self reflection essay leadership

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Don’t Underestimate the Power of Self-Reflection

  • James R. Bailey
  • Scheherazade Rehman

self reflection essay leadership

Focus on moments of surprise, failure, and frustration.

Research shows the habit of reflection can separate extraordinary professionals from mediocre ones. But how do you sort which experiences are most significant for your development?

  • To answer this questions, the authors asked 442 executives to reflect on which experiences most advanced their professional development and had the most impact on making them better leaders.
  • Three distinct themes arose through their analysis: surprise, frustration, and failure. Reflections that involved one or more or of these sentiments proved to be the most valuable in helping the leaders grow.
  • Surprise, frustration, and failure. Cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. These parts of you are constantly in motion and if you don’t give them time to rest and reflect upon what you learned from them, you will surely fatigue.

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Empathy, communication, adaptability, emotional intelligence, compassion. These are all skills you need to thrive in the workplace and become a great leader. Time and again, we even hear that these capabilities are the key to making yourself indispensable — not just now but far into the future. Soft skills, after all, are what make us human, and as far as we know, can’t be performed well by technologies like artificial intelligence.

self reflection essay leadership

  • James R. Bailey is professor and Hochberg Fellow of Leadership at George Washington University. The author of five books and more than 50 academic papers, he is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, The Hill, Fortune, Forbes, and Fast Company and appears on many national television and radio programs.
  • Scheherazade Rehman is professor and Dean’s Professorial Fellow of International Finance. She is director of the European Union Research Center and former Director of World ExecMBA with Cybersecurity, has appeared in front of the U.S. House and Senate, and been a guest numerous times onPBS Newshour, the Colbert Report, BBC World News, CNBC, Voice of America, and C-Span.

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self reflection essay leadership

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The Importance of Reflective Leadership in Business

Business leader speaking to three members of their team, who are seated at a table with laptops

  • 05 Sep 2023

Effective leadership is essential to business success. As an organizational leader , you not only guide decision-making but create your company’s culture, retain its talent, and move it toward bigger, better things.

Your leadership style —the behavioral patterns consistent across your decision-making—influences your impact on your organization and team. One of the most beneficial styles to adopt is reflective leadership.

If you want to learn more about reflective leadership’s role in business, here’s an overview of its components, why it’s effective, and how to become a reflective leader.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Reflective Leadership?

Reflective leadership involves self-awareness, introspection, and continuous learning and growth to make better decisions, enhance leadership skills , and improve team performance .

“Reflective leadership requires the continuous practice of reflection over time,” says Harvard Business School Professor Nien-hê Hsieh in the online course Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “This allows you to regularly examine and re-evaluate your decisions and responsibilities to practice, broaden, and deepen your skills, and to apply this knowledge when analyzing present situations.”

Reflective leadership also enables you to help your team grow.

“Reflective leadership is about helping others on your team or in your organization,” Hsieh says. “It’s about helping them develop their own skills in awareness, judgment, and action.”

In Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , Hsieh delves into the reflective leadership model , a framework for conceptualizing your responsibilities as an ethical leader.

The Reflective Leadership Model

The model has four components:

  • Awareness: Recognize your legal, economic, and ethical responsibilities to stakeholders.
  • Judgment: Consider biases and shared concepts that influence your decision-making.
  • Action: Act on your decisions in an accountable, consistent way.
  • Reflection: Reflect on all three components throughout the process to learn from past experiences.

“The reflective leadership model involves not only reflection on business decisions but also continuous reflection on your own personal beliefs, goals, and commitments,” Hsieh says in the course. “These aspects of self are often significant influences on your decisions and internal guides when navigating difficult situations.”

The Importance of Reflective Leadership

Before diving into the importance of reflective leadership, it’s critical to note the pitfalls of being an inadequate leader.

According to recruitment services company Zippia , 79 percent of employees leave their companies because they don’t feel appreciated by leaders, and upwards of 69 percent believe they’d work harder if recognized. In addition, only 33 percent report feeling engaged in the workplace.

Companies also lack focus on leadership development. Zippia reports that 77 percent struggle to find and develop leaders, and only five percent implement leadership development at all levels.

Since reflective leadership focuses on continuously improving and developing, it’s one of the more effective leadership styles. By regularly reflecting on your beliefs and values and incorporating them into your actions, you can make ethical decisions and enable your company to be more purpose-driven .

“Along with responsibility, leadership brings opportunities,” Hsieh explains in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “These include opportunities to make ethical decisions where someone else wouldn’t, to influence others to do the right thing, and to make a positive impact on the world.”

Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability | Develop a toolkit for making tough leadership decisions| Learn More

Reflective leadership also helps you build authentic, supportive relationships with team members and create a workplace of ethics and accountability .

If you want to adopt a reflective leadership style, here are the competencies to develop.

How to Become a Reflective Leader

Be self-reflective.

Self-reflection is at reflective leadership’s core. According to Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , you can practice self-reflection by:

  • Reviewing, analyzing, and evaluating your decisions—in the moment and over time.
  • Continuously deepening your awareness and self-knowledge.
  • Developing a general framework for judgment.
  • Improving your capacity for action and leadership.

Leading with self-reflection won’t just help you learn from past experiences but also encourage and enable your team members to adopt reflective mentalities.

Identify Your Commitments

Knowing your commitments is also essential to effective leadership.

“It’s important to identify and define your own commitments,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , “both to set a baseline for what you will and won’t do and to evaluate and clarify your thoughts, opinions, and feelings when making decisions.”

To create that baseline, Hsieh recommends asking the following questions:

  • What’s core to my identity?
  • What lines or boundaries won’t I cross?
  • What kind of life do I want to live?
  • What kind of leader do I want to be?

By identifying your commitments, you can better guide yourself and your team.

Consider Your Accountability

Becoming a reflective leader also requires accountability to successfully execute on your values and implement them into action plans.

This refers to the reflective leadership model’s “action” step—putting your decisions into practice in a way that’s accountable and consistent with your responsibilities.

“When leading reflectively, straightforward action planning may not be enough,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “An accountable leader will go beyond just answering ‘How will we do it?’ to ask ‘How can I do it accountably?’”

How to Become a More Effective Leader | Access Your Free E-Book | Download Now

Reflective Leadership Training for Businesses

By incorporating your values into your leadership style, you can learn from your experiences on a deeper level and develop into a better leader.

One way to gain the skills and frameworks to succeed long term is by taking an online course, such as Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . Through a dynamic, interactive learning experience, the course provides the opportunity to apply the reflective leadership model to real-world business ethics challenges.

Are you ready to become a reflective leader? Apply to Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability —one of our online leadership and management courses —and download our free e-book on effective leadership.

self reflection essay leadership

About the Author

Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University

Leadership Careers Dec 2, 2016

How self-reflection can make you a better leader, setting aside 15 minutes a day can help you prioritize, prepare, and build a stronger team.

This audio is powered by Spokn.

Harry M. Kraemer

Michael Meier

Your company is expanding into China. Your most trusted team member put her notice in this morning. And your desk resembles a second-grade science experiment run amok.

As you frantically consider where to throw your attention, are you in the mood to reflect on what’s driving your behavior? To analyze your larger goals? To consider what got you into this situation and how you might avoid it in the future?

Probably not.

“The usual reaction is, ‘Well, I’ll just go faster,’” says Harry Kraemer , clinical professor of strategy at the Kellogg School and former CEO of multibillion-dollar healthcare company Baxter International. But that’s mistaking activity for productivity. And productivity demands self-reflection.

Self-Reflection in Leadership

Kraemer would know. For thirty-seven years—ever since he was unexpectedly duped into attending a spiritual retreat with his future father-in-law—he has made a nightly ritual of self-reflection. “Every day,” he emphasizes. Stepping back from the fray is how Kraemer, once the manager of 52,000 employees, avoided “running around like a chicken with his head cut off.”

Instead of constant acceleration, Kraemer says, leadership demands periods of restraint and consideration, even—perhaps especially—during a crisis. Leaders must regularly turn off the noise and ask themselves what they stand for and what kind of an example they want to set.

“Self-reflection is not spending hours contemplating your navel,” Kraemer says. “No! It’s: What are my values, and what am I going to do about it? This is not some intellectual exercise. It’s all about self-improvement, being self-aware, knowing myself, and getting better.”

Kraemer offers three ways that periodic self-reflection can strengthen leadership, as well as some of his favorite prompts.

8 Daily Self-Examination Questions

  • What did I say I was going to do today in all dimensions of my life?
  • What did I actually do today?
  • What am I proud of?
  • What am I not proud of?
  • How did I lead people?
  • How did I follow people?
  • If I lived today over again, what would I have done differently?
  • If I have tomorrow (and I am acutely aware that some day I won’t), based on what I learned today, what will I do tomorrow in all dimensions of my life?

Adapted from Harrykraemer.org

Know Your Priorities—and Where You Fall Short

Anybody in a managerial position has two basic responsibilities: prioritize what must be done, and allocate resources to get those things done efficiently. “But how can you possibly prioritize or allocate if you haven’t figured out what really matters?” Kraemer asks.

Self-reflection allows leaders to understand what is important, and focus on what might be done differently.

Kraemer described an experience at Baxter where the company was focused on increasing its growth rate. Other firms were making acquisitions right and left, while Baxter was not. “So we stepped back,” says Kraemer, “and asked, if we want to grow externally, what are other companies doing that we aren’t?” It turned out that the companies that were growing successfully had diverted resources from their core operations to establish large business-development departments. Baxter at the time had a much smaller department. But until taking time to research and reflect on the matter, “we didn’t realize we needed a larger team of people who could fully dedicate themselves to this issue,” he says.

Of course, after priorities have been defined, it is important for action to follow. To prevent a gulf between word and deed, Kraemer writes out his self-reflection each night, creating a record of what he has done and what he says he will do. He also checks continuously with family, friends, and close colleagues to ensure he is holding himself accountable and “not living in some fantasy land.”

Minimize Surprise

Members of the United States military are excellent role models for self-reflection in leadership, Kraemer says. They forecast and plan obsessively in order to do one thing—minimize surprise. “If the president of the United States calls and says, ‘I want an aircraft carrier in the Middle East,’ and the aircraft carrier gets there and all of a sudden it gets bombed, the military isn’t saying, ‘Oh, what are we going to do? We got bombed!’” he points out. “They’ve already thought that that might happen.” Likewise, while running Baxter, where he oversaw multiple chemical-processing and manufacturing plants around the world, “I wasn’t surprised if there was a fire in one of those plants or if something blew up,” he says. Quality, safety, and compliance standards are, of course, essential to minimizing the possibility of disaster. “But we were self-reflective enough to realize that it could happen. So, when it did happen, we weren’t confused,” he says. “We dealt with it.”

Of course, forecasting has its limits. For instance, COVID-19 has caught even the most self-aware leaders by surprise. But self-reflection need not mitigate only out-of-the-blue disasters; it also prepares leaders for more routine, but no less insidious disappointments. As head of a publicly traded company, for instance, Kraemer knew that not every quarterly performance was going to be positive. “To assume that performance is going to go up every single quarter—that’s not really logical. And by the way, when the drop does happen, what are you going to do about it?”

Preparation has the added benefit of reducing anxiety about the possibility of things going wrong, says Kraemer. “What keeps you up at night? I used to say, ‘I have a multibillion-dollar company…’ Now I say, ‘Nothing keeps me awake. If it takes me a while to go to sleep, I’ll just read another book.”

“If I’m going to help you develop as a leader, one of the first things I’m going to try to do is to help you understand the tremendous benefit of self-reflection.”

Build Stronger Teams

Self-reflection’s effects go beyond the self, Kraemer points out: “If I don’t know myself, is it possible for me to lead myself? I doubt that. If I can’t lead myself, how could I possibly lead other people?”

Learn more from Harry Kraemer in the Kellogg Executive Education Enterprise Leadership Program .

Strong leaders, he says, not only practice self-reflection themselves; they also encourage their teams to do so. “I have a responsibility to develop every single person I touch,” says Kraemer. And of course, a self-reflective team is a team that has its priorities straight and arrives prepared to deal with any setbacks.

So if one of his employees or students is “bouncing around like a lunatic,” he schedules a meeting with him or her to establish the value of settling down for a moment, taking a breath, and considering what’s important. “If I’m going to help you develop as a leader, one of the first things I’m going to try to do is to help you understand the tremendous benefit of self-reflection,” he says.

How can leaders get themselves, and their teams, practicing self-reflection? Kraemer does not prescribe a specific process; how a person reflects, he says, is a personal matter. (In this article, however, he shares some of his favorite prompts.)

But Kraemer is adamant that leaders—and leaders-to-be—carve self-reflection into their daily routine. It takes only 15 minutes, and can be done while taking a walk, gardening, or sipping a cup of coffee. “The reason many, many people have trouble balancing their lives is that they have not been self-reflective enough to figure out what they’re trying to balance,” he says. “You might say, ‘Boy, my spouse is really, really important to me.’ But do you spend time with her? Or do you assume you’re too busy? Is spending time with her a priority or isn’t it a priority?”

Still convinced you cannot fit self-reflection on your calendar ? That’s often an excuse to avoid an uncomfortable exercise, he says.

“There could be a pretty big difference between what you say is important and what you’re actually doing, and you may not want to confront that.”

Clinical Professor of Management & Organizations

About the Writer Dylan Walsh is a freelance writer based in Chicago.

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Unabridged Leadership

Self-reflection in leadership – Part 1: Ambitions, Values and Personality

by Palena Neale | 19 Feb 2019 | Leadership

woman holding mirror over water - self-reflection

Self-reflection in leadership

Self-reflection at its simplest means taking time to think, contemplate, examine and review yourself as part of increasing your self-awareness . Self-reflection in leadership means carving out time to review yourself as a leader and is critical for your leadership development. It involves examining your current level of skills, your strengths, weaknesses, behavioural patterns and how you seek to influence others. It is also about interrogating your values, goals and ambitions. All this serves to increase your self-knowledge, alignment, authenticity, and learning and growth. Self-reflection also accelerates improvement in your leadership skills and practice – and enables you to better understand others.

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” – Confucius

Why self-reflection in leadership development?

However, according to consultant Peter Miller, once Associate Professor in Management  at  Southern  Cross University  Business  School,  Australia in Self-reflection: the key to effective leadership :

‘Most authorities on leadership development understand the importance of assisting managers and leaders to engage in self-discovery and self-reflection. Recorded statements from philosophers about the need for self-awareness and reflection for those in leadership positions goes back thousands of years to ancient philosophers and teachers like Confucius, Socrates, Plato, Jesus and Mohammed. However, research has shown that self-reflection is possibly a manager’s least favourite activity.’   

So why is self-reflection so difficult for some people? Apart from actually making time for it?

Jennifer Porter talks about the benefits of self-reflection to improve performance through assimilating lessons learned. And a recent study by Lanaj et al highlights the fact that self-reflection can motivate leaders to engage in energy-generating activities. Heightening their engagement and energising leaders also makes them more influential.

We know that self-reflection is an important process in leadership development – not only for new leaders, but for all leaders – especially those who operate in constantly changing environments.

Areas for self-reflection

Self-reflection can and should take place all throughout your leadership journey, and across all aspects of your leadership role. Let’s break down those different areas of self-knowledge:

  • Personal ambitions, passions, intentions, goals
  • Individual and organisational values

Personality types

  • Thinking styles
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Reflective learning – what to do and how to do it

In this Part 1, I’ll talk about the first 3 areas of self-reflection in leadership. Look out for Part 2 of this article , next time.

woman self-reflecting superhero shadow

Image: Shutterstock

Ambitions, passions, goals 

In my coaching practice, I still see too many women who are reticent about their ambitions, and overly modest about their experience and achievements. It’s time to step up, speak out and be proud. Ask yourself, now:

  • Desire – what do you really want?
  • Passion – what lights your fire, and fills you with passion?
  • Goals – what are your primary goals?

Self-reflection and self-knowledge mean exploring who you are and what you want – and specifically, identifying what you want your leadership to look like. This takes into consideration not only your values and passions, but also involves recognising your strengths and acknowledging your skills and experiences.

  • What kind of leader do you want to be?
  • Who do you need to be, to lead on your own terms?

Personal and organisational values

When was the last time you articulated, reviewed, or reflected on your personal values? Take time to add this activity to your agenda. Reflect on the following questions and/or Google ‘personal values test’.

Understanding your personal values is the first step to self-awareness and is an important area of self-reflection in leadership. That said, we  we often develop our most important values unconsciously. Let’s bring them to consciousness.

  • A leader you admire – think of the person you most admire. Which three words or phrases describe the qualities you admire in them?
  • Your legacy – what do you want to be remembered for?
  • Core values – what are your values? Which things, people and qualities are most important to you?

Values-based leadership sets the tone for the organisation, from the top. Our values drive our behaviour, impacting on how we respond to the issues we encounter. They also serve as an example for others in the organisation. ‘Values-driven leadership’ has become even more important over the last decade and as Miller says, ‘the leader’s personal values may be one of the most important determinants of how the leader’s power is exercised or constrained’ in an organisation.

It is equally important to look at how your personal values align (or don’t align) with the values of the organisation you are working in.

  • What are your organisation’s values?
  • How do your personal values align with those of your organisation?
  • How do your leadership values align with your organisation’s leadership values?
  • Remember, values are not static – they can change over time – and they do not exist in isolation.

collage of different faces - diverse people - diversity

As part of self-reflection in leadership, specifically the process of gaining self-awareness, leaders should also seek to understand their own personality type. For example, are you introverted or extroverted? Intuitive or analytical? What are your strengths? How do you self-sabotage? How does this impact on your work and relationships – and on your leadership style?

There are hundreds of personality type tests (like Myers Briggs, Hogan, DISC, Birkman) and instruments that are available free, online. Just type ‘big five personality test’ into your search engine – and find out what makes you tick. Or you might also want to try Shirzad Chamine’s positive intelligence test to identify your saboteurs. Once you understand your own personality type and appreciate its implications for yourself, your work, and your team, you can ‘work yourself’ better – you’ll know how to motivate yourself, and how to improve and enhance your performance.

Then, seek to understand the personality types of your managers and followers. This enables you to predict their individual behaviour and performance, and to act in ways relevant to people’s diverse personality types. This increases the effectiveness of your communication – and achieves better outcomes.

  • Self-learning: What have you learned about yourself, recently?
  • Descriptions: What three words or phrases most clearly define your personality?
  • Ideal: Who is your ideal self?  

rear view mirror - self-reflection

In summary…

You can be a really effective leader, through self-reflection. Be self-aware and know how you respond to various situations. And remember –

  • Schedule time for self-reflection in your day and/or week
  • Look at both what is going well and not so well, or find a balance between the positive and the negative
  • Find a way of reflecting that works for you

Next time, in Part 2, we’ll look at Self-reflection in leadership: Thinking styles, Emotional Intelligence, and Making it happen, for some practical tips to integrate self-reflection into your life.

If you feel that you or your organisation would benefit from help with self-reflection, coaching or mentoring as part of your leadership development, please get in touch to explore the possibilities open to you. I look forward to hearing from you!

Please feel free to download my new resource Designing Your Leadership Self-Reflection Practice – Guided Writing Prompts – packed with tips, tools, and guided prompts to launch your leadership self-reflection practice as you continue to strengthen your leadership.

Email me: [email protected]

Visit my website: www.unabridgedleadership.com

Please feel free to like and share my posts. Contact, link and follow me.

LinkedIn: Palena Neale

Twitter: @PalenaNeale

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Fluency Leadership

Leadership Starts with Self-Reflection

Self-Reflection

I remember early in my career being asked to write an article on a complex topic. I had few details and little direction. I did my research and poured my heart into it only to have it completely re-written, except for one sentence the manager saw fit to use. I had clearly missed the mark but wasn’t sure how or why, not even after reading the final version. I felt inadequate as a writer and that I had let my manager down.  I came to realize the failure was not my writing skills but that I had no idea what the expectations were, and I got no feedback or corrective coaching.  It was a missed opportunity to learn.  

We know the role of the leader is to lead teams to results that positively impact the organization. So when team members miss the mark, overlook important details, deliver sub-standard work, make mistakes or fail to see critical connections, we are naturally drawn to those deficiencies. The impulse is to quickly fix the problem and find a solution or, even worse, hand out blame or punishment.     

The trouble with fixing and solving is not only is there no meaningful learning involved for the team member, but chances are also good that we are jumping to the solution or fix without clearly defining the problem and understanding the ‘why’ behind it.  And the problem with blame is it lives in the past, assumes people are the problem, and is often assigned before all the facts are known. Blame is an accountability and trust killer and, if the follow-on action is unfair punishment, then you also kill the learning.  

So, what if there was another way? When as a leader you are struggling to get the quality of work or the results you expect, instead of reflecting on the deficiencies in others, what if you started with self-reflection as a first step? 

It’s not easy; self-reflection is hard work. It’s front-end loaded and may not be the natural starting point if your first instinct is to look outward rather than inward.  

We’ve talked about  self-awareness  as being the most important leadership trait. Self-reflection is the path to self-awareness.  It requires leaders to carve out time to ask and answer questions that explore assumptions, gaps and opportunities for learning and create solutions or processes to address. It invites us to ask, “Have I created the container and set up the processes to get the results and performance I am looking for?”  Self-reflection is critical for leadership development and it’s a practice that can strengthen team relationships.     

Here are five key self-reflective questions (and even more questions within them) you can ask yourself when your team members are missing the mark or you are not getting the performance and results you expect.     

1. Do I understand the real challenge?   

Albert Einstein said, “If you give me an hour to solve a problem, I’ll spend 55 minutes on figuring out what the problem is, and then I’ll spend 5 mins on solving the problem.” It is easy to make assumptions or tell ourselves stories based on what we see. More often than not, identifying the real challenge takes some effort. There are a host of reasons why people might not be meeting expectations. Lean into curiosity to identify the underlying challenge.      

2. Have I defined the   standard I want to see?    

Someone recently shared that their boss was always telling her to be more strategic, but she had no idea what that meant, let alone how to put it into action.  We make assumptions that people understand what we mean, yet the likelihood of them having a completely different interpretation is high because each of us are informed by different experiences, values, beliefs and knowledge. Are you clear in your mind about what good quality looks like? Do you know what specific results you are seeking? Is there clarity on the actions and behaviours you want to see or don’t want to see?    

3. Is there clarity and alignment around my  expectations?   

Having defined the standard, have you vividly communicated what ‘paint done’ looks like to the team? Paint done, an expression I learned in  Brene Brown’s Dare to Lead  book, refers to providing colour, context, explanations, examples so the team can clearly understand your expectations and can ask questions to sharpen the picture and know what is required. Clarity is vital and is a pre-requisite for accountability.  

4. Have my team members taken accountability for the ir  deliverable s?   

Interestingly, accountability cannot be delegated; it needs to be accepted. No one is going to take ownership and show accountability for something they are not clear about, buy into or believe won’t succeed.  To transfer the ownership to a team member, it is imperative you provide whatever is missing or they will remain a spectator. Here’s some questions you can ask them:  

  • Is this clear? Are any questions coming up?  
  • Do you have what you need to be successful?   
  • Do you feel you can take ownership of this task?  
  • What might get in your way? 
  • What can I count on you to do and when will you deliver it?  
  • How will you let me know if something gets in your way?   

5. Am I coaching them to the standard as they learn?   

Learning new behaviours is not instantaneous, no matter how clear you have been. It will take time before the team are fully meeting expectations and are knocking it out of the park.  As a leader, your role is to help them get there. It will require you to be consistent with the standard, provide feedback and recognize progress.  And rather than telling people what to do, a more sustainable approach to transfer the learning is to apply a  coaching mindset  to inspire people to think through challenges, find their own solutions, own their decisions, and take them forward. The hallmarks of a coach approach are open-ended curiosity questions and feedback in the form of observations.  

  • What have you tried?  
  • What else can you try?  
  • Where can you get more information?  
  • How will you know when you get there?   
  • What is another way of looking at that?   
  • I notice your hesitation, what’s behind that?   
  • You sound more confident about the process, what has shifted for you? 
  • What is your next step?   

Self-reflection starts with leading with the assumption of generosity which, as Brene Brown describes, is believing that people are doing the best that they can. It also requires us to trust the team we’ve hired, hold them capable, and commit to developing and coaching them to success.   

It is time well-invested and a path to getting the consistent performance and results that meet the standard.   

 Looking t o help your leaders bring more of a coach approach to their leadership. Check out our  Coach Leader workshop .   

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More From Forbes

Seven tips for designing a leadership self-reflection practice.

Forbes Coaches Council

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Executive and Leadership Coach, Lecturer, Founder of  unabridged  – engaging your power and potential for greater personal and social impact.

Self-reflection, at its simplest, means taking time to slow down and think about you and your experiences, as part of increasing your self-awareness, learning and growth. Self-reflection in leadership means devoting time to think about yourself as a leader and is critical for your leadership development. It involves contemplating your current level of skills, strengths, weaknesses, behavioral patterns and how you seek to influence others. It is also about exploring and getting clarity on your values, goals and ambitions. All this serves to increase your self-awareness, alignment, authenticity, learning and growth. Self-reflection also accelerates improvement in your leadership skills and practice — including your emotional intelligence — and enables you to better understand others.

So how can you prioritize this essential development activity and build a regular reflection practice? Here are seven tips to get you started.

1. (Re)commit to continuous learning.

You may already identify as having a growth mindset or being a continuous learner. Go one step further by making it explicit and add self-reflection to your existing repertoire.

Professor Peter Miller  says , "Reflective learning is a well-grounded theory based on the capacity of an individual to reflect on their own words and actions and to undertake a learning process through such reflection. This can be done every day at work while you are on the job."

2. Set an intention to reflect consistently.

Schedule 10 or 30 minutes a day (or week) into your diary to protect the time for reflection. Ideally, you'll set time aside to write every day. However, just making time each week is a great start. Try to find a quiet time and place without distractions. 

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3. Start with one prompt or theme and see where it goes.

You might start by reflecting on a meeting you led, a difficult conversation or your week in review. You may want to choose a specific area for self-reflection, such as your goals and ambitions, values or even your emotional intelligence.

• A meeting: What went well? What would you like to do differently in the future? What did you learn?

• The week in review: What went well this week? What did you learn? If you had the chance to do something over, what would it be and why?

• Highlights: What was your best leadership moment this week? How could you do more of this next week?

• Your leadership: What kind of leader do you want to be? How do you think your team sees you as a leader? How does this compare to how you see yourself? What do you want to be remembered for?

• Values: If you were to lead with your most important value, what would that look like? How do your values align with your organization’s values?

 4. Give yourself permission to narrate your experiences.

Focus on getting all your thoughts, feelings and ideas down. Be as descriptive as possible in your writing. For example, when you’re describing your feelings, write about the thoughts connected to them and how those emotions felt in your body. For instance, “My heart was racing when I was confronting my boss and telling him that I did not appreciate him going directly to my team, asking them for help and bypassing me,” or “I felt completely disengaged and my mind was wondering why when my colleague monopolized the discussion again, and no one challenged this — including me.” This will help to increase your awareness and give clarity to your emotions and thoughts. Use the prompts to reflect on your experiences — the good, the bad and the ugly.

Don’t self-censor and don’t worry about spelling or grammar — nobody’s checking! This is for you and your development alone. This is a great learning, processing and development strategy to add to your healthy leading repertoire.

5. Be honest.

It’s important to be realistic and acknowledge weaknesses. This also means checking our negativity bias and mining for the positive, which may be disguised as a learning opportunity.

• Challenge yourself to identify what went well and/or one strength you exercised or something learned.

• Be solution-focused. Take the learning from any "failures" and plan actions to improve.  

• Consider your responsibility (How am I contributing to this difficult relationship with X?) and the consequences for your (in)action (What are the effects of what I did or didn't do?).

6. Switch things up.

There are many ways to develop your own reflection practice to suit your preferences and style. Experiment until you find a practice that works for you.

• Change up the time. If you normally reflect at the end of the week, try the beginning. Or start a morning ritual of writing down three things that make you a good leader.

• Reflect with others. While reflection is often about being alone with your thoughts, it can help to talk things through with others, too. Reach out to a colleague, trusted mentor or coach. 

• Try different journal formats. Simple pen and paper work well, but you can also try reflection apps, dictating your thoughts into a recorder or filming a video of your thoughts and feelings. 

• In addition to the prompts above, search online for reflective questions or keep a running list of ideas for your next session.

7. Think of self-reflection as part of your self-care.

Taking time to slow down and reflect on your experiences is vital for improving your self-awareness and creating space for intention and choice. We learn and grow from all our experiences, and taking the time to consider these lessons is an act of self-care . Reflective practice accelerates improvement in your leadership skills and enables you to better understand yourself and others. So, invest in yourself!

Set an intention to reflect every day, even if you start small. You and your leadership deserve it!

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Critical Reflection Report (Leadership)

Introduction, literature review, critical reflection of my leadership, critical reflection of peer’s leadership, critical reflection of my project team’s performance.

Many people mix-up the concepts of Leadership and Management with each other. Leadership and Management are not the same thing. Leadership comes from within the person; where as, management does not. Leadership is not just all about managing people, tasks or resources; it is much more than that. A good leader possesses some good interpersonal and as well as social skills such as Emotional Intelligence. He knows how to motivate, influence, and manage people along with their emotions. In order to be a leader, (Freeman, Edward, & Stoner, 1992) it is important to understand what motivates the employees around you. It is necessary to discover the fundamental needs that employees, coworkers, and bosses have.

As far as the projects are concerned, since projects cannot be easily handled by a person or two; therefore there must be a leader who can make the whole group or team to flow in such a way that ends up with the successful completion of tasks and accomplishment of goals in a harmonious manner. The leader’s task is not only to let the team workers work, but he is also bound to create a vision, coordinate or communicate with them, understand them, motivate them, model the vision by himself, and make the team cohesive enough that eventually result in the successful accomplishment of tasks and goals without any conflict among them.

There are many leadership styles and strategies that leaders adopt to make the work come along in a favorable way. In this report, we would discuss some of the leadership’s styles and strategies and would apply to the team working situation for the completion of project related to PID (Project Initial Document). First we would discuss the theories in the literature review section, and then would apply them to the respective working situations.

Lewin’s leadership style theory was the result of the experiment conducted by Kurt Lewin and his colleagues in 1939; after which they proposed three distinct styles of leadership. 1 – Autocratic, 2 – Democratic, and 3 – Laissez-Faire. In an Autocratic style, there are two levels of social status: upper and lower, which means that the upper level keeps the lower ones to gain leadership (Daniel, 2003). Moreover, authoritarian leaders make the decision without consultation that leads to discontent of other party; moreover, this style is adopted when there’s no time for group-decision making (Wagner, n.d). In Democratic style, lower status can acquire leadership because of slight gap between the statuses. Lewin’s study found it the most effective style, where leaders guide the group members and also participate. In Laissez-Faire or Delegative style, leaders provide negligible guidance to members and leave the decision-making up to them. It often leads to lack of motivation and direction. Lewin’s research showed that (Borkowski, 2008) leadership style affects the group productivity, behaviors, and relationships of the team members.

Blanchard’s Situational leadership model tells that the leader can adopt different styles of leadership based on the given circumstances; or it revolves around the act of directing and supporting the group members (Chimaera Consulting Limited, 1999). The four behaviors of a leader in this style are, 1 – Telling/Directing 2 – Selling/Coaching 3 – Participating/Supporting, and 4 – Delegating. In Telling, the leader defines the roles and directions, and is more task focused than relationship focused (12Manage, 2009). In Selling, focus is both on task and relationships; leaders look for ideas and suggestions from members, and the communication is two-way. In participating, the leader is more relationship and low task focused; moreover, members are encouraged to make decisions (Watkins, n.d). And in Delegation, there is low focus on both relationship and task by the leader. The leader just delegate the tasks and the members perform on their own since they have ability and willingness to participate. Functional leadership focuses on the decision-making when there’s no specific leader. Leadership functions happen in three areas, 1 – Task 2 – Team and 3 – Individual. Or, “the leadership functions meet needs in these three areas” (Shead, 2006). The leadership can be by an individual or a team.

The ways to have influence on projects as proposed by Thamhain and Wilemon include: 1 – Authority: the hierarchical right to make orders 2 – Assignment: manager’s ability to control a worker’s assignment 3 – Budget: manager’s ability to approve the use of funds by others 4 – Promotion: the ability to ameliorate a worker’s position 5 – Money: the ability to raise worker’s remunerations 6 – Penalty: the ability to punish workers 7 – Work Challenge: the ability to assign work that capitalizes on a member’s enjoyment of doing a specific task 8 – Expertise: the manager’s special knowledge that others believe are crucial, and 9 – Friendship: the ability to set up friendly personal relationships with the workers (College of North Atlantic, n.d).

Tuckman’s model of team development includes five stages Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning; each stage confronts team leaders and members with unique problems and challenges (Daft, 1997). The model shows how teams evolve through these stages and progress from one stage to the next in an orderly fashion (McShane and Travaglione, 2003). Before, these stages were labeled as, Orientation to task, Emotional response, Exchange of interpretations, and Emergence of solutions (Tuckman and Jensen, 1977). In this process, teams might regress back to earlier stage of development; nevertheless, this model is helpful in explaining team dynamics easily and in a simple way (Rickards and Moger, 2000).

Our project was to evaluate, research, and recommend our clients about the improvement in the quality and efficiency of their websites; and for that project we had a meeting every week in order to communicate with each other the probable ideas and information regarding the project. Since the team members were from different cultural and educational background, so we did have certain problems in communication, managing, and performing of tasks.

The aspects of leadership that I performed well are mentioned as follows: 1 – Democratic style. Since there was dissimilarity among the nature and background of the members and they didn’t perfectly know what to do, how to do, and when to do. I showed integrity and modeled the vision that we had; I guided my team members about the performance of tasks and participated myself in accomplishing them. 2 – I played the role of Participating quite effectively, which comes under the Situational leadership style. Since I believed that members of the team are not familiar with each other, not frank, and not cohesive enough to move on with the tasks swiftly; therefore, I focused more on the relationships among them and played a participative role along with encouraging them to give suggestions and make decisions. 3 – As far as the ways to influence are concerned, I emphasized on friendship among members, gave them freedom to use budget, promoted their work designation, and favored them by providing with benefits and bonuses.

The aspects of my leadership that require improvement include – being strict and being directive. The ability of being slightly strict is lacking in my leadership style, because I realized that being too lenient and relationship focused can result in the increased demands of workers, lack of motivation among them, and the completion of tasks that are not meant to be done in a certain manner, hence creating other issues in achieving the goals and objectives. Moreover, I can improve my leadership style by focusing on the team development process too. The stage of ‘Norming’ was not properly handled by me due to which the team members were not stuck to a certain procedure of rules and norms.

My leadership influenced the following aspects in a way that is expressed as follows:

  • Group Dynamics, they were affected mostly in a positive manner than in a negative manner. The team environment became pleasant, friendly, and cooperative due to certain reasons such as, effective communication, reward systems, task interdependence, small team size, and efficient skills and competencies among team members.
  • Task Performance, it was not so greatly influenced because our PDI project was not a complex one; moreover, it did not require standard requirements because the evaluation and recommendations for websites varied from client to client. Nevertheless, performance of tasks was satisfactory.
  • Delegation of Responsibility to team members was adversely affected, because I provided the members with the guidance and participated by myself too. Hence, I didn’t delegate too much responsibility to them since my focus was on the completion of task too along with pleasant relationships.
  • The overall success of the project was good, but not excellent. It is because the completion of the project was not in time and up to the mark, since the members had their own suggestions with them and were stuck to them, which also created some conflict and delay.

The main leadership and management styles and strategies that I employed include, Transformational leaderships style, Participative style, the Democratic style, and Transactional leadership style in which I emphasized on the rewards that would be given as a result of the completion of tasks.

Considering another case, where one my team members was the leader for the project of PDI. That peer was from the different cultural and educational background from other four, including me. He was from the United States of America and possessed a very rigid personality. The critical reflection of his leadership styles and strategies along with their influence over the group dynamics, task performance, and success of the project are discussed as follows.

Since that guy from the United States had a very rigid personality and used to favor punctuality; therefore, his leadership style was an Autocratic one. He performed this style effectively; he used to make decisions by himself and used to set boundaries and limits for us to perform the task and accomplish the purpose. He really kept us on out tows, which really helped the team as a whole and resulted in the completion of tasks without any delay and mistake. Secondly, he was more inclined towards the idea of Telling or Directing. Before the start of any task, he used to define the rules, guidance, and procedures clearly to perform the task, and wanted the task to be done in a way that was defined. It was so because he was more task oriented than relationship oriented. Moreover, he also used to the power to reward and punish other members of the team if the task is done and not done in a defined way, respectively. And those who failed to obey they rules or directions had to face penalty, and was assigned more work to do. Finally, as far as the team development is concerned, he was more into the development of norms and rules rather than the development of cohesiveness among the members of the team. He performed the task to ‘Storm’ and ‘Norm’ the team really well. Clear set of rules and norms were defined and the members were motivated to perform well for rewards; or else, face punishments and penalties.

The leadership of my peer influenced the following aspects in a way expressed as follows:

  • Group Dynamics, they did face some problems such as retaliation of certain members including me due to the coercion that was there by him. Moreover, the group environment was not friendly even a bit, because the focus of the whole team was to perform task and that’s it. We didn’t use to chit chat and have fun with each other; in other words, the group was not cohesive and the environment was boring and monotonous. Since the team composition was not homogeneous; therefore, the motivation and collectivist orientation among the members was not there.
  • Task Performance, there was a great difficulty felt by the members in performing the tasks; it is because there was no task interdependence. All members were supposed to do their task on their own; there was no encouragement over giving suggestions and ideas by us.
  • Delegation of Responsibility to team members was high, since the tasks were assigned separately to all of the members along with the directions and procedures to perform them.
  • The success of the PDI project was excellent. It is because the project was completed within the designated time and with the required quality and mark. Although, the time to perform the tasks was not so pleasant; nevertheless, we managed to accomplish our objectives in a nice manner.

The main leadership styles and strategies that were adopted by my peer included, Task-oriented leadership style, Directive style of leadership, and Autocratic style of leadership in which he used to make decisions by his own rather than discussing or seeking the recommendations or ideas from team members. Moreover, he used to define all rules, norms, and procedures because he had a Directive or Telling style.

Since the members of our team were from different backgrounds and lacked homogeneity; therefore, the team was not cohesive and familiar enough with each other. To make the team cohesive and familiar, there was a great need to develop the team in a certain manner that eventually end up in benefitting the whole team and achieve the favorable results. Therefore, the team went through the process of development as proposed by Tuckman. The effects of team development over the performance of the team are discussed below.

First of all, the team was formed and was assigned the project of PDI to work on for the clients to evaluate, research and provide recommendations for the websites. After then, the storming took place in the team, in which each member was introduced to each other along with reducing the conflicts or misunderstanding that they had. Then the team went through Norming stage, in which certain rules, procedures and methods were elaborated to work on. Then it came the performing stage. The performance of the team was affected in a positive way; it is because the members of the team were defined with a clear set of rules and directions; moreover, the misconceptions about each other were minimized that helped us to understand each of us better.

Each member of the team performed his respective tasks in an efficient way; though we did face some issues in performing the tasks such as, lack of suggestions or alternatives, lack of brainstorming, lack of cooperation for each other’s ideas, and lack of help or assistance from other members of the team. Nevertheless, those issues seem to be too small in front of the successful completion of tasks and the accomplishment of our desired goals.

Of course there were quite a few issues that were faced by me while working in the team include. Among them, some of were positive and some were negative. Positive issues include competition and conflict among the members. Yes, conflict is often considered as a bad sign, but conflict in our case actually allowed us to remove the misconceptions about each other and the respective ways of performing the tasks. Moreover, competition was there because there was negligible coordination among members, hence forcing each member to perform his task at his best as demanded by the leader.

Some negative issues that were faced include, communication barrier that was there for a few days in the start of the group. The group took off late since the members didn’t know about each other and were facing distinct situations, languages, and ways of performing tasks. Another issue that occurred was the leadership style issue; it occurred because different members from different countries were used to of different leadership styles. Some preferred and retaliated relationship-oriented style, whereas, some preferred and retaliated the task-oriented style.

The main contributing factors to team success were the group member’s intellectual capacity, their competencies, skills, and abilities to perform tasks in a way that is required by the leader in such trying circumstances. Moreover, patience, coordination, and determination towards the work were also included in the key factors that led us to successfully complete the tasks and achieve success.

Concluding our report, I would like to shed some light over the performance of my peer, my project team, and my own. As far as my performance as a leader is concerned, I think that things really gone well in terms of relationships, communication, collaboration, assistance, and task completion; but the tasks performed were not up to the mark. It means that they could be improved and made more effective if I would have focused a little more on directive style and being a little task-oriented.

My peer’s performance as a leader was commendable in terms of the successful accomplishment of tasks and goals. his autocratic and directive style no doubt, created many hurdles and problems within the team; but at the end, the performance of the tasks was up to the mark. He didn’t compromise a bit over the performance and achievement of goals.

My project team’s performance was quite satisfactory and commendable. Since we know that the members were from different cultural and educational backgrounds; they still managed to work under unfavorable conditions, didn’t compromise on work, and finally led the team to achieve the success in the project.

Leadership

12MANAGE. (2009). What is Situational Leadership: Description . Web.

Borkowski. N. (2008). Organizational Behavior, Theory, and Design in Health Care . Illustrated. Jones & Bartlett Publishers,

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College of the North Atlantic. (n.d). Human Resource Management. 2009. Web.

Daft. R. L. (1997). Management . Fourth Edition. U.S.A. The Dryden Press.

Daniel. V. (2003). Kurt Lewin Notes. The Psychology Department at Sonoma State University. 2009. Web.

Freeman, R. Edward, & Stoner, James A. (1992). Leadership and Motivation . Management 5 th Edition. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

McShane. S. and Travaglione. T. (2003). Organisational Behavior on the Pacific Rim. Australia. McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Limited.

Moger. S. and Rickards. T. (2000). Creative Leadership Process in Project Team Development: An Alternative to Tuckman’s Stages Model. British Journal of Management; Vol. 11. 273-283.

Shead. M. (2006). Functional Leadership Model. Web.

Tuckman. B. and Jensen. M. (1977). Stages of Small Group Development Revisited. Group & Organization Studies; Dec 1977, pg. 419.

Wagner. K. (n.d). Lewin’s Leadership Styles . About.com:Psychology. 2009. Web.

Watkins. D. (n.d). Situational Leadership Model . 2009. Web.

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Self Reflection Essay Examples

Example of a self reflection essay, strengths, values and perseverance shape your personality.

Over the years, through the highs and lows life has got me through, I have been fortunate enough to understand my personality as an individual. Now, I am more aware of my strengths that I can thrive on and my weaknesses that need to be

Self Reflection Essay Examples

 worked on. I have a better understanding of how I can learn, unlearn and relearn things. All these factors add up to my overall personality.

As simple as it may sound, a self reflection essay is not as easy as it may seem. When you fully immerse yourself in the thought process, it may seem challenging. Think of self assessment essay as an experiential journey where you impart the experience you have gained and the ideas that you have come up with, over the years. A self reflection essay is a personal piece of writing that narrates your experiences. Let’s have a look at the key elements that make up a English self reflection essay for students.

Strengths, Motivators, Values and Personality

It is key to understand your strengths and make ways to thrive on them. Once you highlight your strong attributes, you get to values, the stable goals that are set in life and the most important factors to an individual.

To me, self-respect is of utmost importance. I am proud of who I am today, irrespective of the poor decisions that I have made in life. I don’t have any regrets, as each of those decisions gave me a life lesson.

Today, as an individual, I exhibit confidence, I am flexible with an open mind, I respect my seniors and am respectful towards my peers and those who are younger than me. I have an optimistic attitude and believe life is too short to be a pessimist.

Besides the positive attitude that i have towards life i wouldn’t say that i have it all figured out, it’s a complex phenomenon. Primarily which is why I have this curiosity that makes me question the surroundings, the good and the bad that happens.

As an individual, I am always punctual. I like to go out but am not very social. I feel socializing makes me anxious, especially when it’s a total stranger on the other end. But whenever I do interact with people, I make sure that I am honest about who I am and try to give the other individual the space he/she needs to feel comfortable communicating.

Talking about positive experiences in life, I have had a chance to get quite a few of them when I graduated from college, when I got my first promotion at work and when I bought myself a home. Such cherishable memories.

My college experience was life altering, I understood my potential and my tolerance threshold that added to my confidence level. I also learned how to handle different social situations and to have an open mind that accepts imperfections in people, everyone has their own special strengths. These are some of the factors that further helped me thrive at my workplace and lead me to getting my first house ever.

As a normal person, I have had my share of challenging moments as well. Recession hit us hard, but it was the hardest when I was laid off and lost a loved one. It was the darkest time of my life where I felt a gush of emotions, sad, angry, lonely and in denial. I was upset at everyone, even God and blamed myself for every single thing that had happened in this time.

I was devastated, but time heals everything. I was lucky enough to get  myself out of this darkness and rediscover myself. However, the experiences shaped me into the person I am today. It was only because of the positive attitude and self belief that I was able to find learning lessons in such difficult times and came out as a better improved version of myself.

My family is very supportive and the driving factor behind my motivation. My parents and siblings encourage me to live life to the fullest and that everyday counts. With my positive attitude, I want to bring positive changes in the society that have a lasting effect. Everyday is an opportunity for me to learn something new and grow simultaneously.

Perseverance is Key to a Content Life

It is my belief that if I keep up the optimistic approach, I will be able to impact society in a positive manner. Also, I want to clarify when I talk about changing the society, it’s not the society as a whole, but in fact impacting few individuals who will be inspired to lead a better life.

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out – Robert Collier

I believe that success is a journey and not a destination. Success is that realization in the morning that someone somewhere is leading a better life because I was able to make a difference. This satisfying feeling that I get by helping others experience a change is what leads me to my leadership journey.

In my role as a leader, I am able to bring about that change in people that makes people’s lives healthier, more secure and satisfied.

Key Elements that Shape up a Good Leader

Emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is a key trait in a leader. It helps manage strong emotions such as fear, anger and sadness. These emotions are usually triggered by the loss of a loved one, or a series of difficult events in life. When an individual is emotionally intelligent, he/she is better equipped to manage themselves and the ones around them because they are self-aware. Emotional intelligence fosters empathy, the ability to put oneself in other people’s shoes and understand things from their view point.

Values and Personality

The values of an individual and the kind of personality they have decides if they can be shaped into leaders. If someone aspires to be a leader, that individual ought to have certain traits that are in sync with the organizational structure and the job description. The attributes I bring to my leadership style include self-respect, flexibility, open-mindedness, family values and the ability to move past things make me suitable for the role of a leader.

Conclusion – The Journey Ahead

The bottom line is that the surroundings and experiences of an individual shapes up the personality of an individual. There are different factors that support this phenomenon that include strength, motivational factors and values. If a person is flexible enough, he/she can adapt to the changing environment and thrive in life. In order to do that, one needs to have empathy, a yearning to learn and good social skills. Life has taught me a lot of things so far with different experiences in life, and I look forward to the journey ahead after writing my self-assessment essay

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Critical Self Reflection Essay Example

My journey towards personal growth, introduction.

Writing a Self reflection is a crucial factor of personal development because it helps the individual to highlight their strengths to thrive on and identify weaknesses to mark areas for improvement. One of the key advantages of critical self reflection is that you get

self reflection essay leadership

 a very clear understanding of yourself. Very often we hold on to preconceived things about ourselves without ensuring their credibility. When we undergo a critical self evaluation, we get to challenge these assumptions and get a clear perspective on things.

This critical self reflection essay sample will shed light on my journey that led to personal growth. By writing this essay I aim to analyze my experiences and the choices that I made so I can better understand what factors added to the learning process and what steps I took to refine myself and get to the place where I am today.

The Journey Towards Personal Growth

Highlighting areas of improvement.

When I started my self-reflection journey, the first thing that popped up was that I tend to procrastinate. Whether it was about a simple task of completing the assignment or something bigger like achieving personal goals, I had a habit of leaving things to the last day. I realized, whenever I took this approach I not only compromised my ability to perform but also was not able to perform to the best of my potential. I had so much that I could do to add value.

Seeking Personal Growth

Once I highlighted my weakness, I realized this needed to change. I started looking for ways and strategies actively that would help me overcome this tendency to procrastinate. I attended some time-management workshops, read articles and books on how to increase productivity and sought guidance from individuals who overcame this problem successfully. Luckily, all my efforts put to use lead me to develop organizational skills, align task with respect to priority and eventually a more productive me. I am proud of myself.

Taking New Challenges Head On

Further, to support my personal growth, I understood that I am not flexible enough to step out of my comfort zone, that had to change. I purposely sought after challenging tasks academically, personally and professionally. At first the fear of the unknown was overwhelming for me but then I quickly learned to adapt to different situations and was able to solve problems effectively. This practice helped me build resilience.

Developing Self Awareness

Once I developed the sense of self awareness, it altered my life and acted as a key factor towards my personal growth journey. During the critical reflective analysis of my thoughts I was very conscious of my thinking process, the emotions I was feeling and my actions.

It is during this reflective process I noticed that I also have negative emotions such as fear of failure or self doubt. All of which are natural but not normal if I let them persist. When I realized this, I started taking proactive measures to take them head on by addressing them. Since I was now aware of my strengths and weaknesses, I was more regulated and could make decisions in an effective manner that would in turn add value to my personal growth.

Accepting Constructive Criticism Gracefully

The ability to receive feedback and embrace criticism in a positive manner is important for the growth of an individual. At first, I was offended easily and found embracing criticism very challenging, but now that I have learned the importance of criticism and how it helps me improve my personality and refine my skills, I have learned to accept it gracefully and wholeheartedly. Now I pay full attention to the feedback, listen carefully, perform an objective analysis and then implement the changes that are necessary to improve my performance as an individual.

Enhance the Ability to Empathize

During this journey of critical self reflection I learned that it has enhanced my ability to empathize with others. As I engaged myself into questioning my own bias, I paid more attention to how other people feel and think, their perspective mattered to me.

This led me to gain deeper insight into the complex thought process and behavioral patterns of humans and how several factors add to shaping it. This new sense of being empathetic helped me build stronger relationships and communicate as well as collaborate with others. It enabled me to step out of my comfort zone and have a wider view of people’s thought process with diverse perspectives.

Self-Care is of Utmost Importance

Throughout, this critical reflective analysis has been a great learning point for me and made me realize that selfcare is of utmost importance. I need to pay heed to my physical and mental well being only then can I strive for positive personal growth.

To inculcate self-care into my routine, I started practicing mindful techniques, added physical exercise to my routine and made sure I took proper rest so that my body gets to relax.

The effects of adding these to my routine were amazing, not only did my body and mind feel relaxed but also boosted my productivity level and the overall outlook on life.

The Final Say – Conclusion

Lastly, it is important to note that personal growth is not a one time thing. Individuals need to adapt themselves according to their changing environments. By conducting a critical self reflection analysis I have realized that I have set on a transformative journey that will add to my personal growth by making me more productive.

Through this amazing  journey I was able to highlight my strengths, mark my areas of improvement, sought personal growth, challenged myself, became more self aware and accepted constructive criticism which led me to become a better version of myself. I believe success is not a destination but a continuous journey. I look forward to this fruitful and life altering journey where I get a chance to grow in all aspects of life.

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Self Reflection Essay On Group Work Example

Self reflection on a group work can be explained as the voluntary collaboration of members who benefit from cooperative learning that enhances the overall output of the activity in comparison to if it was done individually. As beneficial as it is, working in groups can be quite challenging as well. Each member may have a different perspective and may not agree on the same thing.

Group work is fundamental for professional and academic life. Building connections via collaboration, it promotes different viewpoints and provides opportunities that lead to individual and collective growth. I had the opportunity to take part in a group project for my Sociology course recently where I had a challenging yet enlightening experience.

In this English self reflection essay on group work I will do an analysis of the role i played within the group, how did the dynamics change and what lessons did i get to learn on this valuable journey.

Overview of the Project and Group Composition

We formed a group of four members, each of the members coming from a different background, each exhibiting a different skill set and each of them having a different perspective on things. The project required a research study to be performed on a local social issue and then presenting the project findings to the class.

This project was challenging because it required creativity, critical thinking, effective collaboration and coordination. Moreover, we were able to apply the classroom knowledge in theory to practical use in a hands-on situation.

My Role and Value Additions

It was decided during the early stage of the project that I would be the group leader. This role came with a lot of responsibility where I had to manage meetings, set deadlines and ensure smooth communication among team members. Initially, I was a bit apprehensive about taking on such a big responsibility but then I realized it is a chance for me to learn and would help in my personal growth. I am glad I took the decision to continue because I learned effective communication skills, better time management skills and was also able to devise conflict resolution strategies.

Additionally, while I managed all these responsibilities as a leader, I supported my team by actively participating in conducting research. While I was at it, I enjoyed conducting interviews, data collection and data analysis. It was such a wonderful experience where I got to witness the strength of working in a team and how each of our individual efforts added to the comprehensive understanding of the project.

Dynamics and Challenges of the Group

When different people work together, conflicts and challenges are imminent. Just like any other group working as a team, ours had our own set of challenges. One of the most prominent issues that arose was about the direction of our research, different members have different opinions. While these differences of opinions created some tension in the group we soon realized that our distinctive viewpoints can help add value to our study. Instead of negating the opinions, we strategized and integrated them in our analysis.

Another major challenge for us was to align our variable schedules so that we all can sit together and work on the project. Furthermore, maintaining a balance between coursework, personal commitments and this project was quite overwhelming. In order to overcome this problem we decided to create a shared calendar online where everyone can see the team’s schedule. Also, each team member was considerate and flexible when it came to meeting schedules.

The Learning Experience

While working in the group as a team, I have gained the following experiences and insights:

  • Development as a Leader: In my role as a group leader I learned several skills that helped me develop into a good leader, these include organizing meetings, delegation of work and conflict management. In this role I realized that to become an effective leader I had to juggle between guiding the group and developing a collaborative environment.
  • Diverse Perspectives: I realized if a group leader embraces diversity and respects the different backgrounds then a rich and well curated outcome can be achieved. The best thing about different perspectives was that it forced us to see one thing with several angles, this critical analysis led to a more enhanced, quality oriented research.
  • Effective Communication: In any team or a group, communication is key. Clear, concise, and regular communication helped us in overcoming challenges quickly and effectively. Also, it maintained a sense of unity and harmony in the group.
  • Flexibility: It was essential to adapt to different working styles. Each of the group members exhibited great understanding of the fact that diversity would help reach us more comprehensive solutions.
  • Conflict Management: What caused tension in the beginning soon became our strength where we solved conflicts effectively. We no longer avoided disagreements but welcomed them as they helped improve our decisions.
  • Time Management: Without a doubt, balancing work and individual roles is challenging. I managed tasks by prioritizing them which helped me in timely delivery.

Conclusion / The Last Word

Working as a group has been a great learning experience that has played a vital and pivotal role in my academic journey. This project served as a growth opportunity personally and professionally. Through the process, I also understood how collaboration and adaptability along with effective communication can take your project to a whole new level, in varying circumstances.

Besides the conflicts and the tension created by being diverse members, I learned to appreciate the value of diverse perspectives. Also, I understood that diversity brings in more effective solutions to complex problems. Going forward, these lessons helped boost my confidence which would add value to future group collaborations both academically and professionally.

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Self Reflection Essay

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What goes through your mind when you have to write a self reflection essay? Do you ponder on your life choices, the actions you take to get where you want to be or where you are now? If you answered yes and yes to both of the questions, you are on the right track and have some idea on what a reflection essay would look like. This article would help give you more ideas on how to write a self reflection essay , how it looks like, what to put in it and some examples for you to use. So what are you waiting for? Check these out now.

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Defining Self

A person’s self that is different from the rest. On occasions it is considered as an object of a person’s view.

Defining Self Reflection

A self reflection is often described as taking a step back to reflect on your life. To take a break and observe how far you have become, the obstacles you have gone through and how they have affected your life, behavior and belief.

Defining Self Reflection Essay

A self- reflection essay is a type of essay that makes you express the experiences you have gone through in life based on a topic you have chosen to write about. It is a personal type of essay that you write about.  It makes you reflect on your life and journey to who you are today. The struggles, the fears, the triumphs and the actions you have taken to arrive at your current situation.

Tips on Writing a Self Reflection Essay

When writing a self reflection essay, there are some guidelines and formats to follow. But I am here to give you some tips to write a very good self reflection essay. These tips are easy to follow and they are not as complicated as some might believe them to be. Let’s begin. To write a good self reflection essay, one must first do:

  • Think : Think about what you want to write. This is true for the title of your essay as well. Thinking about what to write first can save you a lot of time. After this tip, we move on to the next one which is:
  • Drafting : As much as it sounds like a waste of time and effort, drafting what you are preparing to write is helpful. Just like in the first tip, drafting is a good way of writing down what you want and to add or take out what you will be writing later.
  • State the purpose : Why are you writing this essay? State the purpose of the essay . As this is a self reflective essay, your purpose is to reflect on your life, the actions you did to reach this point of your life. The things you did to achieve it as well.
  • Know your audience : Your self reflection essay may also depend on your audience. If you are planning on reading out loud your essay, your essay should fit your audience. If your audience is your team members, use the correct wording.
  • Share your tips: This essay gives you the opportunity to share how you have achieved in life. Write down some tips for those who want to be able to achieve the same opportunity you are in right now.

How long or short can my self reflection essay be?

This depends on you. You may write a short self reflection essay, and you may also write a long one. The important thing there is stating the purpose of you writing your essay.

Writing a self reflection essay, am I allowed to write everything about my life?

The purpose of the self reflection essay is to reflect on a topic you choose and to talk about it.

Is there a limit of words to write this type of essay?

Yes, as much as possible stick to 300-700 words. But even if it may be this short, don’t forget to get creative and true in your essay.

A self reflective essay is a type of essay that people write to reflect on their lives. To reflect on a certain topic of their life and talk about it. Most of the time, this type of essay is short because this is merely to take a step back and watch your life throughout the beginning till the present time. Writing this type of essay may be a bit difficult for some as you have to dive deep into your life and remember the triumphs and the loss. The beauty of this essay though is the fact that you are able to see how far you have reached, how far you have overcome.

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Self-Reflection of Leadership Essay Example

Self-Reflection of Leadership Essay Example

  • Pages: 8 (2030 words)
  • Published: July 15, 2021

The four universal principles that I adhere to are to be self- motivated, integrity, lead by example and encourage and motivate others. The fundamental characteristics that I have represents the person that I am by how I was raised based on the morals and values that were instilled in me by my family and church members. These factors are important when going into a leadership position, most people will respect and follow a person that will lead by example. If a leader expects their employee or followers to do a certain assignment or task, then that leader should lead by example and be able to complete the assignment or task that was delegated. Also, if the leader expects the employees to have integrity and to be honest then the leader should adhere to their own request. Integrity is d

escribed implementing principles of honesty and morals and values that you be in that believe in taking responsibility of doing the right thing. as Self-motivation is a characteristic that is described as believing in yourself and not having to get that encouragement from no one else, you must be your own cheerleader. Encouraging and motivating others is very important to me because some people are just not motivated, and they may need some help pushing themselves to achieve certain goals that have been set. If I see one of my colleagues that need that extra boost of motivation and encouragement, I jump at the chance to assist in that aspect. I have noticed that some people have a hard time to be self-motivated and to see the values that they have within. In these circumstances I tend

to put a lot of myself in other issues by trying to encourage and motivate them to a higher level of expectation then they require of themselves. A good example of this is when a classmate of mine was pursuing a certification and was only focused on finishing with the minimum grade to receive the certification and I pushed her to a higher level of achieving with a higher grade by encouraging and motivating her to go past her expectations to exceed with excellence.

My core values are loyalty, religion, respect, and responsibility. These characteristics describe how I operate daily, I tend to value all these values on how I treat others in my workplace, and it tends to make me have a wonder day most of the time. Loyalty is how I approach my work ethic and to go to work and do the best job that I can do in my power. I try to give a 100% daily and I hope that my effort is being noticed. There are also some employees who are loyal to your overall brand and corporate culture, and they might believe that their own beliefs fit in perfectly with the aims of the company. (Enmehr, 2018). I focus on implementing my religion when I go to work to help me through the day, I strive on not letting others get me out of my character by using or displaying Christian motivational quotes or by reading bible verses before I arrive to the work place. A good example of that characteristic would be if a person is having a bad day and would like to take it out on

me, I would reverse that negative energy by implementing one of my spiritual quotes and keep it moving. Some people do not like religion in the work- place and they can’t stop others from participating with their religion practices because it is prohibited. Title VII also prohibits workplace or job segregation based on religion (including religious garb and grooming practices), such as assigning an employee to a non-customer contact position because of actual or feared customer preference. (Commission, 2020) Respect is earned and not giving. I believe that if I respect you then I demand the respect from others. Respect refers to how you treat others, I expect others to treat me as I treat them but that does not happen all the time. There are so many occasions when a person can be disrespected for no apparent reason, it could because that person can feel like they are superior over you or just because of how the think they you are before even meeting you. I tend to respect everyone at all time because that is a piece of my morals and values. A good example of respect would be to listen when someone is talking and not to interrupt them. The other characteristic that I have is responsibility, I believe that you should be accountable for anything that you do. If a person does something wrong or right, it is there responsibility. Responsibility is a very broad word because it could mean many things. To me, it means to take responsibility for your actions. An example of responsibility is that if you made a mistake at work and it may involve you being

reprimanded; I believe that a person should own and accept the consequences that come along with it.

My beliefs about people in organizations are that should be treated professionally, and I believe the leadership of organizations is very important. The morale of the organization depends on the leadership style, I tend to respect the Servant Leadership style because I like the characteristics that the leadership style possesses. The Servant Leadership style has the instinct to serve and that I how I would be if I were in a leadership position. Servant leadership theory’s emphasis on service to others and recognition that the role of organizations is to create people who can build a better tomorrow resonates with scholars and practitioners who are responding to the growing perceptions that corporate leaders have become selfish and who are seeking a viable leadership theory to help resolve the challenges of the twenty-¬first century. (Parris, 2012) People on the outside of organizations are a more relaxed environment for me. I can be more of myself with people outside of organization because I can voice my opinion in a respectful way and not be judged for doing so. Power is a very strong word, people that are placed in a powerful position should not use the power for their own gain. I believe power should be used to help others and to achieve that leadership play an important role. Expert power is the manager’s influence over personnel based solely upon the manager’s superior knowledge, expertise, and proven ability to perform. Given a fair opportunity, personnel will choose to work with a competent person in order to enlarge their own sphere of

knowledge. (P., 2012) Processes / Policies are required if you are working in an organization. As an employee, you must adhere to policies and procedures of the company. When you accept, they job at any organization you must sign many documents where you agree to policies and procedures. My behavior aligns with all my beliefs, I incorporate my behavior with my beliefs daily. I display and represent all the moral and values that were instilled in me as a child and I practice them in any situation. I align myself to set goals and with self-motivation, I achieve all the goals that I set. I challenge myself to be the bigger person and walk away from negative situations.

After carefully researching leadership theories, Servant and Transformational leadership are the leadership styles that relate to my leadership characteristics:

The primary author of the Servant Leadership is Robert Greenleaf, he published an essay in 1970 that describes servant leadership as “The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.” (Greenleaf, 2019) The major point of this theory that are categorized in three phases The first focused on the conceptual development of servant leadership, focusing on the works of Greenleaf and Spears. (Eva, 2019) Second, a measurement phase where the research focused on developing measures of servant leadership and testing relationships between servant leadership and outcomes via cross-sectional research. (Eva, 2019)We are currently into a third phase of servant leadership research, which is the model development phase where more sophisticated research designs are being utilized to go beyond simple relationships with

outcomes to understand the antecedents, mediating mechanisms, and boundary conditions of servant leadership. (Eva, 2019)

The primary author of Transformational Leadership is was researched by James Downton in 1978 and later further research was conducted by James MacGregor Burns in 1985. The theory of Transformational Leaderships is when the leader collaborates with the organization to discover and modify issues and generating a concept to lead the issues through a vision by group members of the organization. The major points in this type of leadership is that it allows the leader to stimulate the morale and executing the performance of job duties, Transformational Leadership actions is like a ball that bounces of the leader that could potentially influence others to behave in the same manner as the leader. To be a transformational leader, a person must be tough with qualities to adjust to altered circumstances. Transformational leadership can be defined based on the impact that it has on followers. (Cherry, 2020)

The differences in Transformational and Servant Leadership is that Servant leadership centers on sustaining and evolving the members of the organization, while transformational leadership concentrated on stimulating employees to come together to achieve the same goal. The similarities of Transformational and Servant Leadership is that Both transformational leadership and servant leadership emphasize the importance of appreciating and valuing people, listening, mentoring or teaching, and empowering followers. (Stone, 2016)

My leadership is very similar to both leadership styles because I believe that I was born to naturally serve others or in my community which is the same characteristics as a Servant Leadership style. I am also a self-motivator and believe in encouraging others to do better and to help

create a solution to and problems within an organization to make thing better. I incorporate all the morals and values that was instilled in me to help create a good morale within the organization. My morals and values align with each of these theories because my beliefs are integrity, responsibility, trustworthy and last respect. These morals and values help build character within me and hopefully leading by example will influence others to act as such.

My leadership qualities align with the former president of the United States by using the same leadership style which is the Servant Leadership. President Barack Obama believed in serving his country as well as the community viewers watched President Obama chipping in at a Chicago food bank . (Soloway, 2018)

There are examples and research that can help me enhance the ethical aspects of my leadership influence which are in the Servant Leadership style, I understand that I have the natural instinct to serve but I need to incorporate a small version of the authoritarian leadership style to be able to delegate small tasks of the members of the organization so that it will free up some of my time to do other things.

In conclusion, I have enlightened on numerous ways of leading an organization and researching different leadership styles but after carefully research the Servant Leadership style I am convinced the I am a Servant Leader. Servant Leadership is a great leadership style because it incorporated your moral and values.

  • Cherry, K. (2020, January 19). Transformational Leadership. Retrieved from Very Well Mind: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-transformational-leadership-2795313
  • Commission, U. E. (2020, February 14). Religious Discrimination. Retrieved from U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/religion.cfm
  • Eva, N. (2019). Sevant Leadership. Elsevier, 111-132.
  • Greenleaf, R. R. (2019, January 20). The Seevant as Leader. Retrieved from Center for Servant Leadership: https://www.greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/
  • P., A. S. (2012). Organizational Power in Perspective. ASCE, 65-83.
  • Parris, D. L. (2012). Servant leadership theory’s emphasis on service to others and recognition that the role. Springer Link, 377-393.
  • Soloway, S. (2018, December 4). What the Country Needs: A Servant Leader. Retrieved from Government Executive: https://www.govexec.com/management/2018/12/what-country-needs-servant-leader/153267/
  • Stone, G. (2016). Transformational versus Servant Leadership. Emald Insight, 1-13.
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    According to my results in the Chapter 1 self-reflection I have a solid foundation of managerial strengths. To understand this, I first had to understand what the difference is between leadership and management. In the book is states that management is working with your group and leadership is motivating and inspiriting our group (Gulati, Mayo ...

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    Self Reflection on Leadership Development. Leadership. The leadership unit proved worthwhile in enabling me to organize myself as well as my studies more appropriately. Apart from being attentive in class, I became an active listener thus grasping the intricate details of the unit in all perspectives.

  18. 3 Compelling Self-Reflection Essay Examples: Learn, Inspire, Write

    Introduction. Writing a Self reflection is a crucial factor of personal development because it helps the individual to highlight their strengths to thrive on and identify weaknesses to mark areas for improvement. One of the key advantages of critical self reflection is that you get. a very clear understanding of yourself.

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    A self- reflection essay is a type of essay that makes you express the experiences you have gone through in life based on a topic you have chosen to write about. It is a personal type of essay that you write about. It makes you reflect on your life and journey to who you are today. The struggles, the fears, the triumphs and the actions you have ...

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    My manager keeps on insisting on controlling my emotions so that I can focus on my work. Since early start of this year, I am able control my emotions and things are back on track. 2. Time management. To be an effective leader, you need to learn to manage time. This has been an issue with me very recently. Initially I was only responsible for ...

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    1 SELF-REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON LEADERSHIP INTRODUCTION Leadership is the way one person supervises and co-ordinates with a group of people to help them accomplish a certain task. Leaders are able to create a supportive environment among group members and motivate them to accomplish goals of the organization (Avolio and Yammarino 2013). The effectiveness of leadership can be measured from outcomes ...

  22. Self-Reflection of Leadership Essay Example

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