From Organizational Learning to Theory U

"Leadership in learning organization centers on subtler and ultimately more important work In a learning organization, leader’s roles differ dramatically from that of the charismatic decision maker. Leaders are designers, teachers, and stewards. These roles require new skills: the ability to build shared vision, to bring to the surface and challenge prevailing mental model, and to foster more systemic patterns of thinking. In short, leaders in learning organizations are responsible for building organizations where people are continually expanding their capabilities to shape their future, leaders are responsible for learning" (Senge 1990, p.3). Developing an organization’s culture and modeling its evolution is the "unique and essential function" of leadership. In a learning organization, the critical roles of leadership have antecedents in the ways leaders have contributed to build organizations in the past. But each role acquire on new meaning in the learning organization and demands new skills and tools (Senge 1990).

Leader as design
The functions of a leader as design are rarely visible; they arise behind the scenes. The consequences that appear today are the result of work done long time ago, and work today will confirm its benefits far in the future. Those who aspire to guide out of a desire to control, or gain fame, or simply to be at the center of the action, will obtain little to attract them to the quiet design work of leadership (Senge 1990). "The first task of organization design concerns designing the governing ideas of purpose, vision, and cores value by which people will live", says Hanover’s O’Brien. The second design task includes the policies, strategies, and structures that translate guiding ideas into business decisions. The dynamic business environment and the commitment of learning organization have the task to engage people at all levels now make it clear that this second design task is more indirect. According to Mason and Mitroff, "the key is not getting the right strategy but fostering strategic thinking. More important is the need to achieve insight into nature of the complexity and to formulate concepts and world views for coping with it". Behind appropriate policies, strategies, and structures are important learning processes; their creation is the third key design responsibility in learning organizations. This does not exonerate senior managers of their strategic responsibilities. Actually, it intensify and extends those responsibilities (Senge 1990).

Leader as teacher
Leader as teacher doesn’t signify leaders as authoritarian expert whose job is to teach people the "correct" view of reality. Rather, it is about sustaining everyone in the organization, oneself included, to gain more insightful views of current reality. This is in line with a popular emerging views of leaders as coaches, guides, or facilitators. In learning organizations, this teaching role is created further by virtue of explicit attention to people’s mental models and by influence of the systems perspective. The role of leader as teacher begins with bringing to the surface people’s mental models of important issues. No one carries an organization, a market, or a state of technology in his or her head. What we sustain in our heads are assumptions. These mental pictures of how the world works have a significant influence on how we see problems and opportunities, identify courses of action, and make choices. Leaders as teachers sustain people restructuring their views of reality to see beyond the superficial conditions and events into to see beyond the superficial conditions and events into the important causes of problems and therefore to see new possibilities for shaping the future. Specially, leaders can have influence over people to view reality at three distinct level: events, patterns of behavior, and systemic structure (Senge 1990).
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Leaders as Steward
This is the most important role of leadership, in fact the roles of designer and teacher are almost a matter of attitude, whereas this one is a critical attitude for a learning organizations. While stewardship has long been recognized as aspect of leadership, its source is still not widely understood. Leaders’ sense of stewardship act on two levels: stewardship for the people they lead and stewardship for the larger purpose or mission that carry on the enterprise. The first type arise from a strong appreciation of the impact one’s leadership can have on others. People in a learning organization are more vulnerable because of their responsibility and sense of shared ownership. Appreciating this naturally give a sense of responsibility in leaders. The second type of stewardship arise from a leader’s sense of personal purpose and engagement to the organization’s larger mission. Leaders engaged in creating learning organizations naturally feel part of a larger purpose that goes beyond their organization. They are part of remodeling the way business operate, not form a vague philanthropic urge, but from a conviction that their efforts will perform more productive organizations, able to reach higher levels of organizational success and personal satisfaction than other traditional organizations (Senge 1990).