How to help your leaders reflect
Reflection is a crucial tool for leadership development, given its vital role in supporting behaviour change. It allows the brain to pause, take stock, and make space for intention and choice. It does this by untangling experiences, emotions, and observations, considering possible interpretations, and creating meaning. This ‘meaning-making’ is crucial to leaders’ ongoing growth and development, given its power to deepen self-awareness, understanding of others, and appreciation of context.
As psychologist and educational reformer John Dewey said, “We don’t learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.”
Given the benefits, what can you do to help your leaders reflect?
One of the most practical strategies to recommend to your leaders is defining a set of questions to anchor their reflective practice. These questions activate the conscious mind by shifting leaders from autopilot to deliberately focusing their thoughts on their goals. They work best as open-ended questions (phrased in a way that can’t be answered with a simple yes/no), and the easiest way to do this is to begin each one with ‘What…?’ or ‘How…?’
Here are three question sets to get your leaders started:
Priority Check
What is my greatest leadership priority right now?
What am I currently doing or not doing that demonstrates this is my top priority?
What needs to happen next?
How will I make that happen?
Who or what do I need to support me?
Highlights Reel
What has been my leadership highlight this week/month?
What has my leadership lowlight been?
How did I personally contribute to this highlight and lowlight?
What are my key takeaways from these two different experiences?
What do I need to do more of or less of to create more leadership highlights?
Progress Tracker
What progress have I made on my leadership development goals?
How satisfied am I with my progress?
What factors have contributed to this progress?
What factors have got in the way?
What do I need to do differently to make more progress?
Encourage your leaders to make self-reflection a regular habit. Suggest that they ‘have coffee with themselves’ or find another ongoing time or activity to reflect on their question sets, ideally at least weekly. Changing up their questions whenever necessary can keep the process fresh and insightful. By keeping their questions handy, such as on a post-it note or in their notebook, leaders can stay primed for reflection throughout their day-to-day activities.
Finally, remember that leadership is busy; reflection is still.
Sometimes, taking a breath and sitting quietly for five minutes is all leaders need to get started.
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