How to Learn and Lead Through Crisis
Over two decades into the 21st century, a lot has changed within our communities across the globe. Right before the turn of the century in 2000, the big concern was a Y2K bug that prevents machines from reading dates in the new year resulting in utter chaos. At the local level, our communities were facing a myriad of issues related to school inequities, food insecurity, air pollution, etc.
Fast forward twenty years and we’re still experiencing those issues, alongside rising inequality, crime, corruption, hyper-policing, etc. But what about this global calamity called COVID-19? My Lord… the world is changing so drastically that leadership development among grassroots, governmental, and corporate sectors — to tackle these complex, intersectional issues — is needed now more than ever. The proceeding sections attempt to briefly point out some of the processes of learning experiential learning needed to meet this age of calamity.
The Learning Process
Since the eve of 2000, one thing has not changed. We still need leaders who are committed to a clear vision and can communicate that vision in a way that inspires. Such inspiration comes from much internal reflection and skill-based learning methods. Influential social change leaders are equipped to engage in various learning forms at individual, organizational, and societal levels. Gibbon (1990) refers to this process in terms of natural, formal, and personal learning.
Natural learning reflects an individual’s intrinsic motivation to acquire the skills to learn by interacting with others, exploring their environment, and practicing said skills. Those interested in making meaningful changes have taught themselves to speak a new language, use new computer programs, write and speak convincingly, and so forth. Accordingly, these leaders set goals, engage in active learning tasks, gain feedback from others, and continuously practice.
Formal learning is typically directed and assigned, requiring learners to acquire knowledge and training from, typically pre-structured, face-to-face, or virtual activities. The majority of leaders within the professional domain have spent a lifetime in formalized learning environments, from preschool to K-12 and collegiate settings. Even in terms of interests and hobbies, there are formalized learning programs on just about any subject.
Gibbons also speaks of personal learning as self-initiated, whereby learners decide what to learn, manage their knowledge, learn from experience, and take action. I have recently witnessed my son, an aspiring change agent, engage in self-initiated personal learning. Around the age of 14, with a highly-developed passion for learning his family’s ancestry, my son devoted much of his time to(1) gathering data from ancestry.com and similar programs, (2) calling family members with questions to help connect the dots, and (3) creating documents with family trees and descriptions.
At a personal level, I don’t believe he was even aware that his pursuit for ancestral knowledge had also developed his skills in research, data analysis, and communications. If he were still interested today, he could turn this passion into an entrepreneurial venture, particularly since he continues to conduct ancestral research for others. Furthermore, he could build upon his knowledge by applying critical thinking to examine deeper and broader justice and equity factors around ancestral knowledge.
Experiential Learning
At a natural, formal, and personal level, the learning demonstrated above can also be understood through the lens of experiential learning. Six propositions have been developed from 20th-century scholars such as John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, Jean Piaget, William James, Carl Rogers, and others. These propositions, suggesting that experience is central to human learning and development (Kolb & Kolb, 2005), are summarized as follows:
1. Learning is a process rather than an outcome;
2. All learning is relearned knowledge that integrates with existing ideas and beliefs;
3. Conflict, differences, and disagreement drive the learning process;
4. Learning is a holistic process of adaptation to the world;
5. Learning is a transactional process between the person and the environment; and
6. Learning is the process of constructing knowledge.
For social change leaders, it is necessary to experience, reflect, and act in ways that manifest the above suggestions. Kolb argues that while experiential learning involves a learning cycle of experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting, the process of acting is key to understanding. This is because action combines reflection and thought with the external world of experience (Day et al., 2009).
Experiential learning can come from informal forms of apprenticeships, clinical experiences, fellowships, internships, service-learning, simulations, student teaching, study abroad, volunteering, among others. However, I would add that experiential learning may also come through lived experiences through crisis and conflict.
Peterson (2006) suggests that experiential learning is not simply about learning a skill through practice. Instead, it requires critical thinking about the procedure and or experience to improve upon it.
Experiential learning has been visually displayed in the form of various learning pyramids. In 1946, educator Edgar Dale created a “Cone of experience” that showed different educational methods from tangible to abstract experiences. The cone’s top reflects verbal and auditory symbols, and the bottom reflects direct, purposeful experiences. The Learning Pyramid model suggests that the variance between study methods leads to deeper understanding and longer-term retention in terms of teaching and learning. (Education Corner, 2021).
Leading Through Crisis
As alluded to above, effective leadership development that addresses the needs of our ever-changing times requires learning processes that combine experience and practice. Social change leaders must devote attention to how to make sense of our changing society (sensemaking) and, in turn, learn how to learn (Schwandt, 2005). Kitchener (1983) offers some ways to enhance the capacity for learning how to learn, referred to today as epistemic cognition. These suggestions include (1) repeated exposure to paradox and other forms of dilemma, (2) increased dynamic tension and (3) exposure to different world views.
Lori Patton’s (2008), Leading through Crisis book offers practical advice for leaders who are learning through their personal experiences of paradox, tension, and diverse perspectives. Through interviews with African American students at New Orleans universities affected by Hurricane Katrina, she argued that “when conversations about human crises are ignored or rushed through, the learning process is stunted. Students lose a valuable opportunity to develop empathy and cultural competence” ( p. 11). Leadership development should, therefore, allow one to:
1. Look internally and tap into the spiritual self to find inner strength since life does not always provide easy answers;
2. Develop a sense of purpose and a personal plan since human crises rarely come with a warning;
3. Develop a sense of connectedness and establish meaningful relationships with people who can uplift you since material possessions fade away; and
4. Develop a sense of personal and civic responsibility through volunteerism.
Experientially, these learning lessons came from individuals who were closest to the Katrina tragedy, having experienced the paradoxes of the disaster personally. Patton (2008) suggests that those closest to any disaster are most likely to take important lessons from it than those who are farther from the situation.
There are specific strategies that may help facilitate learning among those who are less connected and transform human crises into teachable moments.
First, facilitators should ask learners to identify and consider local, national, and global questions raised by a specific event or tragedy. Here, it is crucial to create a safe environment for sharing honest thoughts and opinions. Facilitators themselves should also spend time processing their thoughts about humanitarian crises and become aware of their biases and emotions before engaging learners.
Secondly, leaders should set ground rules for discussion, including exhibiting mutual respect for people’s viewpoints, searching for commonalities, exercising empathy, and being willing to admit to errors in personal judgment and assumptions.
Thirdly, facilitators should focus on placing human crises in a larger cultural, historical, and political context, inspiring ongoing rich discussion. Such placement can be done by posing challenging questions, such as, why do things like this happen; how do human crises connect with different communities and groups of people; and how do we remain hopeful in uncertain times?
Such questions can help learners think about the deeper aspects of a systemic issue or crisis event and may prompt them to discover underlying factors that precipitated the situation.
Conclusion
As leaders continue to learn from unplanned crisis events and systemic issues within their organizations and society, it is vital to know the different learning processes. The above sections help to unpack our understanding of experiential learning concepts in order to better lead through crises. For more on organizational and social change leadership follow me Chanda Burrage
Day, D. V., Harrison, M. M., & Halpin, S. M. (2009). An integrative approach to leader development: connecting adult development, identity, and expertise. Psychology Press.
Education Corner (2021). The Learning Pyramid. https://www.educationcorner.com/the-learning-pyramid.html Accessed April 11, 2021
Gibbons, M. (1990). A working model of the learning-how-to-learn process. In R. M. Smith & Associates (Eds.), Learning to learn across the lifespan (pp. 64–97). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Kitchener, K. S. (1983). Cognition, metacognition, and epistemic cognition. Human development, 26(4), 222–232.
Kolb, A. Y., & Kolb, D. A. (2005). Learning styles and learning spaces: Enhancing experiential learning in higher education. Academy of management learning & education, 4(2), 193–212.
Patton, L. D. (2008). Learning through crisis: The educator’s role. About Campus, 12(6), 10–16.
Peterson, D. (2006). Overview and Definition of Experiential Learning. ThoughtCo. August 26, 2020. thoughtco.com/what-is-experiential-learning-31324.
Challenging, Allen (1971), The Adult’s Learning Projects. Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
Schwandt, D. R. (2005). When managers become philosophers: Integrating learning with sensemaking. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 4(2), 176–192.
