Introduction
Most organizations establish learning cultures to capitalize on the departing employees to pass knowledge on to the current workforce. A learning culture helps organizations build a workforce with the correct knowledge and expertise, thus enabling seamless successive planning. Organizations always establish outstanding cultures that allow knowledge to be shared easily among employees (Basten & Haamann, 2018). As a Chief Learning Officer, my organization should establish a strategic learning plan to address the current problems, like establishing a good relationship with employees. As a result, the development of a strategic learning plan will be crucial to the organization to ensure that departing workers pass knowledge to other employees to increase the competitive advantage through improved performance, thus creating an outstanding learning culture.
Process of Developing the Organizational Learning Plan
The learning plan should ensure that employees acquire exceptional leadership competencies to advance their careers and even become effective leaders. The plan should align with all organizational stakeholders’ needs to avert unnecessary resistance and achieve smooth implementation (Smerek, 2018). The process of developing the learning plan will entail several steps to successfully address the current organizational problems. The first step will revolve around assessing the learning needs of employees to identify their values, skills, and existing gaps to comprehend what the workers should learn. This aids in determining the needs of the current employees to comprehend the competencies they need to be successful.
The second step in the process of developing the learning plan will entail identifying the learning goals of the employees and organization to comprehend the anticipated preferences. Thirdly, identifying learning resources like the required people, technology, and learning materials will be essential to ensure that employees acquire the right skills (Smerek, 2018). The fourth step in the development of the plan is the involvement of the relevant stakeholders that comprehend the day-to-day operations of the company. Stakeholder involvement helps avoid unnecessary conflicts and resistance, which may derail the attainment of the projected goals. The last step is organizing the company to achieve seamless implementation of the learning plan.
Key Theories to Use to Inform the Learning Plan
Theories are essential in organizational learning as they help learners acquire the needed competencies. Effective learning plans utilize theories to impart reliable knowledge to the learners. Theories are mostly used because they are built on applicable and testable concepts that can be easily integrated into learning plans to attain the projected objectives (Bratton, 2020). As a result, the organization’s learning plan should incorporate relevant leadership concepts to assist the current employees in acquiring incomparable knowledge that can be shared with the future workforce.
The various leadership theories exist to provide vital concepts and guidance to ensure that organizations achieve their anticipated objectives through good leadership. Most leadership theories produce diverse leadership perspectives, which offer leadership development, direction, and commitment (Bryman et al., 2011). The fundamental theories that will inform the learning plan include psychoanalytic approaches to leadership theory, leadership-as-practice theory, and critical leadership theory to ensure that employees have outstanding competencies to share with others.
Psychoanalytic Approaches to Leadership Theory
The psychoanalytic approach focuses on an individual’s unconscious dimension and how it affects personal and social life. The unconscious dimension affects a leader’s behavior and determines why followers accept leaders. This approach to leadership holds that effective leaders address followers’ unconscious needs and behaviors (Schedlitzki & Edwards, 2021). As a result, the psychoanalytic approach to leadership allows organizational members to comprehend how successful leaders establish a good relationship with their followers to effortlessly achieve their goals. Additionally, the psychoanalytic approach will ensure that the learning plan focuses on political leadership to effectively politics in the workplace.
The psychoanalytic approach will ensure that the learning plan integrates fundamental charismatic styles of leadership. The main forms of charismatic leadership extend to include socialized and pseudo-charismatic leadership. Socialized charismatic leadership demonstrates how leaders utilize values, while pseudo-charismatic leaders manipulate followers for personal gains. As a result, employees should comprehend all forms of charismatic leadership. The approach introduces differentiated and cognitive leadership, which should be incorporated within the learning plan (Bryman et al., 2011). Differentiated leaders utilize distinct traits, while cognitive leaders comprehend what needs to be done to attain efficiency.
Leadership-as-Practice Theory
The learning plan will incorporate leadership-as-practice theory, which acts as a distributed and shared leadership within the organization. Practice leadership usually offers the right support to followers to aid them in attaining the anticipated results. This theory will ensure that the plan demonstrates how practical examples can be utilized to guide leaders (Raelin, 2016). The use of the theory further introduces leadership traits which are crucial for the plan to make sure that leaders in the organization learn how to become effective and ethical.
The leadership-as-practice theory introduces adaptive leadership, which should be incorporated within the learning plan to aid leaders and employees in understanding how to work in challenging settings. Employees should be taught how to achieve results in challenging environments to improve organizational performance. Additionally, the theory reveals how leaders can maintain workplace democracy by providing equal opportunities to all individuals (Raelin, 2016). Workplace democracy is a crucial aspect that should be included within the learning plan to create a healthy workplace environment.
Critical Leadership Theory
Lastly, critical leadership theory will be used to inform the learning plan. The theory concentrates on subjectivity to improve the well-being of individuals. As a result, critical leaders address the needs and concerns of employees and other individuals before handling their personal issues. The learning plan should exhibit how the well-being of the workers can be improved to refine their potential (Western, 2019). Improved performance among the employees helps them attain promotions to assume higher positions.
Critical leadership theory introduces gender and leadership issues where leadership is required to maintain gender equality. Both male and female workers within the organization ought to be provided with the same opportunities to advance their well-being and performance and avoid discrimination. A decision to offer opportunities to all employees helps in embracing workplace equality. The learning plan should demonstrate how gender equality should be maintained in the organization (Bryman et al., 2011). Additionally, the theory introduces the need for organizational culture and leadership where companies must establish strong cultures that encourage growth, hence a crucial issue to include in the plan.
Why the Theories are the Most Important
The theories that will be used in the learning plan are important as they provide reliable concepts that match the desires and objectives of an organization. Consequently, the theories can refine organizational performance to increase overall profitability. Additionally, the theories concentrate on workplace issues like good leadership, gender equality, and workplace democracy to polish the existing reputation (Bryman et al., 2011). This will ensure employees and leaders attain outstanding competencies and knowledge that will ultimately advance organizational competitiveness. Therefore, the various leadership theories utilized in the learning plan are capable of augmenting the existing competitive advantage to outshine potential rivals.
Deploying the Learning Plan
The learning plan will be deployed to generate significant positive results and maintain improved performance. The plan will be used to train the existing employees and leaders to acquire unique leadership skills. Equipping workers with the appropriate skills aids them in becoming better leaders and progressing in their careers. The learning plan will be utilized to ensure that employees understand continuous knowledge sharing to create a strong culture.
Measuring the Strategic Impact of the Learning Plan
The strategic impacts of the learning plan will be measured by determining the participants’ reactions to find out whether the plan was favorable and relevant by use of surveys. Secondly, workplace observations will be used to measure the change in behavior from the plan to check whether employees apply the concepts learned (Sadler-Smith, 2021). Lastly, changes in organizational performance, employee reviews, and return on investment will be utilized to measure the results of the plan to determine whether employees and leaders acquire the desired skills.
Conclusion
Organizational issues can be handled by creating a learning plan that fits the needs of the employees. Departing workers must learn to share knowledge to create a good culture that supports organizational growth. The employees learn how to share essential skills and knowledge, which are crucial in increasing competitive advantage to outshine potential competitors. However, the learning plan must integrate different leadership theories to offer diverse leadership skills and refine organizational performance. The impact of the strategic learning plan can be measured by assessing reactions, behavior, and results within the organization.
References
Basten, D., & Haamann, T. (2018). Approaches for organizational learning: A literature review. SAGE Open, 8(3), 1-20.
Bratton, J. (2020). Organizational leadership. SAGE.
Bryman, A., Collinson, D., Grint, K., Jackson, B., & Uhl-Bien, M. (2011). The SAGE handbook of leadership. SAGE.
Raelin, J. A. (2016). Leadership as practice: Theory and application. Routledge.
Sadler-Smith, E. (2021). Human resource development: From theory into practice. SAGE.
Schedlitzki, D., & Edwards, G. (2021). Studying leadership: Traditional and critical approaches (3rd ed.). SAGE.
Smerek, R. (2018). Organizational learning and performance: The science and practice of building a learning culture. Oxford University Press.
Western, S. (2019). Coaching and mentoring: A critical text (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications.