Leadership and Learning at Work: A Systematic Literature Review of Learning-oriented Leadership

Abstract

Contemporary organizations must be adaptive and agile as the environment changes. To respond to change, leaders must find ways of integrating learning into everyday work experiences. This invites the question: how do leaders facilitate individual, group and organizational learning? Several studies have examined relationships among leadership and learning and potential mediating and moderating variables. However, because this literature is extensive and fragmented it is difficult to discern what is known about how leadership contributes to individual, group and organizational learning. Accordingly, there is a pressing need to assemble and evaluate the existing studies. To address this limitation of the literature, this paper presents a systematic review and critique of literature in this field. Our review of 105 studies suggests that there are statistically significant relationships between different types of leadership and learning at the individual, group, and organizational levels. Furthermore, the findings indicate that these relationships are often mediated by other variables. However, little is known about moderators and boundary conditions. Based on the findings, it would be premature to say with certainty that leadership causally influences learning, since the empirical basis for such a claim is lacking. We outline the conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and empirical refinements needed to guide future research on learning-oriented leadership and advance this research trajectory. The findings of our review and our conclusions will be informative for researchers and practitioners.

CEO anger: a catalyst for error recognition and learning

“…With our focus on CEO anger as a trigger for organizational learning, we are taking a more micro examination of leadership/organizational learning. For example, Lundquist et al (2023) provided a significant literature review on leadership and learning. One finding was the extensive focus of leadership styles on learning, including transformational, transactional, charismatic, inspirational, and servant-oriented.…”

The impact of leadership on the workplace learning of individuals and teams: a literature review and synthesis

“…Research about the relationship between leadership and workplace learning have been recently reviewed by Lundqvist, Wallo, Coetzer & Kock (2023), who assembled and evaluated existing quantitative studies about the relationships among leadership, learning and potential mediating and moderating variables. Lundqvist, Wallo, Coetzer & Kock (2023) found statistically significant relationships between different types of leadership and learning at the individual, group and organizational levels, but also that the empirical basis for causality claim between leadership and learning influence is missing in research. Knowledge about boundary conditions and moderators was found to be scarce.…”

“…Knowledge about boundary conditions and moderators was found to be scarce. According to Lundqvist, Wallo, Coetzer & Kock (2023), this research area seems to be generally oriented toward quantitative methodology. Future research should seek to use high-quality, longitudinal research using identical data collection instruments in different contexts and among different occupational groups (Lundqvist, Wallo, Coetzer & Kock, 2023).…”

“…As publication in a high-quality journal is an important criterion in this review, final selection should include studies using qualitative, quantitative and theoretical literature-based studies, adding width and relevance. This review is needed because of the limitations of prior review in their focus on quantitative research only (Lundqvist, Wallo, Coetzer & Kock, 2023) and their differing focus on the contribution of learning-oriented leadership on learning on an individual, group and organizational level – excluding the concept of workplace learning. Workplace learning is in this review conceptualized as learning at an individual and group level in an organizational context (Garavan et al , 2002), and workplace learning is thus the main concept of interest in this review in its relation to leadership in the included studies various definitions and conceptualizations.…”

Transformational leadership and learning flows

“…Leadership is “the collective capacity of organizational members to engage effectively in formal and informal leadership roles” (Hannah & Lester, 2009, p. 35), and leaders orchestrate the learning processes and are seen as the social architects of learning in the workplace. A recent review (Lundqvist, Wallo, Coetzer & Kock, 2022) states that significant studies focus on the connection between leadership and organizational learning (macro) and a dearth of studies connecting leadership and individual and team-level learning. A review article (Do & Mai, 2020) identifies a gap stating that studies are scarce on how leadership facilitates all levels of learning.…”