Teaching is Leading

 

Leading is Teaching

 

           

President John F. Kennedy was supposed to deliver a lunchtime speech the day he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963; in the speech, he wrote that "leading...[is] essential to the leadership's hopes for continued progress and prosperity."  Kennedy knew that learning and leadership were connected like no other subject.

            What we fundamentally know has been borne out in research; a professor of management at Dartmouth College conducted a study to examine specific attributes of leaders who exhibited outsized abilities and reported the findings in Harvard Business Review (2018). He notes (as the title states), “The Best Leaders Are Great Teachers.” These leaders use every opportunity to help grow and develop their staff through “ongoing, intensive one-on-one tutoring.” The study found these leaders had qualities that enabled fuller engagement, deeper dialogue, and the opportunity to gain wisdom, including:

·         Spending time with line employees engaged in their daily routines, to experience operations from their perspective;

·         Providing lessons across three areas—business and technical skills; professionalism, ethics and personal integrity; and general life wisdom and experience, and;

·         Creating teachable moments that enabled those participants to remember the experience (and subsequent lessons) for a long time.

Learning is a Antecedent to Leading

            The importance of learning and teaching in an effective leader cannot be understated. Almost all of the best bosses I’ve encountered during my nearly 20 years in public service were able to both teach and learn. Learning is an essential pre-requisite to teaching, as Hughes, et al (2015) notes (p. 54). If a leader is unwilling to learn, then how can they impart the wisdom and experience they’ve accumulated, in a way that the subordinates or followers will actually use, act on, and incorporate into their leadership journey?

            Teaching is, at its core, the transfer of knowledge, experience, and wisdom to another. Learning—and being open to learn—is a fundamental requirement that enables teaching. One must be curious, willing to conduct experiments, collect the data, reflect on the experience, and move forward with any necessary adjustments. Thus, learning is foundational, especially in an adaptive leadership situation (Heifetz, et. al., 2009) The team behind the adaptive leadership framework describe the importance of “building on the past” (p. 15) and utilizing multiple data sources to help calibrate and understand the issue at hand (p. 32), which is all about learning.

            In his HBR article, Finkelstein discusses several examples that support the “Double-Loop Learning” theory advocated by Chris Argyris (1977). Professor Argryis’ research and advocacy for a more knowledge-based approach to systems learning and integration is clearly on display in the leaders that Finkelstein profiles. At the heart of both Double-Loop Learning and the 2008 study is a desire to grow, develop, and use knowledge to enhance one’s perspective and experience before transmitting it to others. Finkelstein also uses words that denote a more personal type of teaching and learning, less like traditional classroom training and more like coaching, such as: “offering,” “explaining,” “mastery,” and “impact.” The lessons given are relevant, long-lasting, and positive, which reinforces the impact and retention of the student.

            The timing of these lessons were often “organic” or “in the moment,” based on the needs and circumstances of the student and situation. This underscores the importance of leaders who have a deep knowledge and strong relationship with their followers, so as to not only make the teaching personal, but also to know exactly what the follower needs.

Finkelstein further describes teaching that incorporated an experiential component. One such example, from the world-class restaurant Noma, included a ten-day offsite “pop-up experience” in another city. As we’ve seen from TV shows like Top Chef, these experiences enable leaders to both stretch themselves, but also experiment with new roles and responsibilities in a fast-paced team environment.

The HBR article also describes the use of probing or challenging questions, a master teaching technique. This inquiry enables the student to “talk through” an issue. It also may help spark a dialogue to help the student see various perspectives, options, or different considerations necessary related to their leadership development, or a specific topic or situation.

Conclusion

            Leaders must first and foremost be students of the particular organization, industry, agency, or mission they are a part of. Being able to be “in the weeds” and being accessible lends credibility to the leader. The leader must also “rise above” and show a perspective “from the mountaintop”—beyond the current situation or circumstances—to teach the core lessons necessary for the student to gain a deeper and broader appreciation of the leadership issues at play. Great leaders are both students and teachers, and as such, share that knowledge, experience, and wisdom in a way that engages and transforms others to become leaders as well.

 

Argyris, C. (1977, September). Double Loop Learning in Organizations. Retrieved August 25, 2020, from https://hbr.org/1977/09/double-loop-learning-in-organizations

Finkelstein, S. (2018, January). The Best Leaders Are Great Teachers. Retrieved August 25, 2020, from https://hbr.org/2018/01/the-best-leaders-are-great-teachers

Heifetz, R. A., Linsky, M., & Grashow, A. (2009). The Practice of Adaptive Leadership Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

Hughes, R. L., Ginnett, R. C., &  Curphy, G. J. (2015). Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of       experience (8th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Kennedy, J.F. (1963). Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas, TX, November 22, 1963 [Undelivered] | JFK Library

 

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