learning to learn
While leadership competencies such as passion, focus, enthusiasm, accountability and teamwork can make anyone more successful, the mastery of the leadership competency learning to learn will take any individual as far as they want to go in life. The knowledge that we can learn new things, think new thoughts, develop new talents, and hone new strengths, makes anything possible. Most people do not recognize that we can learn anything we want to. True leaders grow, change and learn every single day to unleash their leadership potential. They become better team players, they hold themselves more accountable, and they discover the power of enthusiasm – not because they are born with a natural brilliance for it – it’s because they have learned how to learn.
As adults, we tend to have an unspoken assumption that if something isn’t simple, task related, an already developed strength or talent, then we just can’t learn it. It is commonly believed that we have things we are good at and things we are not good at, and by the time we reach a certain point in our life, we have begun avoiding those things we struggle with. The belief that each of us has a finite set of talents leads to such common comments as “she has a head for math” or “he’s a natural salesman.” As time goes on, we settle in our personalities, reach a desired skill level, only learn something different when the need arises, and begin forgetting not just to learn new things, yet ultimately how to learn.
Fortunately, modern neuroscience has been proving these assumptions about learning completely untrue. Recent scientific developments have been able to prove that we continue to learn our whole lives, and they even show us how to capitalize on our brain’s power to learn. By being aware and constantly working through methods to learning, we become better individuals, team members and leaders.
As our brain develops, we begin to forge the neural pathways that allow us to do different things. When we first begin working on a new skill, like tying our shoes, we are clumsy and awkward. As we give our attention to the skill, it develops further, so do the neural pathways that the thoughts travel through to tell our fingers what to do. When we do this often, the pathways become so developed that our brain sends the signals through it instantly and we begin to tie our shoe unconsciously – we no longer have to think through the steps. This happens every time we give our attention to learning and mastering a new skill. As we get older, we form more of these pathways for everything we do. The more we use them, the stronger they become, and the actions associated with them become unconscious reactions. Eventually, these pathways become so ingrained in our brain that we start using them for almost everything we do – from the moment we wake up and get dressed, to the moment we get home, go through our nightly routine and go to bed. Even at work we have a system that gets us through the day and the workload in front of us, and we only feel challenged when we have a project or task that takes us out of our comfort zone and forces us to use old neural pathways or to create new ones.
Developments in the neuroscience of leadership eliminate the excuses that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks and the statement “that’s just the way I am.” Becoming more self aware, practicing new behaviors, receiving feedback, and improving focus are all steps to learning. These steps to learning parallel the same steps that an individual engages in during a Rapport Leadership International training class, so that you not only learn leadership behaviors, you also learn how to learn! As neuroscience and leadership development progress, we will all benefit from the opportunity to learn forever.
This issue of the Rapport Connection’s process of the month will address 7 Levels of Learning to help develop the skill of learning and the ability to create new habits.
