Reflective Leadership in the DEL-MEM Program
One of the centralthemes of the DEL-MEM Program is leadership. Leadership is personal, driven by your own experience, attributes, values, and passions. Throughout the program, you are asked to reflect upon and share your personal experiences in leadership with your professors and peers. This will also be part of the leadership conference calls.
The Importance of Reflection
Students are thinking all the time, but experience teaches us that without reflection on what we do, we are not likely to benefit from our good thinking. – John Barell
Reflection allows you the opportunity to gain new understandings and draw greater meaning and appreciation from your experiences. You can evaluate your thoughts, feelings and actions, determine what is relevant and useful and what is not, think about relationships, explore patterns, make decisions, and think critically about the impact that your experiences have on your personal and professional development.
Reflection is an important human activity in which people recapture their experience, think about it, mull it over, and evaluate it. – Boud, Keogh and Walker
Some Questions to Consider
As you begin your reflective practice with journalingand continue in your development as a leader, there are many questions that are worth asking.
After an experience, consider:
- What happened?
- What about this experience was significant to me?
- How did I act and/or react in the situation?
- What leadership opportunities were available to me in the situation? Did I take those opportunities? Why or why not?
- What did I feel while it was happening? How do I feel now?
- What did I do well in the situation?
- How might I handle a similar situation in the future?
- What do I know now – about myself, others, leadership, etc. – that I didn’t know before?
- Am I aware of any other changes that occurred in terms of my knowledge, skills, attitudes or feelings as a direct result of this experience?
Getting the Most out of Your Reflective Practice
Like many other things, the more you reflect, the more easily it will come to you and the more helpful it will be. When you first start in your reflective practice, you may want to plan a regular time or place to meditate, even if nothing seems significant to you at that time.
You may not want to wait long after an experience to reflect. Just after an event, you may wish to write some key points and give your initial impressions about your experiences so that you can recall them later. To derive the greatest learning from your experiences, you may then want to go back a short time later, after you have some time to process, read over your notes and think more about how you were feeling, how you feel now, and what you have learned after some time has passed.
As has been said, if you don’t reflect, you cannot lead.
Good luck.
Don Wells Consulting