We can’t fail to have noticed the movement in leadership literature towards the criticality of leadership reflection.
Mindfulness is offered in the West as a cure-all (more on the nonsense of that subject in a future article) and leadership reflection has hired a PR agent.
But at what cost?
Are we at risk of losing the focus on high performance? It could seem that the dialogue has shifted so far from performance that we need to reset the balance sheet.
After all isn’t the purpose of leadership to accelerate performance?
At comma we hold dear our expertise in the leader’s inner world. It is here of course that most of the beliefs and behaviours are borne that disrupt our highest performance; so, it would be a bit of a missed opportunity, to say the least, to ignore the leader’s inner world. But make no mistake, we call forth high performance in the leaders that we coach.
Even Daniel Goleman, the creator of emotional intelligence, recently wrote in HBR:
“Ask any group of business people the question, ‘What do effective leaders do?’ and you’ll hear a sweep of answers. Leaders set strategy; they motivate; they create a vision; they set the culture.
Then ask, ‘What should leaders do?’ And, you’ll likely hear one response: The leader’s job is to get results.”
It’s a bit like confidence. You don’t become more confident by thinking about it, by endless internal reflection on it, the actions of confidence come first, and the feelings of confidence come later.
We must be careful not to lose the leaders results driven orientation.
Empathy, communication, adaptability, emotional intelligence, compassion. These are all skills you need to thrive in the workplace and become a great leader. But let’s remember to keep results orientation on the list.
Yes, reflection is critical but not at the expense of high performance. Leadership reflection needs to be tied to performance, after all self-reflection is about learning. When it is thoughtful and deliberate, it shows leaders how to extract from their past, how to engage in the future. Reflection is executive functioning. True courageous reflection galvanizes motivation. It promotes continuous self-awareness, it will empower you, and gives you the self-awareness you need to quicken achieving your highest performance.
Feature Image Credit: Photo by Miikka Luotio on Unsplash
