I’m not a learning leader and that’s not a bad thing.
I’m more an influencer. Ooooh. Yea I know that’s a loaded term these days. Seems hollow, but maybe it’s time to take it back and give it the prestige it deserves!
Don’t get me wrong, I think I bring value to this space. I still shape people’s thinking about org learning, I contribute ideas, and challenge assumptions. So why wouldn’t I still be a learning leader?
Well, because I think we’ve stretched the word “leader” too far. To me, leadership comes with decision-making authority. A leader can decide where resources go, what gets prioritized, what gets stopped, how the process operates and ultimately what happens. I was that once. I don’t have that authority (in L&D) anymore. I certainly have influence, I have experience, I have opinions (a lot of them 😉). And through my work at the Learning Guild, (where I am actually a leader in the event business) I even get to help shape some of the conversations this field has. But influence isn’t authority.
And I don’t think I’m really alone. I’ve said it before, if you spontaneously asked 5 professionals who their leaders are, I’d bet 5/5 would tell you the names of their managers, bosses and c-suite folks at work… not the person with a helpful YouTube channel or a former exec giving talks and certainly not me.
We’ve made “leader”, without decision-making authority, into a kind of compliment, something seemingly above the practitioner, contributor, advisor, expert or influencer. It shouldn’t be. Those aren’t lesser roles, they’re different roles with different and valuable ways of contributing. So maybe, just maybe, instead of trying to label everyone a leader in their domain, we should get more comfortable recognizing the value of people who aren’t making the decisions but influencing them. Those who move ideas forward not only those who have ideas.