Create A Learning Environment
Beyond Empowerment BS - part 2
In my earlier newsletter, Why Empowerment is BS, I challenged the idea of empowerment: how I've often perceived it as empty rhetorics at best and hidden hierarchy at worst.
Instead, really supporting others to step into their strength is leadership at its best. In the words of Harvard's Marshall Ganz:
“Leadership is accepting responsibility for enabling others to achieve shared purpose in the face of uncertainty.”
In the last newsletter, I discussed one way to do this: Distribute Real Power - ensuring decisions, resources, and responsibilities are truly shared. But power alone isn’t enough. It needs to be accompanied by an environment where people can develop the skills, confidence, and mindset to use that power effectively.
For that, you have to create learning environment. Growth doesn’t happen on its own. You have to create the space for it.
A learning environment isn’t about formal training. It’s about building an environment where people can experiment, reflect, and develop new skills. But this isn’t as easy as it sounds, because real learning requires system, unlearning, and a willingness to be wrong before getting things right.
People Don't Learn In A Vacuum
Peter Senge, in The Fifth Discipline, defines a learning organization as one that systematically cultivates five key disciplines: personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking.
These elements ensure that learning isn’t isolated to individuals but embedded into the organization’s structure and decision-making processes:
Personal Mastery: individuals take responsibility for their own learning and skill development, continuously improving their expertise.
Mental Models: identifying and questioning ingrained beliefs and biases to improve problem-solving and adaptability.
Shared Vision: building a clear, collective goal that guides decision-making and ensures alignment across teams.
Team Learning: developing the ability to work and think together effectively, ensuring teams build on each other’s strengths.
Systems Thinking: recognizing how different components of an organization interconnect, helping to anticipate unintended consequences and optimize decision-making.
These five disciplines are anchored into everything the organization does. They enable learning.
But most organizations treat learning like a scheduled event. A training session, a seminar, an e-learning module. That’s not how real growth happens. Learning needs to be woven into the fabric of daily work, not something extra on top of it.
I’ve seen this challenge firsthand.
First, in one of my early leadership roles when I ran a feedback workshop for my team. People were enthusiastic during the session, but weeks later, nothing had changed. People didn't give feedback. Why? Because we hadn’t created ongoing structures to normalize feedback in daily work. Learning needs reinforcement, a process, a system - not one-time inspiration.
Later, I witnessed the same challenge in my training clients. No matter how inspiring, insightful or practical my trainings were: if clients had not thought seriously about how they wanted to integrate their learnings into their everyday work, learnings would extinguish like a spark in the rain.
The Hidden Challenge: Unlearning
Another hurdle to creating a learning environment: unlearning.
Sometimes, the biggest barrier to learning isn’t a lack of knowledge or skill; it’s holding onto outdated ideas.
I struggled with this myself when transitioning from an individual contributor to a leadership role. I had to unlearn the belief that my worth was tied to having the right answers. Instead, I had to shift my focus to asking better questions and facilitating collaboration. But to do that, I first needed to let go of the need to be the expert in the room. Always having or trying to have the answers didn't serve the team and was an obstacle.
This is a classic and very real challenge for most first-time leaders. The unlearning is uncomfortable, because it challenges your beliefs about what value you bring to the table. But it's ultimately necessary to make space for learning in your team:
You have to unlearn so others have space to learn.
Mistakes are Data, Not Failures
Amy Edmondson, in The Right Kind of Wrong, categorises mistakes into three types:
Basic mistakes are preventable errors that result from inattention or lack of skill and should be minimised through proper training and support.
Complex mistakes arise in uncertain environments where multiple factors interact unpredictably; these require reflection and adaptation rather than punishment.
Intelligent mistakes occur when individuals or teams experiment with new approaches, pushing boundaries in ways that may not always succeed but generate valuable insights.
Recognizing these distinctions is critical.
If all mistakes are avoided, teams become risk-averse and stagnant.
If all mistakes are welcomed, even if they are the same basic mistake repeated over again, teams become sloppy.
By distinguishing between preventable errors, complex challenges, and valuable experiments, leaders create a culture where learning is intentional.
This means establishing systems where people can analyze failures without fear, openly discuss lessons learned, and iterate on ideas without hesitation. When mistakes are seen as part of progress rather than personal shortcomings, teams become more innovative, adaptable, and resilient. The goal is not just to avoid errors but to develop the capacity to learn from them effectively. This approach reinforces psychological safety: people take meaningful risks when they know their learning process is supported rather than penalized.
This shift is crucial in building a culture that values learning over (misconceived) perfection.
Five Ways To Build a Learning Environment
Make room for mistakes. If people are afraid to fail, they’ll never experiment. Encourage experiments and frame mistakes made along the way as data to learn from. Ask both “What went wrong?” and “What did we learn?”
Encourage peer learning. People learn best from those around them. Run regular feedback sessions, peer-to-peer coaching, or even 'failure roundtables' where team members share mistakes and insights.
Offer time for development. Block time every week for skill-building or self-directed learning. If learning isn’t scheduled, it won’t happen. And: learning happens when applying stuff to a real project, not when consuming content.
Create short feedback loops. Skip the yearly performance review; people dread it because people are evaluated. Feedback should be about learning, not about performance evaluation. Make feedback a regular practice: monthly, weekly, daily. Coming out of an important meeting? Give each other feedback.
Model it yourself. As a leader, share what you’re learning - especially your own failures. People will take cues from you. If you never admit mistakes or gaps in knowledge, why should they?
Real Power Comes from Learning, Not Permission
Creating a learning environment is a far more effective alternative to empty 'empowerment' rhetoric. Instead of granting people symbolic power, you equip them with the tools, mindsets, and spaces to take responsibility.
When learning is part of how you operate, people don’t just perform. They evolve. They become more adaptable, more creative, and more capable of handling challenges of ever greater complexity. And ultimately, that’s the real goal: a team that isn’t just executing tasks, but constantly growing into its potential.
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