Leadership is not only about
influencing the behavior of others, it is about aligning your own purpose and
focus to achieve impactful results.
To this end, there is one
simple leadership practice that is absolutely critical: “reflection in action.”
After spending the last few
weeks coaching a number of leaders in various roles and sectors, I was struck
by the commonality of each of their needs. “I just need time to step back and
think more strategically,” was the refrain I heard over and over again.
It seems simple enough: give
yourself some quiet, focused time to think and strategize. Certainly research identifies
reflection as a critical practice for successful leaders. Schon, a leadership scholar, defines
“reflection-in-action” as a process that consists of developing strategies of
action, understanding phenomena, framing and reframing situations encountered
in day-to-day experience. Something truly effective leaders actively engage in.
At its root, reflection
requires time. And here is the rub. Who has the time? The answer is of course
that we all have the same 24 hours in a day. It is how we use it, what we
attend to, that makes or breaks us. If sleep was optional, there are some who
would skip it. They would of course get seriously injured or ill, but they
would have a few extra hours over the rest of us. Reflection is like sleep in
its criticality. Unlike sleep, it is optional. But without it, we often find
ourselves on the reactive rather than proactive side of the equation. We can
certainly survive. The question is, will we thrive?
To be an effective leader,
to be a strategic leader, we need to carve out some time each day, or, at a
minimum, each week to take stock of things, to look out toward the horizon, to
anticipate what’s coming and make preparations, to define where we are going
and forge the path ahead.
