Successful leadership in learning requires both business and learning acumen as well as strong leadership skills. Business acumen is a must since a successful learning leader must be a business person first and a learning professional second. Ideally, the business acumen comes from practical management experience where the leader has honed the skills needed to lead and manage, regardless of the function. Next best, of course, would be an academic background in business even if this will be the first opportunity to apply the skills.

In my opinion, the learning expertise is less crucial for success than the business expertise –- at least for positions like CLO. Learning leaders without a training background or degree can still succeed if they surround themselves with learning professionals and are willing to learn from them and take their advice. This was my case as we launched Caterpillar University. Several of us in senior leadership positions had no experience or background in the learning field, but we learned from the learning professionals on the team. Would it have been better if we had both the learning and business expertise? Of course, and that should be the goal. If you cannot have both, however, be sure your senior leaders have the business acumen to succeed and be sure learning professionals are part of the senior leadership team.

Last, strong leadership skills are a must, and this may be more important for learning than many other functions. I say this in recognition of the challenge of running learning like a business and the fact that most learning functions are not run this way today. So, in these situations, a learning leader needs to be strong enough to challenge the status quo and take the learning function in a new direction. The leader will likely encounter resistance from both the learning staff and perhaps other learning leaders as well, and the resistance may be substantial. Success will require the creation and articulation of an outstanding vision and mission, and the establishment of challenging short and long term goals. The leader will have to rally everyone around these, overcome resistance and obstacles and then execute the new direction successfully.

Leading a learning function is not easy, but the opportunity to make a difference and contribute to your company’s success is tremendous. Get the business and learning expertise you need and then be ready for the challenge of your career!