Learning as Leadership Principle

The good part: I am sure there is no need to convince anyone here about the significance of learning. So, instead of preaching, let’s get a bit more hands-on.

The harder part: make learning and integral part of your actions.

• Make learning a virtue, praise it, make it noble.
• Be a role model, learn something new every month, share your progress.
• Praise sharing know-how, not preserving it [this happens when leading experts]
• Encourage everyone in your team to share know how, the process itself is a good practice.
• Give learning time in your agenda, put it on your team’s agenda or create even meetings dedicated to sharing know-how.
• Spend money on learning, for yourself and for others.
• Document learning targets and progress in development plans or even target agreements/OKRs.
• Ask for feedback wherever you can, listen to it without direct response.
• Give “learning feedback” in short cycles, maybe even monthly.
• Make it individual, quality, quantity and media of learning have to fit to individual needs.
• Mix it up with: 70:20:10 or 3 Es of Learning & Development.
• Make it small and feasable, make it grow, go for big.
• Create platforms, e.g.
• Share your know how in open meetings, blog posts, conferences, …
• Download your brain, write your know-how down, give access to it.
• Become a mentee of someone with less job experience.
• Be a mentee to help others grow.
• Use different names for it if needed, like CIP, In The Know, In-Sight, …
• …

Let me know what other pragmatic ideas should be on the list.