Leadership Lessons
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January 30, 2018
Successful executives learn their most important leadership lessons through:
- 70% Challenging assignments (job changes and stretch assignments);
- 20% Other people (bosses, coaches, mentors, etc.) and
- 10% Formal courses and books. (source)
Learning is a life-long journey. “I learn best by doing.” Isn’t the ultimate goal of learning to be able to do the thing that we learned? Of course it is. So it is no wonder that the research from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) shows that successful executives need to actively apply the lessons they’ve learned. At The Ritz-Carlton, our Employee Promise states, “By applying trust, honesty, respect, integrity and commitment, we nurture and maximize talent….” we often ask clients which of these words is most important. The most important word is applying. If we can’t ultimately use and demonstrate what we have learned, have we fully learned it? Whether the task is physical or intellectual, we must be able to apply the information we’ve acquired through a formal class or from our boss, coach or mentor. The CCL article also provides very interesting data around the impact of culture from various countries in the learning process. We may each learn in our own way, but our end goal should be to make learning relevant by putting it into practice.