{"id":318,"date":"2024-03-24T15:34:30","date_gmt":"2024-03-24T22:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/?p=318"},"modified":"2024-03-24T15:35:08","modified_gmt":"2024-03-24T22:35:08","slug":"reflections-on-leadership-in-corporate-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/reflections-on-leadership-in-corporate-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on Leadership in Corporate Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Image attributed to: Articulate Content Library<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This blog post happens to come at a time where I\u2019ve just accepted a new position in my corporate learning team as a Senior Learning Strategist which, although it is not a leadership position with direct reports, does formally acknowledge my role as a mentor and contributing to the strategic direction of learning at my organization. I\u2019m grateful for the opportunity to reflect upon my own leadership journey after studying its effect on learning for the past nine weeks, and use my observations and leadership values to direct my next steps in this role and beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my opening blog post nine weeks ago I wrote that \u201cI was hesitant to reflect upon leadership in education because I had been in such a role and didn\u2019t feel it suited me\u201d (Evans Smith, 2024<\/a>) reflecting on the eight years I spent as a Manager. In that role I would have described my leadership style as servant leadership, being that I saw my role as serving my team members and helping them to grow. In this course I learned more about reflective leadership, which is now how I would describe myself for its feminist perspective of \u201calternative distribution of power and non-patriarchal structures\u201d (Batliwala, 2010, p. 9<\/a>) and its dedication to creating a psychologically-safe environment which values trust and innovation, asking \u201cwhy?\u201d, communicating openly, and personal growth. I especially enjoyed Castelli\u2019s article (2016) Reflective leadership review: a framework for improving organisational performance<\/em><\/a> which helped me to identify how a reflective leadership practice supports employee engagement and business results, meaning that it\u2019s not just about \u201cthe feeling\u201d as I wrote in my February blog (Evans Smith, 2024<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When our course moved to the topics of Analytics, Organizational Change, and Project Management I knew these topics would not be new to me but I was grateful for the opportunity to study them more formally (my previous learnings had been as a mentee to others more skilled in these fields who generously provided me with advice). Instead I used this as an opportunity to align my experience and newly-acquired theory to my growing appreciation for reflective leadership. I especially appreciated the opportunity to work with individuals I had not collaborated with before (Ano<\/a>, Lara<\/a>, and Heather<\/a>) to learn from them and their perspective on the topic. Although the tools we included in our toolkit (Evans Smith et al., 2024<\/a>) were not new (I adapted them from the ones I use in my practice at work), explaining how they worked to a new team of colleagues helped me to identify where some gaps may exist, and I\u2019m going back to my work team with updated versions incorporating what I\u2019ve learned in this course.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a final reflection to this course, but one which started to grow in the first week, I\u2019ve realized that in my previous Management role it wasn\u2019t being in Leadership that I was so opposed to, but rather not having any say over the strategic vision of my team or ability to develop a learning culture at my organization. Peter Senge\u2019s video seemed to capture how I feel about leadership now best – that Leadership is not about a role or about operational procedures, but rather about the spirit and \u201cthe capacity of a human community to shape its future\u201d (Senge, as cited in Sarder, 2015, 2:43 – 2:49<\/a>). This is the kind of leadership I want to see myself stepping back into some day\u2026 but maybe after I finish the MALAT programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Batliwala, S. (2010). Feminist Leadership for Social Transformation: Clearing the Conceptual Cloud<\/em>. https:\/\/creaworld.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/feminist-<\/a>leadership<\/a>-clearing-conceptual-cloud-srilatha-batliwala.pdf<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Castelli, P. A. (2016). Reflective leadership review: a framework for improving organisational performance. Journal of Management Development<\/em>, 35<\/em>(2), 217\u2013236. https:\/\/doi.<\/a>org<\/a>\/10.1108\/JMD-08-2015-0112<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evans Smith, A. (2024, February 4). Leadership to me is all about the feeling. Andrea\u2019s Learning Space<\/em>. https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/leadership-to-me-is-all-<\/a>about<\/a>-the-feeling\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evans Smith, A., Gwesu, A., & de Lange, H. (2024, March 10). Corporate Learning Toolkit:\u00a0 Project Managing an Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Technology Implementation<\/em>. https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/1Ofn9Dc6tYqLq027wKsvRowMdmNl9SUYT\/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=113965533461746798243&rtpof=true&sd=true<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarder, R. (2015, June 4). What makes a great leader? by Peter Senge, Author of The Fifth Discipline<\/em>. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch<\/a>?<\/a>v=1aYaj2-GZqk<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image attributed to: Articulate Content Library This blog post happens to come at a time where I\u2019ve just accepted a new position in my corporate learning team as a Senior Learning Strategist which, although it is not a leadership position with direct reports, does formally acknowledge my role as a mentor and contributing to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt525"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions\/320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}