The Importance Of A Learning Environment For Creating The Right Leaders

In case you missed it, back in June we held a webinar called ‘What now? Building high performing leadership teams’. During the session, one of the topics our expert panel spoke about was learning environments. And Pete Lowe, Leadership Consultant and Author of “The Language of Winning”, shared some particularly great insights. As Head of Education and Performance Management for Manchester City Football Club from 2000 to 2013, Pete's work led to a tremendous victory for the team. Prior to this success, they hadn't taken home a trophy for 40 years. Their secret? A learning environment. Here, we break down Pete’s advice, uncovering why environment is key and how it can create the right leaders…

Share skill sets and knowledge

Pete says that every great culture has a great learning environment. People can learn from others, and draw on their capabilities and knowledge. Whilst you can opt for external training, and there are benefits to this, the best courses available are always inside your own culture. Leaders can create leaders. They set the tone that influences others. People will witness this and be encouraged to pick up the mantle and run for it. As a result, they’ll have a fantastic attitude, and come into the workplace every day wanting to achieve the best they can.

Allow people to show potential

On the same subject, it's important that this learning environment allows leaders to be their greatest. Pete found that although players may have potential, this doesn't necessarily result in talent. See, people need to be 'let off their leash' so you can see what their mind conjures up. They need to have a challenge mindset, as well as one where they learn from others. After all, if everyone thinks the same, nothing will actually change.

Learn from failure

The environment should also be on that sees failure in a positive light, rather than letting it hinder your progress. At the end of the day, you can't win every deal you go for, or score every penalty. Failure happens. It's all about what you learn from it. There's a quote that Pete likes to refer to by Kevin Roberts, former CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi: 'Fail fast, learn fast, fix fast.' If you realise why things went wrong, and learn from your failure, it's actually your next success. You can't have a survival mindset - you need to be willing to go for things again. It's crucial that you don't have a blame culture, either. Sometimes things go wrong. And whilst you do have to accept that failures will occur, to fix things, leaders need to act, rather than standing back and watching.

Find out more in our whitepaper

We've collated all the insights on the importance of a learning environment, plus other know-how from our expert panel, into a whitepaper: 'Is Speed Your Currency? How To Build High-Performing Agile Leadership Teams'. You'll also discover:

• The importance of agility
• Soft skills to build high-performing leaders
• Effective development and training
• How to spot your future superstars
• #1 tip for building high-performing agile teams
• How to recruit for agility

Download the whitepaper here