When Professionals Meet, It’s Good to Be Aware
What does it take to be a leader? It’s this very question that led us to explore the fundamental connection between leadership and learning by amplifying the voices of industry insiders in our award-winning series, Leaders in Education. In this article, we highlight 5 key L&D lessons that came up repeatedly in our discussions, demonstrating the inextricable link between learning and leadership.
5 L&D Lessons from Experts in the Field
1. Embrace the Fear of Failure
It’s common advice to face our fears, but that’s because the fear of failure is a significant roadblock to innovation and progress.
“I don’t know how to do this; I’m going to fail. We need to get rid of that (fear),” insists Josh Bersin, a well-known industry analyst, who represents a workplace where the fear of failure is replaced by curiosity. and testing.
Indeed, “it’s about progress, not perfection,” Jason Weeman, LinkedIn’s Leadership Development Consultant, reminds us. When we feel safe from failure, we are more likely to take risks, innovate, and grow.
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Maureen Lonergan, VP, Amazon Web Services (AWS) Training and Certification, also encourages others not to let their perceived lack of experience limit them. Despite not being very strong academically, it was Lonergan’s willingness to work hard, accept feedback, and reset and reorganize that led him to become a training consultant to the world’s leading training programs at AWS.
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The narratives of Weeman, Bersin, and Lonergan are powerful reminders that with the right mindset (and culture), people can learn and adapt—even in challenging roles and situations. Ultimately, facing their fears makes them better leaders.
2. Cultivate Adaptability to Change
Change is inevitable, but many people fear it. That’s why leaders who embrace it are the ones who succeed. Daniel Garcia Alfisi, a global expert in L&D, sees adaptability as a skill to be cultivated.
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It is a muscle that grows stronger with exposure. According to Alfisi, that includes encouraging people to take on challenges, even if it means they end up moving on to new roles. “A person will feel successful if he can change jobs at any time,” added Alfisi.
Leaders who enable growth—even growth that leads employees away—gain a powerful network of advocates and rich, powerful employees.
Jessica Winder, Senior Vice President of People and HR expert, also challenges the notion that long-term loyalty to one job equates to success. In his view, skipping work is not just a move; it is an innovation strategy as it allows employees to develop a wide range of skills and ideas.
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Both Alfisi and Winder emphasize how this ultimately benefits companies because employees tend to return when they are empowered to succeed.
Leaders who recognize the importance of change and allow their people the freedom to explore find themselves among teams—and organizations—that are strong and continuously improving.
3. Fall in love with the problem, not the solution
Change is not only inevitable, but so are problems. But the most successful leaders don’t immediately jump to a solution, says Bersin, they start by loving the problem.
According to Bersin, the most effective L&D programs are those built around real business problems.
L&D teams partnering with leaders to identify and target specific issues (such as revenue or operational gaps) are the secret weapon for ROI, he says. Addressing the cause ensures that learning interventions move the needle.
John Zurovchak, PhD, Executive Director, Ops Training at Burger King also agrees that it is not enough to include training and hopes it will continue. L&D professionals must move beyond being “order takers” to become strategic partners closely aligned with the broader business strategy.
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It’s about understanding what’s really driving the results and tackling the problem head on.
4. Examine the Data, But Be Ethical
To address the issues, we must look at the data. Taggart McCurdy, Director, User Success at Databricks, emphasizes that without learning outcomes data, planning for growth becomes difficult.
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Data should be used to not only track progress but also guide L&D efforts to identify real business needs.
But is that enough?
Zurovchak asks us to explore further. Instead of relying solely on numbers, we should focus on the behaviors that drive the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) we track.
It is this interaction between KPIs and behaviors that can really help us face challenges in the workplace and grow employees appropriately.
5. Write Everything
Sounds boring, right?
But maintaining a culture, experience, or knowledge is important in many industries that are currently seeing confidential information go out the door with the retirement of baby boomers.
For companies like the defense contractor Bersin consults with, failure to transfer confidential information quickly enough can mean the company’s eventual downfall. (Actually, we’ve seen this before. Without proper information management procedures, NASA reportedly lost its ability to go to the moon.)
When the Apollo program ended, the technology, infrastructure, and tools to build the Saturn V rocket and the Apollo spacecraft were lost, making it difficult to simply rebuild those programs today.
Even with blueprints, reconstruction requires re-design, re-examination, and rediscovery of lost technology, highlighting the important role of secret knowledge and the challenges of maintaining complex capabilities over time.
But it doesn’t just affect daily operations; it also shapes the organization’s ability to grow and expand.
Courtney Sembler, Executive Director of HubSpot Academy, encountered a knowledge management problem while trying to scale HubSpot Academy globally. Without a centralized system for storing institutional information, scaling an organization is an almost impossible task, he emphasizes.
“If someone leaves the group, can someone else come in and do the same?” he asks. It is not enough to have talented people; companies must create structures that allow information to be captured, documented, and communicated, to ensure that new hires can enter without missing a beat.
A Leader Is a Lifelong Learner
Lessons from Leaders in Education point to a powerful conclusion: leadership and learning are deeply connected. Effective leaders are not just knowledgeable—they are continuous learners, willing to adapt, change, and change course when needed. They are not afraid of failure; they see it as part of the process.
Whether it’s loving the problem, focusing on behavior over numbers, retaining knowledge, or adapting to inevitable change, learning is at the heart of leadership. We may not have a definitive answer about what it takes to be a leader, but it is clear that in today’s world, successful leaders are those who embrace learning as their most important tool.
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Docebo is the world’s most powerful learning platform, built for the learning business.
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