Líder educador: Um diferencial na cultura das organizações que aprendem

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to analyze evidence for the education and performance of educational leaders in a network of retailers who aim to build a learning culture, taking into consideration the perception of these leaderships, their staff, and other entrepreneurs through an action research. The company in focus works in the retailing trade, selling clothes and apparel, and it has 13 stores in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. This study was carried out using qualitative research, which was based on action research through interviews, reflection groups, focus groups and a logbook. We considered as participants all of the three directors, as well as the 13 leaderships and 13 collaborators from each leadership. The collected data was studied applying the concept of content analysis, which was defined considering the categories: 1 - Educational leader; 2 - Learning organizations, challenges encountered; 3 - Organizational culture, elements that make feasible and that make difficult the performance of an Educational leader. Each category gave origin to subcategories that were referenced in the techniques used in action research: Diagnosis- intervention and feedback. The revision of the theory covered the topics of educational leadership, initially emphasizing the characteristic of a Leader and Educator, and later considering those of a proper Educational leader, as well as organizations that learn the organizational culture. In order to contribute to the referred company, this research presented results which were transformed into products. Furthermore, it is believed that this may contribute to future research and to the personal achievement and professional fulfilment of leaders, together with the beneficial targeting of retail organizations and others companies which are willing to make use of a learning culture- “organizations that learn”.