded. Overall, this is a strong and practical piece!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your feedback. Your comments highlight and strengths of my writing. The use of examples to theoretical knowledge will enhance understanding. Even though continuous learning has many challenges, it will shape managers to reach their goals. Reflecting on learnings shows leadership qualities to the world.
DeleteLearning is essential for personal and professional growth, as it helps you evolve into a better version of yourself. The outcomes of continuous learning are reflected in your progress and the skills you've developed along the way. However, it’s not without challenges, such as being time-consuming and the financial investment required. To strike a balance, you can enhance your development through practices like journaling your progress, seeking continuous feedback from mentors or seniors, and fostering a learning culture within your team by sharing knowledge. The best approach to learning and training depends on the company’s available resources and how highly the organization values employee development.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely! Optimum usage of available resources for learning is an investment for the firm and personal development. As learning develops personal growth, it helps to increase the productivity of the firm. A better version of you is the best outcome you can see from learning reflection.
DeleteEducated or well trained managers may leave companies due to low pay, limited advancement prospects and negative work environment leading to high turnover rates
ReplyDeleteIsn't it?
Yes, that's true. However, maintaining a strong learning culture in an organization will mitigate these issues and reduce high turnover rates by providing a continuous skills development program and career growth opportunities. When employees feel valued in their organization, there is less space to think of leaving the company. Continuous learning culture enhances job satisfaction and retention.
DeleteOverall good explanation about the topic discussed. Ranil wickramasinghe I think autocratic leader, and also he had transactional leadership style also. In the Netflix they boost their businesses through Covid season, because people most adapted to homescreen rather than go to cinema. It’s a change management and strategic decision they took according to the customer demand.
DeleteThank you for your feedback! Both example shows leadership styles and management strategic decision making based on their skills and knowledge. To adapt to change, having a learning culture has become a major factor for all organizations.
DeleteHow can organizations create a learning culture that balances continuous development with the practical demands of managers' busy schedules, ensuring that leadership growth doesn't conflict with daily responsibilities?
ReplyDeleteThat is a very relatable question! Balancing job responsibility and continuous learning is a little hard for managers. Still, this issue can be solved by connecting micro learning with a day-to-day job. For example, the learning team can publish short videos, short modules to gain knowledge. Moreover, the organization can join a learning culture with performance ratings.
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