Leading to Learn: Creating an Intentional, People-Centered Culture

The requirements to be an effective, people-centered leader are simple in concept, but more challenging in practice. How do you achieve business results while simultaneously developing people’s capabilities? And what do you need to do to develop yourself to successfully accomplish this?

A leader’s actions define them regardless of their function or seniority. You can be a leader at any level of an organization — either with or without direct management responsibilities. The actions you take to fulfill your leadership purpose and to help yourself, your people, and your organization succeed are large undertakings. Yet, when intentionally practiced, the outcomes can be transformative for everyone — yourself, your team, your organization, and your customers — and even those in your personal life.

These foundational practices of effective people-centered leadership will guide you on your journey to create a culture of learning that is built on the foundations of respect for people and continuous improvement, one person at a time.

The Leading to Learn Framework

In 2014 I had the fortune of meeting Toyota leader Isao Yoshino just six months before my family moved to Japan for a life-changing 18-month assignment.  At that first encounter, Mr. Yoshino was on stage at a lean conference with John Shook, the first non-Japanese employee at Toyota Motor Corporation, discussing their experience of working together at Toyota in the mid 1980s. Mr. Yoshino made a comment that struck me as particularly profound:  

My aim as a manager was to develop John by giving him a mission or target, and to support him while he figured out how to achieve the target. And as I was developing John, I was aware that I was developing myself as well. 

In this one statement, Mr. Yoshino described the essence of people-centered leadership and what it takes to create a learning culture, which I now call the Leading to Learn Framework. Through years of conversations together since Mr. Yoshino’s and my first meeting, my understanding of people-centered leadership and creating a culture of learning has deepened. I offer these lessons for you too in the bestselling book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Lessons from Toyota Leader Isao Yoshino on a Lifetime of Continuous Learning. In this article, I explore these core components of people-centered leadership and share ideas of how to bring these fundamental principles into your leadership practice.

A leader’s purpose is to: (1) set the direction, (2) provide support, and (3) develop yourself. 

1. Set the direction 

 “It is the lessons of not reaching your target that make you smarter.” – Isao Yoshino

Setting the direction, inspiring a challenge, and defining a target are critical components to effective people-centered leadership. The purpose of a challenge – or as Mr. Yoshino would say, a “seemingly impossible target” – is to stretch people to create new possibilities, to strive for bigger outcomes, and to support learning. Without a target, there can be no plan. The target sets the direction for which people can orient their actions. Strategies are the plans that show the way how to close a gap between where we need to go (the target) and where we are today.

When setting the direction and challenge for your people, consider these factors:

• Focus on what your customers need, not just on what is achievable. Many times, organizations focus their energy on what is within their grasp and don’t pause to reflect on what their customers actually need. When considering the direction for your organization and/or your team, start with what your customers need, and let that directionally guide your efforts. Challenge yourself to set “seemingly impossible” targets – ones that are not immediately obvious of how to achieve. This will challenge you and your teams to think innovatively and to learn from continuous cycles of improvement (and failure) along the way to achieve it.
• Don’t assume that your team knows the direction. Just because you as the leader know where your team needs to go, your people might not. You may not have adequately communicated it or explained the rationale. Or perhaps you haven’t even clearly defined it yourself! Define the direction and targets, and then reinforce them along the way. Tie the higher level targets into your team members’ specific job functions so that they can see how their work is crucial to direction of the organization. And remember when there are hundreds of organizational targets, there really are no targets or direction. Targets should focus on the vital few that will get you to where you need to go. Focus on what is most important to achieve and align your team to see their value as it relates to the overall direction.
• Be aware of systems and structures that are in place within the organization that support or inhibit the target.  I’ve collaborated with far too many organizations and leaders who find that their targets are connected with management incentive structures. This often results in leaders focusing on only what is achievable, rather than what is needed, as everyone wants to hit their bonus. While providing your team incentives along the way can provide motivation, be aware how traditional incentive structures might inhibit your people, and your organization, from achieving what is truly needed. Focus on the direction first — defining what your customers need — then align your systems and structures to support it.

2. Provide Support 

“My role as a leader was to help others develop themselves.” – Isao Yoshino 

People-centered leaders balance setting a direction that leads their people to embark upon a challenge with a genuine effort to support their people along the way. Being a leader means helping others learn how to solve problems – how to achieve the targets and challenges set out for them. It doesn’t mean owning the thinking, but it means owning the creation of the conditions for learning and setting up a work environment that is safe and conducive to your people to do their best.

If a leader only pushes toward a challenge, but does not provide the necessary support to their people in achieving it, people may be frustrated, give up, or even quit. Similarly, if a leader provides puts focus on caring for their team but does so without a direction that they are heading toward, the team may spend a lot of energy on initiatives not aligned with the needed outcomes. 

Create a Learning Environment: Over his 40-year career at Toyota, Mr. Yoshino first learned how to lead and, then led others to learn for themselves. He discovered early on in his career that a leader can’t directly develop other people or get them to change; instead, leaders can provide an environment that is conducive to learning and create the conditions by which people can change themselves. You can’t directly change a team member’s mindset, gift them with new skills, or be the source of answers to all of their problems. What you can do, however, is provide them the space to learn and fail, encourage them to learn from their mistakes and persevere when they experience set-backs, and create an environment that supports their success. You can be by their side while they learn new skills, or you can ask them questions to help them discover the answers themselves. You can support and nurture them as they grow and develop.

Providing “challenge” and “support” are like the yin and yang aspects of people-centered leadership: Setting a challenge while providing support are two critically important elements that leaders (and coaches) must provide to their learners to help them grow in confidence and capability – and achieve the necessary targets. It is through the struggle that happens when pursuing a challenge – yet knowing that we have the necessary support – where real learning and innovation happens. Below are three ideas to consider how you can help support your team as they work towards accomplishing challenges.

• Create the conditions for success. Provide your people with ongoing experiences that help them strengthen their skillsets and develop their confidence. Create conditions that allow them to learn, develop, grow and change in the process. Give room for learning — and for failing — and put as much energy in learning from failure as you do in celebrating success and achievement.
• Have patience. Learning doesn’t happen overnight. Be patient to allow time for people to think, struggle, fail, and learn. Don’t give in to giving answers just because you want “the answer” right now. Instead, reflect on your intention as a people-centered leader and how you can build in time to allow for learning, trial and error and discovery along the way. Ask more questions rather than just giving “your” answers. Patience will help empower your team to be innovative and take risks, to think more deeply, and generate even more ideas than you could alone, which in turn will create greater organizational capability to achieve challenges in the future.
• Help when people are stuck. While it is important to allow space for struggle, as struggle is where learning happens, as leaders and coaches we also need to assess when someone is truly stuck. Sometimes, people need us to step in for more nurture and support, to empathize with their challenges, to teach them a new skill, or collaborate together to think through issues.

3. Develop yourself 

“It is far better to know that we still have to improve than believe that we know everything already.” – Isao Yoshino 

And finally, being a people-centered leader requires humility to accept that you are not perfect, that you don’t have all the answers, and that you too need to always grow and learn more to improve yourself as a leader and a learner. This couldn’t be truer today as we continue to have to adjust how we are showing up in different environments – virtually and in-person – to support our people and to achieve outcomes.

Consider the following questions:

• How can become self-aware your own strengths and opportunities for improvement?
• How can you more effectively set direction?
• How can you more effectively help others grow and be successful?

Putting it all together

The role of a leader is to provide a challenge or direction and support their people to be able to achieve it, while always developing yourself at the same time.

By going to see and connecting with the people who do the work and showing that you care about them — you have the opportunity to align your team’s work with the organization’s needed direction in a well-informed and intentional way. By going to see you can focus on what your customers need, while caring for your employees who are helping to make that happen. Ask yourself how you can provide challenge and support – so that you and your team grow together and achieve your goals. Think about how you can be the kind of leader that allows your team to take risks while you take responsibility in creating the conditions for their learning and success. In doing so, you build trust, camaraderie, and a lifetime of learning opportunities along the way. 

Katie Anderson is a leadership & learning coach, consultant, speaker and author of the International #1 Amazon Bestseller Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Lessons from Toyota Leader Isao Yoshino on a Lifetime of Continuous Learning now available in paperback, e-book, and audiobook editions and the Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn Workbook, a companion guide to take the lessons from the book into your life. She has inspired thousands of leaders at companies around the world across diverse industries – including Roche, Facebook, and Toyota – to lead with intention to create cultures of learning.You can learn more about Katie at kbjanderson.com.

This article was compiled from the Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn Workbook and articles by Katie Anderson available on kbjanderson.com and LinkedIn.