We have a question for you. Have you ever learned a new game or a new sport?
Undoubtedly, your answer is yes. We get that response every time we ask the question in our classes or leadership development programs. Invariably every hand in the room goes up.
We then ask, “And how many of you got it perfect the first day you played it?” People chuckle. No hands go up. No one ever gets it right the first time.
There was one occasion, however, when Urban Hilger, Jr. raised his hand and said that on the very first day he went skiing he got it perfect. Naturally we were surprised and curious, so we asked Urban to tell us about the experience. Here's what he said:
It was the first day of skiing classes. I skied all day long, and I didn't fall down once. I was so elated. I felt so good. So I skied up to the instructor, and I told him of my great day. You know what the ski instructor said? He told me, “Personally, Urban, I think you had a lousy day.”
I was stunned. “What do you mean lousy day? I thought the objective was to stand up on these boards, not fall down.”
The ski instructor looked me straight in the eyes and replied, “Urban, if you're not falling, you're not learning.”
Urban's ski instructor understood that if you can stand up on your skis all day long the first time out, you're only doing what you already know how to do and not pushing yourself to try anything new and difficult. By definition learning is about something you don't already know. Those who do what they already know how to do may have lots of experience, but after a while they don't get any better because they aren't learning anything new. Research has shown that teachers, for example, improve during their first five years in the field, as measured by student learning, according to University of Virginia psychology professor Daniel Willingham. He goes on to report, however, that after five years their performance curve goes flat, and a teacher with 20 years of experience, on average, is no better or worse than a teacher with 10. Says Dan, “It appears that most teachers work on their teaching until it is above some threshold and they are satisfied with their proficiency.”1 The same might be said about many leaders.
So ask yourself: Are you pushing yourself to learn something new when it comes to leadership every day? Or, are you just doing what you already know how to do? Are you stretching yourself to go beyond your comfort zone—beyond what you do well enough—and engaging in activities that test you and build new skills? Are you learning?
Over the years we've conducted a series of empirical studies to find out whether leaders learned differently than others; was there something special or unique about their learning styles or aptitudes?2 We wanted to know whether the way leaders were learning played a role in how effective they were at leading. Although there are many different ways to learn—for example, by taking action (e.g., preferring to learn by trial and error); by thinking (e.g., reading articles or books or going online to gain knowledge and background); by feeling (e.g., confronting themselves on what areas they are worrying about); and by accessing others (e.g., bouncing hopes and fears off someone they trust)—people can be differentiated by the range and depth of learning tactics they use when facing a new or unfamiliar experience.
The results from these studies have been most intriguing. First, we found that you could learn leadership in a variety of ways. Second, certain learning styles contribute to more effectiveness in some leadership practices than others do, but there is no one best style for learning everything there is to know about leadership. The style was not what led to achievement.
What turned out to be most important was the extent to which individuals engaged in whatever learning style worked for them. Those leaders who were more engaged in each of their preferred learning styles, regardless of what their styles were, also more frequently engaged in The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership. Learning to lead is not dependent on any particular learning style.
It doesn't matter how you learn. What matters is that you do more of whatever learning tactic works best for you. Clearly linked to becoming a better leader is becoming a better learner. The best leaders are the best learners.
This shouldn't be news to anyone. It just makes sense that those people who push themselves to learn will do better than those who only dabble in it. Attending one three-day workshop, reading one best-selling book, reflecting only on one critical incident, or participating in one simulation doesn't produce great leaders. Nor does it produce great musicians, physicians, engineers, teachers, accountants, computer scientists, or writers. To become the best at anything, you have to learn continuously.
These findings also raise an extremely interesting and mostly unexplored question: Which comes first, learning or leading? Whenever we pursue this question with our clients their hunches are the same as ours. Learning comes first. When people are predisposed to be curious and want to learn something new—as compared with those who aren't inclined to view learning as an important part of their daily lives—they are much more likely to reflect, read, experiment with a new behavior, attend a course, get a coach, or initiate some other mode of learning. They are also less likely to see feedback as a threat and more likely to see mistakes and failures as opportunities for growth and development.
For example, at the end of his first full year as a management consultant, former Harvard business faculty member David Maister, at the age of 39, decided to take stock, and he asked himself what assets he had as a professional consultant. This in-depth internal audit was a turning point in his career. He had, first, his knowledge and skill, and, second, he had his client relationships. David began to comprehend that these were interdependent. If he relied only upon what he already knew, then he would acquire clients who needed what he knew at that time. That, he surmised, was a finite number. Worse yet, his existing clients had already been served by what he already knew, so they were not likely to hire him again unless he learned more. Then it hit him. He hadn't learned anything new in his first year on his own, and unless he actively worked at it, his career prospects would inevitably decline.3
David's story gives testimony to the fact that if you want to be hired—or if you want to be a leader—you have to look within yourself to improve and move on. As you conduct your own value audit, what do you see as your unique talents? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What kind of feedback are you getting about how you affect others? What are the themes in this feedback? What is it telling you about yourself? Where are you succeeding? Where are you failing? What value are you providing that no one else can? Your answers to questions like these will both inform and guide you about areas that you need to explore and learn more about.
Learning is the master skill. When you fully engage in learning—when you throw yourself wholeheartedly into experimenting, reflecting, reading, or getting coaching—you're going to experience improvement. Perhaps even greatness. Less is not more when it comes to learning. More is more. When it comes to getting great at leading or anything for that matter, you have to keep on learning.
Leadership has often been referred to as a set of traits, styles, personality types, or strengths. All of these perspectives have some value in understanding the topic, but at its most fundamental level leadership is best understood as an observable pattern of actions and behaviors. It is a definable set of skills and abilities. The only way you really know whether someone is leading is to observe what he or she is doing when in the act of leading.
This perspective is critical if you are going to become a better leader. This is because you can learn skills and behaviors. Skills can be broken down into teachable and learnable elements, and then learning experiences can be designed that, if done correctly and repeatedly, will generate behaviors that lead to improved performance.4 Just in case you are wondering whether it's worth the effort, when we track the progress of people who participate in leadership development programs, we observe that they improve over time.5 Furthermore, this improvement isn't a function of their personality type, their temperament, or their style. They learn to be better leaders as long as they engage in activities that help them learn how. The same thing is true for the other roles people play in organizations—and in life.
But here's the deal. Although leadership can be learned, not everyone learns it, and even all those who learn leadership don't master it. Why? There are many reasons, but chief among them is that you may not believe that you can. That's right. You may have bought into that myth that we talked about earlier—the one that says leadership is inherent and only a few people are blessed with the leadership gene. You may believe that leadership skill is something you are either born with or not, that it's fixed inside people or that some can learn to lead, but others cannot. You need to examine your mindset before you seriously set off on your learning leadership journey.
Building your capacity to be a lifelong learner begins with what Carol Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford University, calls a growth mindset. This mindset, she says, “is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.”6 Individuals who have a growth mindset believe people can learn to be better leaders—that they are made and not born.
She compares this with a fixed mindset—“believing that your qualities are carved in stone.”7 Those with the fixed mindset think that leaders are born and that no amount of training or experience is going to make them any better than they naturally are.
If you buy into the view that leaders are born and that talents are fixed at birth, it is highly unlikely that you'll put forth the time and effort to be better than you already are. It's also likely that you'll avoid challenges, give up quickly when things get tough, and perceive that spending any effort on training will be a general waste of time. You'll just wait for your talents to naturally blossom or hope somehow to be in the right place at the right time that match your skills.
On the other hand, if you begin with the belief that you can learn new skills no matter what your present level of competence is and that training and coaching will pay off, then you're much more likely to do whatever it takes to improve. You are more likely to seek and accept challenges, persist when obstacles are in your way or not be deferred when you have a setback, and see your efforts as necessary steps toward mastering leadership.
Mindsets also carry over into performance. In study after study, researchers have found that when working on business problems those individuals with fixed mindsets gave up more quickly and performed more poorly than those with growth mindsets.8 The same is true for kids in school, athletes on the playing field, teachers in the classroom, and partners in relationships.9
Applying the concept of mindset to organizations, Carol and her colleagues found that in growth mindset companies, employees are “47 percent likelier to say that their colleagues are trustworthy, 34 percent likelier to feel a strong sense of ownership and commitment, 65 percent likelier to say that the company supports risk taking, and 49 percent likelier to say that the company fosters innovation.”10 Clearly, the mindset of organizational leaders can either facilitate or inhibit the growth of employees as well as the growth of the business.
Your beliefs about your ability to learn are where it all starts. They influence your motivation, your level of effort, your desire to persist, and your openness to feedback. If you believe that you can learn, it's significantly more likely that you will. If you believe that you can't learn, it's likely that you won't. As Carol points out, “For 20 years, my research has shown the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value.”11
Believing that you can lead and believing that you can learn to lead are essential to becoming a better leader. The good news is that research shows that you can learn to embrace a growth mindset.12 Again, you just have to believe you can. So, mind your mindset.
The key message of this chapter is this: The best leaders are the best learners. They have a growth mindset. They believe that they are capable of learning and growing throughout their lives. To become a better leader, you must engage in continuous learning. You are never done learning, never done getting better. Continuous learning is a way of life. And it doesn't matter what your learning style is. What matters is how frequently you engage in learning activities. You can reflect, read, watch others, get a coach, attend some training, or just try out a new skill or technique. Whatever it is, engage in it every day.
It's important that every day you take stock of what you've learned. You have to make learning leadership a daily habit—something we'll say more about later in this book. One way to establish that habit is to use your leadership journal to make notes at the end of each day—or each morning, if you prefer—to answer this one simple question: “What did I learn in the last 24 hours that will help me become a better leader?” It could be something about you, other people, the context in which you work, the external environment, a new technique, or anything else that contributes in some way to your knowledge, skills, and attitudes about leadership.
If you do this every day, you'll be amazed how much you've learned, and in the process, how much you've improved over time. You can also identify where you are stuck and how you may need to take some new path to get out of a rut.