Shadow Of The Leader: Intellectual Curiosity and Learning Organizations

Food For Thought: What role does a CEO's personal learning style and sense of curiosity have on the rest of his / her organization?

I believe there is an enormous impact and a truly successful leader creates an organizational culture that constantly learns and improves at all levels. If you've ever read the Fifth Discipline (a classic about learning organizations), then you know that successful companies win because they proactively change. Senior managers set the tone and key leadership practices that solidify into a "way" of doing things within an organization. It's this tone and these key practices that allow an organization to more easily "learn" and therefore create positive change for its stakeholders.

This article from the New York Times cites Jeff Bezos as a role model for CEOs because he has a healthy sense of curiosity and balances that with leadership practices (kaizen is one example) that emphasize ongoing productivity improvements.

The phrase "shadow of the leader" nicely sums up the power of a leader: it's not just about the things leaders intentionally do, it's the things they don't know they're doing (thus the reference to a shadow). My suggestion is for leaders to examine (a) how they personally absorb information (b) how they make decisions with that information and (c) how they translate those personal preferences into organization wide practices. Remember, just because that approach is comfortable for you doesn't mean it should be imprinted on the rest of your organization or that you can't employ different techniques for a more balanced approach.

Part of my practice is centered around improving organizational effectiveness and coaching executives on how to improve their level of self awareness for maximum organizational results. I'd be happy to sit down with you and discuss how these concepts apply to your world.