Facilitating Learning

There is no more critical role for management than to help establish a climate for learning. How to do this? It may begin with holding reflective conversations with staff and colleagues. From the literature on expert sharing, we can point to the steps of modeling, scaffolding, and coaching. And in cases where learning hasn't been heretofore promoted, we can incrementally demonstrate leaderful behaviors that support learning, such as: endorsing risk-taking and experimentation, fostering critical reflection and questioning of existing practices and structures, tolerating ambiguity and even mistakes, and, of course, encouraging collective engagement.