The importance of the growth of one’s leadership cannot be understated. Leaders need to learn and grow in order to keep up with and maintain their followers. There is an approach to leadership improvement I read on some time ago that suggested for leaders to grow and learn they need to utilize a three-pronged attack:

First, they need to undertake challenging real-life tasks that will require them to step out of their comfort zones. These tasks will require better skills to solve, eventually developing new skills for a leader. An example of such a task is turning around an abandoned project.

Leaders need to engage in activities that create a social environment which facilitates interaction, this will encourage learning within a group by working in teams, sharing ideas, experiences etc. This is also an opportunity for a leader to learn from others and receive feedback and insight on their leadership. Fellow leaders, coaches, and mentors can also provide the insight.

Lastly, leaders can learn and grow via training, seminars, workshops, and courses. These formal methods will assist a leader to change their way of thinking and possibly change their behavior too.

Leaders can keep growing and learning by learning from their mistakes, listening to their followers and by always making new goals to achieve.

No one is perfect so everyone makes mistakes, these can turn into learning opportunities and consequently growing opportunities. If leaders don’t let their pride get in the way and accept to recognize their mistakes, they can see what went wrong and how to solve them, learning from the experience.

Leaders aren’t always in touch with every little detail in the organization so by listening to their followers they can learn about their what is lacking in the organization, what is affecting its productivity and how to improve it. Listening to followers gives a new perspective that can make a leader learn a lot and see the organization and its operations in a new light.

By always making new goals, the leaders will always have a reason to keep improving themselves instead of simply settling and let things go stale.

I had the chance to participate in a project where informal ways of education were practised where the individuals were learning how to lead using techniques like playing on instruments, improvisation, theatre and narrating stories. From my point of view, except from the traditional ways of learning, such workshops are quite useful since they give everyone the opportunity to do totally unusual things in order to come to a solution of a problem. This methods help the leaders not only to grow but also to challenge their perspectives about themselves and the way their leadership is accepted. Also, reading fiction is a must for me. Even though it might be seen as an outdated or even useless idea, it helps you come with new perspectives.

By always nurturing curiosity and never feeling satisfied. Curiosity is a great character for a leader because it means s/he would always find a way to improve and open to new suggestions and knowledge. Even the smartest boss like Bill Gates must learn ways to listen and grow. If you have 5 people in your organization, you’ll be able to get 5 different opinions about the same thing and what experience beyond that. When a leader feel satisfied for what s/he had achieved, at that moment, the door to many new opportunities closes. Satisfaction blocks the creative mind and numbs the curiosity. It will have no use in a fast changing life such as the world we live in now. A good leader always keep the mind sharpen, always update with the latest news and technology and figure out which one that can be applied in the organization to make it grow bigger and stronger. Maintaining relationship with other leaders is also helpful to exchange and share experience.

In my view, one really becomes an adult when you realise that you don't know the answer to everything! A leader who does not listen to his/her colleagues, who isn't receptive to new ideas, who has no desire to learn new things, can prove to be a serious obstacle to his organisation's progress and performance.

We can all learn from each other. Everyone has something to offer and everyone possibly / probably has something different to offer from their other work colleagues. This is a resource that any good leader must know how to tap into. Saying "we have always done it this way" is dinosaur-speak. In this rapidly changing world, a leader must be aware of or listen to those who understand the importance of new technology or developments and be willing to explore the potential benefits for their organisation. By growing themselves, leaders will be able to mentor new or junior team members and encourage them to learn and grow themselves. And, additionally, it is likely to make their own position more secure because of their experience and constantly evolving breadth of knowledge.

The role of a leader includes inevitable learning and growth in itself. One cannot be a leader if immune to the growth and learning that accompanies any leadership role. Some conscious ways to ensure that a leader makes the best out of their role to lead, learn and grow are:

• Inculcating reflective practices in everyday tasks that help understand areas of development and leverage.
• Consistently collecting and implementing feedback from team
• Putting structures in place to debrief and review actions with team that can lead to growth
• Using resources within and outside the organisation to acquire knowledge that can develop the team and self

Leaders can keep learning and growing simply by gaining experience, keep an eye on wrong steps and mistakes they did in the past and nurture the choices and tools that appeared to be effective in the past. It is important as well to communicate with their followers and other leaders in order to exchange ideas, opinions etc. We all learn through our whole life, some things we learn from books and some things iife teaches us itself.