Reflective learning: a new leadership development framework driving engineering innovation

ABSTRACT

Innovation is an organizational learning process that demands a reflexive perspective to take on uncertainties and question deeply held assumptions, propelling leadership and organizational structures forward. Discussions on the relationships between innovation and reflexivity predominantly focus on individuals rather than considering it a shared capability within an organization. This study elucidates the impact of reflexive-learning-based leadership development on promoting collective reflexivity, navigating its implications for organizational leadership and structures in innovation. A reflexive-learning-based leadership development program is a set of collective actions comprising four fundamental steps: acknowledging problems, reassessing assumptions, thinking of alternatives, and developing new perspectives. This study demonstrates its effectiveness in developing collective reflexivity within an engineering organization by repurposing the After-Action Review (AAR) as reflexive learning training. The findings underscore reflexive learning, making leaders exhibit the traits of ambiguity tolerance and interdisciplinary knowledge that favor innovation. This research contributes to an academic framework, opening avenues for future investigations into organizational development from a reflexive perspective and providing a proven managerial practice to improvise an effective solution to overcome those uncertainties in real-world innovations.

KEYWORDS:

• Leadership Development
• organizational learning
• innovation
• reflexivity
• organizational structure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeremy Wei

Jeremy Wei is an instructor at Harvard University and holds the position of an adjunct professor at the University of Science and Technology of China. Additionally, he founded iDox.ai, a prominent AI-powered data privacy management solution, advocating digital civil rights. His research interests predominantly revolve around AI and data privacy, technology adoption, reflexive learning, leadership, and innovation. Wei earned his Ed.D. from New York University.