- Leaders Teaching Leaders
Leaders teaching leaders is perhaps the most widely known form of peer learning. Put simply, peer-to-peer learning seeks to develop people’s capabilities by connecting them to the immense depth of wisdom that already exists within your company. Having leaders teach other leaders is one way to accomplish this.
In the ‘leaders-teaching-leaders’ model, senior leaders take time out to teach courses and workshops on various aspects of leadership. This is the approach pioneered by GE at its John F. Welch Leadership Development Center in Crotonville. Using senior leaders in this way harnesses their expertise for generations to come, and it helps ensure that senior managers support your initiatives. Furthermore, it helps embed the company’s vision and values throughout the organization, while ensuring that learning remains grounded in the realities of your workplace.
“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.”
—Ralph Nader
Of course, the leaders-teaching-leaders model is not without its drawbacks. Senior leaders often struggle to find the time needed to do the job and do it well. In addition, not all great leaders are also great teachers, and they may be reluctant to invest additional time in learning how to teach and develop their charges. Finally, relying too heavily on in-house expertise can engender an insular view of leadership and the organization, which can inhibit top management’s ability to lead the organization in changing times.
If you do want to make effective use the the ‘leaders-teaching-leaders’ approach:
- Make it part of a balanced range of strategies for developing leadership
- Appoint a person or small working group to oversee and steer the whole project
- Design a structured way of organizing objectives, content and activities, so that each leader-teacher (and their charges) can see how their contribution fits into the overall program
- Choose leader-teachers who excel in some aspect of their leadership, and have them share their expertise within that particular area
- Have leader-teachers and other senior leaders meet to ensure that everyone’s session communicates a consistent message regarding the company’s vision and values
- Provide leader-teachers with prompts, resources and advice that they can draw on when designing their own sessions
