Are you learning to disrupt yourself?

Learning organizations arise from leaders who are self-disruptive.

→ This is the second in a 5-part series on building learning organizations. Read the previous post here.←

THINK ON IT: Are you learning to disrupt yourself? 

Last week, I wrote about how strategic leaders create learning organizations. 

The underlying assumption in that article is that leaders are themselves already learning. Complacent leaders don’t mind staying the same, and their organizations often reflect that. They may have a solidly performing business that serves a core group of customers, but never grows. They may see good returns, but never great ones. They may weather a few light storms, but are wholly unprepared for a changing sea. 

Strategic leaders create change and aren’t afraid to disrupt themselves. Nor are they afraid of the discomfort that comes with that disruption. 

Whitney Johnson, CEO of Disruption Advisors and a top global business thinker, says this about personal disruption: “Disruption by definition involves moving sideways, back, or down, with all the negative connotations that conjures, in order to move forward.”

Disrupting yourself is a necessary step to maintain healthy leadership growth – and it probably isn’t going to look like linear success. Self-disruption means being willing to be a beginner again, to recalibrate to a new learning curve. And this new learning curve creates an insatiable appetite to learn. 

Strategic leaders need to disrupt their own companies. But even more importantly, they need to disrupt themselves. 

Are you learning to disrupt yourself? 

Premium Members, read on for some steps to start your personal disruption journey. (Become a Premium Member. Paid subscribers get access to nearly 100 tools and how-tos on implementing strategic topics, including a 7-part series to help leaders build their own strategic capacity.)

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” — John F. Kennedy

---

Thanks for being a subscriber to Strategic CEO. If you enjoyed this post, please share it with a friend or colleague.