After conducting research, it seems that having organizational leaders and executives that understand the importance of investing into their employees as humans and not commodities or resources of labor is one of the best ways to assess the potential of an organization’s ability to grow into becoming a learning organization. Worley and Lawler (2006) write that the effectiveness of change efforts “is largely determined by…how a company’s structure, processes, reward systems and other features are orchestrated over time to support one another as well as the company’s strategic intent, identity and capabilities” (p. 19). With that, organizations that truly want to change must realize that their companies will never succeed without the efforts and labor-based investments from their employees. So, an organization’s evolution into becoming a learning organization must first start with managers and executives learning how to change their theories of employee compensation, retention, and morale building.
One of the most important criterions that an owner of CEO should look for when trying to find the proper leadership for a learning organization is the level of a potential manager’s emotional intelligence. Palmer, Walls, Burgess, and Stough (2001) write that emotional intelligence has grown as a metric that recruiters use to find new leaders for their organizations and that “emotional intelligence correlated with several components of transformational leadership suggesting that it may be an important component of effective leadership” (p. 1).
Likewise, Chrusciel (2006) writes that including considerations about how to implement managers’ emotional intelligence skills into their leadership habits could positively affect their employees and influence the direction of their organization’s change philosophy and planning as well (p. 644). Knowing this, owners and CEOs need to assess how well managerial candidates can communicate with employees with varying personalities and levels of emotional intelligence and determine if they have the ability to properly motivate their teams while using transformational leadership strategies.
- Chrusciel, D. (2006). Considerations of emotional intelligence (EI) in dealing with change decision management. Management Decision, 44(5), 644-657. DOI 10.1108/00251740610668897.
- Palmer, B., Walls, M., Burgess, Z., & Stough, C. (2001). Emotional intelligence and effective leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 22(1), 5-10.
- Worley, C. G. & Lawler, E. E. (2006). Designing organizations that are built to change. MIT Sloan Management Review, 48(1), 19-23.
