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Earlier in this chapter, there was a discussion on what leaders can do to sustain their organisations. This section looks at how leaders should be for this purpose.

Kotter (1990, p104) states that leadership “is about coping with change” in order to cope with the business world that has become increasingly volatile and competitive. This change should be constructive and requires that leaders set a direction by developing a vision of the future and strategies that support the changes that enable the attainment of the vision. As such, a leader needs to be visionary. This vision will lead to the leader performing certain actions that contribute to the sustainability of the organisation, such as aligning people by creating coalitions and networks that encourage informal relationships and share information across the organisation (Dess & Picken, 2000; Kotter, 1990; Lee, Bennett & Oakes, 2000). A visionary leader is also able to motivate and inspire employees as this is key to generating highly energized behaviour “important for coping with the inevitable barriers to change” (Kotter, 1990, p107). This motivation involves stressing the values of employees, involving them in decisions regarding how to achieve the vision so as to encourage commitment to it (Dess & Picken, 2000), supporting their efforts to achieve the vision through coaching and feedback, and

recognising and rewarding success, which gives a sense that the organisation, in turn, cares about them (Kotter, 1990).

These values (be-ing) and behaviours (do-ing) exhibited by a visionary leader may appear to be manipulative – the leader acts in a certain way so that his/her organisation can continue into the future. However, a leader also needs to be credible so that his/her message can be believed. A number of aspects contribute to leadership credibility and include the track record of the leader, the message content, the communicator’s reputation for integrity and trustworthiness and the match between words and actions of the leader. Leaders should value strong leadership and strive to create it, and so develop a leadership-centred culture (not to be confused with a leader-centred culture) (Kotter, 1990). This may be challenging for the leader of a small organisation to do because, as discussed in Chapter Two, the leaders of small organisations tend to be owner-managers and may see an emerging leader as a threat because the authority, information and knowledge of the owner can be challenged (Wyer, Mason & Theodorakopoulos, 2000).

Leaders should also be servants and be willing to assume a variety of roles, such as coach, provider of information, teacher, facilitator, supporter, listener and decision-maker, depending on what the need in the organisation and for their employees is (Dess & Picken, 2000).

Evidence of leaders as servants can be seen in the creation of an empowering environment – one

“in which employees can achieve their potential as they help move the organisation towards its goals” (Dess & Picken, 2000, p22); where the needs of employees are served so that the leader does not have to do employees’ jobs for them, but the environment enables them “to learn and progress on the job” (Dess & Picken, 2000, p22). Such an environment produces business results as well as supports personal growth.

Where leadership for sustainability and a learning organisation meet

Chapter Two included a discussion on the type of leadership and culture that supports and is indicative of a learning organisation. These elements are common to the type of leadership and culture required for a sustainable organisation. However, a theme that needs to be stressed for leadership for sustainability and a learning organisation is servant-leadership.

Senge does not view leadership in the traditional, Western sense where “leaders are heroes who

‘rise to the fore’ in times of crises” (Senge, 1990, p340) to lead people who lack personal vision, are powerless and unable to master the forces of change. Senge’s view is far more dynamic in that leaders are “responsible for building organisations where people continually

expand their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models – that is, they are responsible for learning”, they empower people who at the end of a task can say “we did it ourselves” (Senge, 1990, pp340-341).

In a learning organisation, Senge (1990) sees the leader as performing three roles: designer, steward and teacher. The leader is responsible for designing the learning process and developing the vision, values and mission of the organisation; he/she is responsible for taking care of (stewarding) the organisation, its members and its vision, value and mission; and the leader is responsible for teaching or helping others to constantly see reality, the picture of the system (Senge, 1990). Such leaders are characterised by servantship and a willingness and openness to learn (Senge, 1990, p359), known as servant-leadership, which is a term originated by Robert Greenleaf:

The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead… The best test is…: Do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants. (Greenleaf & Spears, 2002, p27)

Senge has a non-traditional view of the organisation and as such it follows that he also has a non-traditional view of leadership. Servant-leadership is contrasted with traditional leadership and can assist in developing the five disciplines as can be seen in Table 4.4.

Table 4.4: Traditional vs Servant leadership and the five disciplines

Traditional leadership Servant leadership Discipline servant-leadership develops

Relies on facts, logic, proof. Uses intuition and foresight to balance facts, logic, proof.

Feels that personal value comes Uses humour to control others. Uses humour to lift others up

and make it safe to learn from mistakes.

Personal mastery

(Adapted from McGee-Cooper & Trammel, 2002, pp145-146).

If leaders are able to practise servant-leadership, it would seem that they would place their organisations on the path to a learning organisation. My experience, however, has indicated that there are very few leaders who practise this leadership style – they may display some of the characteristics of a servant leader as tabulated, but rarely all characteristics. As such, it may be necessary to have a team of leaders who are able to display all qualities between them. In small organisations, however, the owner-manager tends to be the leader, and so the gap in characteristics may be accentuated.

Although the traditional view of leadership may be presented in a negative light in Table 4.4 (p104), it is evident that this type of leadership is driven by attaining quick results, and the descriptions used indicate a style that can be readily employed in a fast-moving world.

However, this type of leadership can be a stumbling block to the learning organisation and can impede sustainability as little time is given to understanding the environment, with the result that action may be taken, but it may not be the appropriate action. The traditional view of leadership also tends to be so entrenched in organisations, individuals and leaders themselves that it seems necessary for leaders to change their existing mental models concerning leadership if they are to lead as servants so that their organisations can learn: “Servant-leadership requires a revolution in thinking, intention and practices applied first to oneself” (Showkeir, 2002,p159).

If such a leadership style exists in an organisation, the culture should reflect the corresponding values and behaviours.

Servant-leadership does not readily occur in many organisations as the basic assumption exists (largely throughout entire organisations) that only top management can cause significant change (Senge, 1996). Other hindrances to leading an organisation to learn are that leaders may view the learning organisation initiative as a fad; leaders encourage compliance rather than commitment to initiatives such as the learning organisation; and that leaders tend to use initiatives to encourage competition rather than collaboration (Senge, 1996). Thus, in order to develop the leadership that is required in a learning organisation, leaders need to be developed first (Charlton, 1992) and need to change their existing mental models concerning leadership (Senge, Kleiner, Roberts, Ross & Smith, 1994).

Organisations tend to have various mental models, for example that leaders are responsible for decision-making and that they are the only people in the organisation who are capable of this task (van Niekerk & Waghid, 2004). O’Brien of Hanover Insurance in the USA states that, “It’s not about making decisions. If I do a good job of understanding tough issues and clarifying and disseminating our principles, good decisions can be made throughout the organisation” (Senge, 1990, p346). With change in their mental models, leaders are able to change the systems, processes and procedures to support the changes (Senge, 1990).

In addition, leaders should display the disciplines of a learning organisation and in order to develop these disciplines leaders may be required to learn the skills that will enable them to display the discipline. A requisite skill for the disciplines of a learning organisation is that of critical reflection. This skill can be developed further if leaders have ‘critical friends’, as discussed in Chapter Two, to assist them in developing their ability to reflect critically.

Leaders contribute largely to the culture that is adopted in an organisation (Kotter, 1990). In order for an organisation to reflect a “learning culture” in a learning organisation, the support and commitment of leadership is required. The characteristics of a learning culture were discussed in Chapter Two, along with practices evident of a learning culture. In addition to this culture, the organisation should have an adaptive culture, enabling it to adapt to the demands of a changing environment in order to “secure its long-term competitive advantage” (Viljoen & Klopper, 2001, p54), that is its sustainability.

This culture can be brought about by organisations engaging in generative learning, resulting in learning organisations

that can transform themselves successfully, members share a feeling of confidence that the organisation can deal with whatever threats and opportunities come down the pike; they are

receptive to risk-taking, experimentation, innovation, and changing strategies and practices whenever necessary to satisfy the legitimate interests of stakeholders – customers, employees, shareowners, suppliers, and the communities where the company operates. (Viljoen & Klopper, 2001, p53)

To develop the leadership and culture that is necessary to bring about a learning organisation, which is a sustainable entity, the organisation is likely to experience a change process, which will incorporate developing the learning disciplines.