Carly Rexing

CTE 632
Fall 2015
Change and Leadership
I.

Introduction
Johnson (1998) tells us The only constant in todays environment
is change (pg. 142). Change is constantly occurring and constantly
reminding us to keep changing. An organization aspiring to be a learning
organization embraces this change and uses variations in three themes:
visioning, empowerment, and leading in learning. Learning organizations
contain leaders who can establish a balance between these themes in
order to prosper and grow.

II.

Accelerating Environmental Change

A. Factual Review:
Change is happening around us no matter how hard we try
to stop it. Johnson (1998) talks about those before us who brought
the idea of change into the limelight and noticed how much we did
not understand change in its entirety. He speaks of Toffler who
brought to our attention the importance of adapting to change, of
responding to the inevitability of change, and of recognizing the
irony that attempting to prophesy is extremely difficultespecially
with respect to the future (pg. 142). It is difficult for organizations
today to succeed if they do not embrace the movement of change.
Change is fierce and does not slow down; if a company is not open
to change they will fail.
Those surrounding change are the ones that form and mold
it into what it becomes; some will add to it willingly, and some will
ignore it and try to stop it but that causes the change to happen.
Johnson (1998) describes the organizational change process as a
cycle that includes creating knowledge, disseminating knowledge,
instituting the change, and institutionalizing the change (pg. 142).
While creating this knowledge and instituting the change it can
make you must learn. You must learn how to increase the change
and how to hold on to the change just enough to let it make you
and your company prosper. If learning is not equal to the rate of
change, the firm is falling behind, and slowly dying (Johnson, 1998,
pg. 142).
Johnson (1998) explains learning organizations to be willing
and committed to adapting, responding, anticipating, and learning
(pg. 143). In order to have a learning organization, you must be
willing to embrace change positively. You need to be proactive
and look into the future of your business. A learning organization is

one where people continuously expand their capacity to create the

results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of
thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and
where people are continually learning how to learn together
(Johnson, 1998, pg. 143). Creating what they need to in order to
keep up in this changing world and running with these creations to
better their company.
Johnson (1998) identifies Woolners five stages to becoming
learning organizations: The Forming Organization, The Developing
Organization, The Mature Organization, The Adapting Organization,
and The Learning Organization (pg. 144). The Forming
Organization is typically a new organization in the trial and error
stage of their company. The Developing Organization is where
organizations start looking for trainings and learning opportunities
beyond their walls. Learning is not easy in this stage. The Mature
Organization is finding the connection between learning and
economic advantages (Johnson, 1998, pg. 144). Learning is
becoming easier but is not first priority. In The Adapting Stage
companies define their objectives and search for ways to learn in
order to obtain these objectives. Leaning is still not second nature
but getting very close. Johnson explains the final stage, The
Learning Organization, as the stage where learning has become
part of the everyday routine. He also states, Learning is rewarded,
recognized as critical to the success of the firm, and implemented
as part of the strategic planning process (pg. 144).
B. Reflective Review:
Change is part of our lives inside and out. We are constantly
changing physically, emotionally, and academically. I find myself
realizing change way after it occurred because it isnt something we
can see right away, it can be slow. Change reminds me of growing
up, you dont realize you are growing up until you look back at
pictures or get a job for the first time or go off to college and think
back where did the time go? Organizations must have the same
realizations, they had to have started out as a thought or a need
and soon 2 or 3 people have the same thought or need which
brings them together to form a business. Then change occurs and
they grasp it, they must buy a place for their business, hire
employees, and soon they find them selves as a prospering
company, not just a small business.
My favorite quote in this section is from the Greek
philosopher Heraclitis, a person could not step twice in the same
river because the river was continuously flowing and changing (pg.
142). I teach four classes of 6th grade math and though each day I

teach each class the same lesson, it is never the exact same. The
students in each class make the environment, and essentially make
the learning process what it is/becomes. Different personalities,
different experiences, different questions, and different interests will
change how classes, or organizations, flow and learn. When people
ask how teaching middle is, I always respond with everyday is a
new day. This is true in a learning organization as well. In order to
make things work we must embrace the change we encounter or
we will fail as an individual, a group, and an organization. I am
encouraged to work harder to make changes in my learning and my
teaching by Johnsons definition of a learning organization. I must
challenge myself, and my students, to create what we want in our
education. I know what I want for them and I know what I want for
myself but I need to encourage them to make changes in their lives
for our learning organization to flourish.
III.

Examining Leadership in the Context of the Learning Organization

A. Factual Review:
Johnson (1998) asks a great question, What is Leadership
(pg. 144)? He then continues his question into what is a learning
organization? Both ideas are always changing, which makes it hard
for researchers and writers to define exactly what they are.
Johnson finds two assumptions about qualities he believes to be
found in leadership in learning organizations. The first is for
leadership qualities to look different than that of our everyday,
traditional organizational models. The other assumption is that
leadership needs to come from the top and not within the learning
organization.
Johnson (1998) describes that active participation by top
levels of management is needed to effect change successfully, and
that learning organizations cannot be built from within the training
department (pg. 145). Though leaders are not there to give stepby-step instructions on how to change, they are there to come up
with the ideas and give them to those below them. The workers
are to take those ideas and test them out.
Three themes are explained in this section: visioning,
empowerment, and the leaders role in learning. A leader must
create a collective vision of the future with other members of the
organization (Johnson, 1998, pg. 145). Then, this leader must be
able to communicate the vision to the organization and continue
this vision throughout the future of the organization. Empowerment
within a learning organization must be interactive, mutual decision
making about work challenges in which power for work outcomes is
truly shared (Johnson, 1998, pg. 145). It must be gained or given to

the right people, who know how to use the power for the good of
the organization. The last theme is the leaders role in learning.
Johnson (1998) explains, the leader must model continuous
learningis responsible for learning by building learning
organizationsand must become expert at learning in the
organizational context (pg. 146).
B. Reflective Review
It takes a leader to accomplish anything. Whether that leader
is yourself or someone else, nothing can be gained without
someone in the position of a leader. I truly believe that a learning
organization needs a great leader who can disperse their vision into
those below them. Someone has to be there to make sure
everyone follows the mission of the organization. If a leader allows
all of the employees to make the mission then there will be multiple
missions and no direction to go in.
Along with a vision, the leader needs to empower their
employees to better themselves, which will then better the
organization. Encouraging learning will give the employees the
empowerment to direct their learning. They will be able to find what
it is they need to learn and go about it in a way that continues the
same vision as the leader.
IV.

Leadership Qualities in the Learning Organization

A. Factual Review:
Johnson connects the three qualities of a leader, visioning,
empowerment, and leading-learning, to Woolners five stage
development model. In stage one, the vision of the organization is
undertaken. The Forming Organization needs to take the time to
find a specific vision in order to drive this company in the future.
This will cause the idea of empowerment and leading-learning to be
put on hold. The Developing Organization will have found a vision
and can start equally increasing empowerment and leadinglearning. In the third stage, The Mature Organization can reduce
visioning and increase leading-learning in equal proportions
throughout the five stages (Johnson, 1998, pg. 147). The
organization can now see the importance of learning for the future.
The Adapting Organization now has empowerment and leadinglearning at the top of the list and the visioning has focused on
becoming a learning organization. The final stage, The Learning
Organization shows empowerment and leaders role in learning
are at optimal levels (Johnson, 1998, pg. 147). The visioning is
strictly on staying the learning organization.
B. Reflective Review:

The five stages and leader qualities align well. It makes

sense that an organization needs to make a vision before they can
empower people or learn that they need to learn. It is almost as if
they need to put everything on pause until they find their vision.
Change will be occurring outside of their organization but until they
find a vision they will not be able to grasp the change and utilize it
to better their organization.
In order to become a learning organization so many aspects
of the organization need to sync together. It takes a lot of learning
and creating and changing to make an organization synchronized.
It reminds me of a singer making a CD. A CD needs songs, yet
songs need lyrics, and lyrics need a vision to come out on paper.
Therefore, the CD cannot be made without the first vision. That
vision can change and mold into something great.
V.

Implications for the Field

A. Factual Review:
The learning organization can be described as adaptive to
the environment and responsive to change (Johnson, 1998, pg.
147). When organizations have reached this level they will be able
to take change head on and even change the change. Johnson
reiterates the three themes described in the article: sharing and
communicating a vision, empower everyone in the organization,
and incorporate learning in the daily tasks. These themes can be
increased or decreased to allow the organization to move towards
the desired stages of a learning organization (Johnson, 1998, pg.
148).
Though the actual definitions of a learning organization and
leadership are still unclear, Johnson gave us a connection between
them both in this article. He also encourages everyone to take the
model within the article and play with it.
B. Reflective Review:
I really like how he says to play with the idea of a learning
organization relating to leadership. There obviously needs to be
leadership in all organizations, but this article has shown how
leadership is extremely important in the idea of having a learning
organization.
What I believe Johnson is telling us to do is to take from this
article what you can and change it or morph it into your own vision.
We will all read it differently, though we all see the same words.
Emphasis will be put on different parts of the article and different
details will be remembered.

VI.

Conclusion
A learning organization is always changing, shifting in different
directions as water does in a river. Rocks and other obstacles will modify
and transform the path of the water, combining it with other minerals and
elements. Change is constantly happening to this water as it does in our
everyday lives. A learning organization must take a journey through all five
stages, sometimes having to take a step back, but never skipping forward.
Within these stages the learning organization will play with the idea of
visioning, empowerment, and leading-learning. The emphasis will change
between each theme while going through each stage. It is hard to pin point
when and where to emphasize these themes but they will happen.

References
Johnson, J. R. (1998). Embracing change: A leadership model for the learning
organization. International journal of training and development 2:2.
Retrieved from https://online.csc.edu/access/content/group/51cd5bfe3ca0-48fc-a9c8-70580ae6c375/Course%20Documents/OrgEmbracing_Change.pdf