The Art of Personal Reflection in Business
Of all the qualities a business leader should have, personal reflection is being mentioned with increasing frequency, and for good reason. As a leader, self-awareness will have widespread positive effects for not only you, but for your peers, subordinates, and organization as a whole.
When discussing things like personal reflection and self-awareness, it’s important to note they aren’t just character qualities (such as honesty or humility) being applied in the workplace. More often than not, true self-awareness involves collaboration with others; it’s rarely as simple as identifying your own blind spots or not taking too much credit.
The question is, why is this so important in the first place – can personal reflection in business really have that much of an impact? You might be surprised.
Why leaders should employ personal reflection in business
Personal reflection is an asset no matter how you look at it. Here are some hypothetical examples of personal reflection at work:
Your company has recently made a lot of new hires and you notice they seem to be having difficulty adjusting. There’s more friction than usual and efficiency has dropped even though everyone has been thoroughly trained. After reflection, you realize that you aren’t doing enough as a leader to make the new employees feel seen and valued. Plus, following your example, other employees have been doing the same. You take the necessary steps to correct the issue and actively elicit feedback and ideas from newer staff. As a result, the team starts working as a team again, the new hires are able to contribute meaningfully, and the organization’s bottom line reaps the rewards.
You’ve been at your current position for a couple of years, and you just don’t feel the same zest for your job as you used to. Upon reflection, it becomes clear that you’ve reached a plateau with your career and could use guidance as you contemplate how to move onto bigger and better things. You approach a senior colleague for advice and eventually form a mentor/mentee relationship that gives you a boost both professionally and personally.
You’re one of the senior managers in your company. Seemingly out of nowhere, one of your client projects fails to perform as well as expected. Instead of blaming external circumstances, you turn inward. You realize your personal interest in the project interfered with the way the rest of the team operated. Instead of delegating tasks to the most qualified people, you completed some of them yourself, resulting in a less tailored deliverable that interfered with the overall success of the project. The next time a similar project comes up, you’ll make sure that each team member plays to their strengths – including you.
What gets in the way of being self-aware as a business leader?
On a practical level, one of the most common obstacles to self-awareness as a leader is experience. One study demonstrated that the more experience business leaders had, the less likely they were to accurately assess their own level of expertise. Perhaps unsurprisingly, business leaders tend to overestimate their effectiveness.
With this in mind, it may not be such a surprise to learn that according to research from Hay Group, only 4% of male executives fit the criteria for self-awareness. Female executives performed better at 19%, but that leaves plenty of room for improvement for both. Ask these same business executives whether they were self-aware and you’d get much higher numbers. Personal reflection in business is something that a lot of people think they have, but not many actually possess.
Self-awareness is more than just introspection
To be a self-aware leader, you must understand what self-awareness is. There are two sides to being self-aware, called “internal self-awareness” and “external self-awareness”.
Internal self-awareness
Internal self-awareness is what most people think of when they hear the term “self-aware”. Unfortunately, this type of self-awareness alone won’t get you very far in business; without external self-awareness to balance it out, you won’t challenge your own opinions that often, let alone ask others for feedback. This tends to limit your success, and even damage relationships. As part of a more balanced perspective, though, internal self-awareness helps you see your own blind spots, admit fault, and change direction when needed.
External self-awareness
External self-awareness puts an emphasis on how your actions affect other people. Taken by itself, this could result in too much focus on what other people think, even at the cost of ignoring your own wants and needs. Paired with internal self-awareness, however, it enables you to gather valuable opinions, seek out feedback, and make more informed decisions. Being self-aware means you aren’t afraid to go back to the drawing board, even if it contradicts your accumulated skills and experience.
Asking “what” questions instead of “why” questions
If you wanted to cultivate more self-awareness as a leader, how would you approach the task? If you’re like most people, you’d start by asking “why” questions. Why didn’t I win that proposal? Why isn’t my company growing as quickly as it should? Why are my employees unhappy? Why am I struggling to network with other business leaders?
This angle of questioning can generate some productive answers, but not necessarily the most productive answers. That’s because asking “why” questions focuses on the problem, not the solution. It imitates the function of personal reflection in business, but doesn’t produce the same results.
A better approach is to ask “what” questions. What lessons could you apply from a debrief to win that next proposal? Which trusted business partners might need your capabilities for their next opportunity? What avenues could you take to assess employee satisfaction? What would remove the obstacles that are keeping you from forming solid connections with peer business owners?
Practical ways to cultivate more self-awareness
Developing self-awareness as a leader is a deeply personal process, but it isn’t as complicated as it may sound. Here are a few common-sense strategies that could help:
Be open to change. One major hindrance to self-awareness is being afraid of change. Be it personal change, strategic change, operational change, or change in almost any other context – some people just don’t like it. If you want to develop greater personal reflection in business, you’ll have to be willing to make changes one way or another.
Stay true to your values. Nobody adheres to their own values 100% of the time, but sometimes it’s possible to identify established behavioral patterns that you’d rather not admit to. It could be the tendency to snap at employees after a long day, only giving your best effort when you’re personally interested in something, or simply failing to clean up after a marathon conference room meeting. Whatever the case, none of those things would be part of someone’s values. By examining whether you’re following your core values daily, you’ll become more aware of your own behavior and how it affects other people.
Ask for feedback. Everybody has blind spots, and we usually need the help of someone we trust in order to see them. Getting feedback is a crucial aspect of external self-awareness; even if it doesn’t always feel good, the benefits make up for it.
How a mentor can make your personal reflections in business more effective
It’s time to shine a spotlight on mentorship, and how it pertains to personal reflection in business. Instead of simply getting feedback on things that have already happened, you’d be getting advice on the things that could happen – your career trajectory, personal development, life goals, and more.
One of the main difficulties many people have is finding a mentor. In most cases, you can’t simply ask someone you admire to mentor you; instead, a slower approach is often more effective.
Start by requesting a short meeting to get their advice on something. If it goes well, let some time pass and then ask for another meeting. Always give them room to take things more slowly, or even turn you down; they aren’t obligated to mentor you, and they aren’t necessarily your only option either. Even if you aren’t exactly sure how to find a mentor, the simple act of looking for one could be all you need to get started.
How does finding a mentor apply to developing self-awareness, though? The same way it could apply to you personally: by revealing blind spots, giving honest feedback, teaching you how to be more productive, and much more. By learning how to find a mentor, you’ll be seeking out tools that will help you for the rest of your life.
What’s the takeaway
Statistically speaking, you may be a bit less self-aware than you think. The good news is that things don’t have to stay that way. There are plenty of strategies that can help you cultivate deeper personal reflection in business, leading to both personal and professional benefits for you and your business for years to come.