Epic Think Tank
Leadership and e-learning
Part 3: Putting the 'e' in leadership
- How can technology be used to develop leadership skills and
capabilities?
An important element to throw into the mix here, before addressing
the specific role of what e-learning can bring to leadership development,
is what 'e' in general brings to the business of leadership.
The leader's place has always been at the centre of the data flow,
wherever that may be: on the shop floor, in the thick of the fighting
- wherever the information is most current and most plentiful. 'e',
it seems, has moved the focus of information flow - in many cases,
to the computer desktop.
In military terms, this has led to a re-evaluation of what used
dismissively to be called 'chateau generalship'. The battlespace
has been digitised: the connectivity that leaders thrive on is no
longer in the place it was.
In a corporate context, the revolution in digital communications
has meant that the leader has more information available both about
internal performance and the external environment than ever before,
and more effective tools to help in performing one of the key roles
of leadership: communication.
The key thing that 'e' brings to the table here is connectivity.
When the discussion turned to what our participants thought of
the way the 'e' is currently being used for learning, strong evidence
emerged of a failure of imagination in organisations. E-learning
is too often viewed as a way of dealing with the overload in training
requirement, with a consequent focus on reworking of existing training
materials at the expense of finding new, better ways to learn.
The result, in the 'soft skills' space that leadership training
occupies, has been too many programmes which are overly prescriptive
and which focus on predictable behaviours. If the programme thinks
it can contain the learner, it will not work. There must be room
for disagreement, and a challenging of received ideas.
What was clearly being formulated here was a call for a new concept
of learning, a more learner-centred model, with the learner taking
charge of their own learning path. After all, if this cannot happen
in the case of potential leaders, in what sphere of learning can
it happen?
It also became apparent that, in the specific case of e-learning,
connecting learners together in learning networks was if anything
a more significant part of the value of e-learning for this type
of training than the provision of online instructional content as
conventionally envisaged. This has been the experience of Platinum,
an online learning network developed by Epic for Senior Civil Servants.
The power of networking was generally acknowledged as a great strength
of the 'e' element.
Neither will mechanistic models of evaluation suit this new situation.
Doubts were raised over whether leadership development was something
that would ever be finished. In this situation, what constitutes
'completion'? New metrics might have to be found to measure success
and progress; perhaps along the lines - it was only half-humorously
suggested - of a golf handicap.
Discussion so far had implied a blended solution of some sort,
but attempting to define exactly how much 'e' should be in the solution
spurred disagreement. One participant alone felt confident enough
to put a number on it: '10%'. But this was generally felt to be
too low. In the end consensus gathered around the assertion that
the timing and quality of the 'e' involved was more important than
the actual quantity.
Next>>
Background
Part 1 Leaders vs. Managers
Part 2 Developing Leaders
Afterword
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