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In is book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge argues that learning organizations
require a new view of leadership. He sees the traditional view of leaders (as special people who set the direction, make key
decisions and energize the troops as deriving from a deeply individualistic and non-systemic worldview. At its centre the
traditional view of leadership, ‘is based on assumptions of people’s powerlessness, their lack of personal vision and inability to
master the forces of change, deficits which can be remedied only by a few great leaders’. Against this traditional view he sets a
‘new’ view of leadership that centers on ‘subtler and more important tasks’.
In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards and teachers. They are responsible for building organizations were
people continually expand their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models – that is
they are responsible for learning…. Learning organizations will remain a ‘good idea’… until people take a stand for building such
organizations. Taking this stand is the first leadership act, the start of inspiring (literally ‘to breathe life into’) the vision
of the learning organization.
Here we will look at the three aspects of leadership that he identifies – and link his discussion with some other writers on
leadership.
Leader as designer. The functions of design are rarely visible, Peter Senge argues, yet no one has a more sweeping influence than
the designer. The organization’s policies, strategies and ‘systems’ are key area of design, but leadership goes beyond this.
Integrating the five component technologies is fundamental. However, the first task entails designing the governing ideas – the
purpose, vision and core values by which people should live.
Building a shared vision is crucial early on as it ‘fosters a long-term
orientation and an imperative for learning’. Other disciplines also need to be attended to, but just how they are to be approached
is dependent upon the situation faced. In essence, ‘the leaders’ task is designing the learning processes whereby people
throughout the organization can deal productively with the critical issues they face, and develop their mastery in the learning
disciplines’.
Leader as steward. Senge has some interesting insights on this strand. His starting point was the ‘purpose stories’ that the
managers he interviewed told about their organization. He came to realize that the managers were doing more than telling stories,
they were relating the story: ‘the overarching explanation of why they do what they do, how their organization needs to evolve,
and how that evolution is part of something larger’. Such purpose stories provide a single set of integrating ideas that give
meaning to all aspects of the leader’s work – and not unexpectedly ‘the leader develops a unique relationship to his or her own
personal vision. He or she becomes a steward of the vision’.
One of the important things to grasp here is that stewardship involves a
commitment to, and responsibility for the vision, but it does not mean that the leader owns it. It is not their possession.
Leaders are stewards of the vision, their task is to manage it for the benefit of others. Leaders learn to see their vision as
part of something larger. Purpose stories evolve as they are being told, ‘in fact, they are as a result of being told’. Leaders
have to learn to listen to other people’s vision and to change their own where necessary. Telling the story in this way allows
others to be involved and to help develop a vision that is both individual and shared.
Leader as teacher. Senge starts here with de Pree’s injunction that the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.
While leaders may draw inspiration and spiritual reserves from their sense of stewardship, ‘much of the leverage leaders can
actually exert lies in helping people achieve more accurate, more insightful and more empowering views of reality. Building on an
existing ‘hierarchy of explanation’ leaders, Senge argues, can influence people’s view of reality at four levels: events, patterns
of behaviour, systemic structures and the ‘purpose story’. By and large most managers and leaders tend to focus on the first two
of these levels (and under their influence organizations do likewise).
Leaders in learning organizations attend to all four, ‘but focus predominantly
on purpose and systemic structure. Moreover they “teach” people throughout the organization to do likewise’. This allows them to
see ‘the big picture’ and to appreciate the structural forces that condition behaviour. By attending to purpose, leaders can
cultivate an understanding of what the organization (and its members) are seeking to become. One of the issues here is that
leaders often have strengths in one or two of the areas but are unable, for example, to develop systemic understanding. A key to
success is being able to conceptualize insights so that they become public knowledge, ‘open to challenge and further improvement’.
“Leader as teacher” is not about “teaching” people how to achieve their vision. It is about fostering learning, for everyone. Such
leaders help people throughout the organization develop systemic understandings. Accepting this responsibility is the antidote to
one of the most common downfalls of otherwise gifted teachers – losing their commitment to the truth.
Leaders have to create and manage creative tension – especially around the gap between vision and reality. Mastery of such tension
allows for a fundamental shift. It enables the leader to see the truth in changing situations. |
