Leadership Development

“Leadership Development via Action Learning”, by H. Skipton Leonard of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, and Fred Lang of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington D.C., was one of the most frequently read articles in Advances in Developing Human Resources in 2010. Here is a brief reflection from Skipton Leonard:

I have been quite fortunate to be in the leading edge of consulting psychologist scientist/practitioners in the US to apply Action Learning to develop individuals, teams and organizations. I was quite experienced in the experiential methodologies used in the US over the past 3 or 4 decades and believed that what I had been doing all these years was Action Learning. It was only when I started using the principles and practices of the Action Learning methodology that Dr. Mike Marquardt had been developing that I began to appreciate and understand how much more effective this disciplined approach was than the methods I had used in the past (and got pretty good results from).

This methodology is still evolving and we are strengthening our research to determine was works, what can be improved, and what changes we will try going forward. These are the questions that have always advanced the practice of Action Learning and will continue to do so in the future.