While some leaders are born many are cultivated. Leadership is a set of specific of skills. One of the responsibilities of leadership is setting the tone and marking a path for growth and development for your followers. At Futures Today Consulting (FTC) each team member has learning goals. We aren’t very particular about what each person is learning as long as they’re learning something. The process of learning unto itself serves to seed and cultivate an agile fertile brain.
For example, during the 1st quarter of 2015 Rafaella, also known as Gurl Wonder, took on the task of learning how to use sign language. Little did she know that later in July her sign language would come into play while working with the Buena Idea team in the Dominican Republic. One of the support team members in El Factor, Dominican Republic had a hearing impairment. Using sign language Rafaella was able to teach the worker how to Sign a few words. Rafaella’s skills made a world of difference in that worker’s life. At FTC we had a positive team bonding experience and other team members learned to sign a few words as well.
As each individual team member grows, so do our collective competencies. The corresponding critical leadership step is about being able to integrate and “pool” each team member’s knowledge into the project and/or organization. In this way we are able to engage in Continuous Team Learning as described by Kasl, Marsick and Dechant (1997). Most importantly we have co-created an environment that welcomes challenging perspectives and actively seek and accept dissenting opinions. These conditions are characteristics of environments that Torbert (1991) refers to as liberating structures (Alcantara, 2010). These spaces can enhance opportunities for learning and personal growth. In this way, as a leader at Futures Today Consulting, I can sustain an agile posture that enables us to quickly adapt to rapidly changing conditions.
What are your goals for 2016? Is learning on your list? How will you improve your leadership skills? Futures Today Consulting can help develop your team and strengthen your leadership.
References
Alcántara, L., (2010). Creating Practical and Operational Knowledge from Action Technologies in Brøgger, B., & Eikeland, O., (Eds.), Labour, Education and Society: Turning to Practice with Action Research, Peter Lang: Frankfurt.
Kasl, E., Marsick, V. M., & Dechant, K. (1997, June). Teams as learners: A research-based model of team learning. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 33(2), 227-247.
Torbert, W. R. (1991). The power of balance: Transforming self, society and scientific inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
