ABOUT THE LEARNED MANAGER
The Full Story
John F. Kennedy stated that “leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” In today’s ever-changing environment, no statement could be truer about the leadership endeavor. Learning, whether it be about ourselves, others, organizations, or our environment, is vital to the leadership journey. Inspired by my own research on Career-Related Continuous Learning and the Minerva Model, the Learned Manager Blog and website was put together to inspire, guide, and cultivate this process of learning and the indelible role it must play in today’s leadership.
When considering the topics that may be relevant to enhancing our leadership and innovation, the content we can draw inspiration from is boundless but content in the information age is just the first step. The rarity is finding leaders that know how to find, evaluate, analyze, synthesize, and ultimately utilize these cognitive processes to achieve their goals, the goals of their organization, and of those they lead. This means understanding how we can learn as individuals, groups, and adjusting course as a result of those learnings given the changing environment. It also means leaders have a duty to themselves and those they lead to develop the cognitive tools to solve real problems in and outside their organizations. These cognitive tools include understanding and implementing learning principles that create smarter leaders and organizations. These tools also include the capacity for creative and critical thinking skills that drive innovation for a better tomorrow. Finally, these tools include methods we use to research and study phenomenon that are grounded in the scientific method to help make decisions that create preferred outcome.
Leadership, in all its forms, truly does take from all human endeavors – psychology, literature, science, business, and religion – to understand the human condition. This is one of the reasons leadership is so difficult to pin down with just one theory. This blog and website is intended to take from these vast areas of thought and information and connect them to the cognitive tools and learning principles necessary to enhance learning and leadership in a complex world.
About the Author
Shane Horihan holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Organization and Mangement with a specialization in Management Education. Shane has conducted multiple studies on management and the factors that impact employee and organizational performance. With over 15 years of management, coaching and consulting experience, Shane bring a unique blend of research and active practitioner experience.