Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott J. Allen, Ph.D. Exploring with Purpose (3) with Dr. Jonathan Reams
7 snips
Oct 22, 2025 Join Jonathan Reams, a leadership researcher and former NTNU faculty, as he delves into the complexities of leadership development. He explores how context shapes learning, likening leadership to everyday helpfulness rather than technical skills. Reams emphasizes the importance of self-regulation, stating, 'leaders create the weather' for their teams. He also introduces practical strategies for fostering a growth-oriented learning culture, highlighting the significance of micro-skills and iterative experimentation in leadership development.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Vertical Versus Horizontal Learning
- Vertical vs horizontal development distinguishes transforming structures of thinking from adding skills into existing structures.
- Dynamic Skill Theory shows learning depends on context and chunking building blocks into higher-level performance.
Context Shapes Skill Transfer
- Context deeply shapes whether a skill transfers across domains and how building blocks chunk together.
- Leadership-like complexity depends on interwoven environmental, social, and cognitive factors, not isolated tasks.
Schein's Street-Level Helping Example
- Edgar Schein asked a simple directional question and avoided taking someone the wrong way, illustrating subtle helping skill.
- Helping others requires quiet self-regulation and downregulating the need to be right or clever.
