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It is truly exhilarating to consider reflections on leadership and to be at a stage at which one has time to reflect on one’s career and to identify the takeaways from the time spent in progressively responsible leadership roles along the way. To reach the heart of leadership overview, one needs to engage in deep reflection and to ask oneself some soul-searching questions at each stage along one’s leadership trajectory, rather than waiting until the end of one’s career. By doing this systematically, one has the opportunity to reflect, take stock, devise a plan, formulate corrective actions, and make improvements, as required. These questions for reflection should include the following:
Questions for reflections on Leadership
- What are the reasons I chose to seek out progressively responsible leadership positions?
- Was I propelled by causes outside of myself, or was I motivated by self-interest?
- Was I as magnanimous as I could possibly have been along the way?
- Did I listen to my inner radar and follow my inner compass?
- Was I bound by moral and ethical imperatives?
- Did I practice what I preached?
- Did I address the major sources of ambivalence and surprise?
- Did I pay attention to the opinions, needs, and aspirations of those expected to do the daily work?
- Did my organization and employee motivation thrive under my leadership characteristics?
- Did I communicate widely and work with the widest possible cross-section of people to embed key leadership beliefs, values, goals, and expectations into the fabric of the organization?
- Did I co-opt, train, and support future leaders with the skills required to sustain and build upon the gains?
At critical points in one’s career, there is a need to engage in introspection and reflection a soul-searching borne out of a desire for assurance that there was congruence among knowledge, beliefs, values, motivations, and behaviors. The need for a convergence of values and behaviors is a leadership imperative that unearths all that one has stood for and fought for over the years. This exercise also highlights the practices that can be discarded and elucidates the ones that must be kept alive. And for those who spend their lives in search of truth, genuineness, and fidelity to longstanding universal values, the answers can make a difference in the way one assesses the success of one’s career.
The insights gained from this exercise will also affect the sense of contentment that one hopes to achieve in retirement, when one inevitably will have time to look back and think deeply about one’s actions and achievements. It also influences the ability to arrive at a conclusion as to whether or not one has fought a good fight, achieved the desired outcomes, and demonstrated the character and personal attributes that a leader could only hope would be his or her leadership legacy.
Leaders today must have a strong determination to ensure that they contribute to their sense of satisfaction that they did, indeed, work hard to demonstrate the personal attributes they say they value most. These include integrity, empathy, courage, optimism, and respect.
Among these attributes, demonstrating respect is the most fundamental and all-encompassing if one wants to reach the heart of leadership. Based on what we know about the qualities that have a lasting impact on organizational cultures and on people’s lives, respect should include respect for self, others, cultural differences, diversity, and human rights, to name a few. These are fundamental to and form the basis of healthy, effective, and productive relationships in any setting be it the home, the workplace, or the community and with all individuals our children, relatives, friends, or professional colleagues. More than ever, leaders today require a deeply held conviction that respect is the sine qua non in effective interpersonal relationships.
Reflections on leadership and membership
The way we treat people along our leadership essentials journey can eventually enhance or hinder our career progression and upward mobility. Examples abound of leaders who failed because they did not demonstrate these interpersonal competencies. Moreover, people do not easily forget how they were treated; when they are treated poorly, it remains with them and affects them for a long time.
In some jurisdictions, before anyone is promoted to a leadership role, those who will eventually make the decision conduct site visits and hold interviews with individuals with whom the aspiring candidate worked in earlier positions. The questions asked at these site visits are geared toward unearthing the behaviors the aspirant demonstrated in those settings. Respect for others, especially those at the lower rungs of the organizational hierarchy, is always included in this probing exercise. Why? Because demonstrating respect for others is a competence that is at the heart of leadership traits.
I remember quite vividly an example of a situation where key community members believed that a principal did not show respect for her community in terms of their values, their beliefs, and their expectations of the school. I had to intervene after giving the principal ample support and leeway to put the relationship back on track. Eventually, the principal had no choice but to resign. Trust, once lost, is almost impossible to regain. It takes inordinate effort to redress such situations. This all started with what the community described as a lack of recognition and respect for their deeply held values and a principal who, they felt, was either unwilling or unable to turn the situation around.
Admittedly, there are times when a leader must challenge the values of a community if these values are inhumane or inconsistent with organization values. If one encounters a situation, for example, in which there are deep-seated biases and prejudices, unfair behavior, or disrespect shown toward individuals and groups, a leader must take a stand, responding quickly and decisively. But any leader who chooses to take on the community or other groups of individuals must recognize the strength, stamina, and support from one’s supervisors and colleagues that is required when one becomes embroiled in such conflicts.
Nonetheless, in all such situations one must always be guided by a strong sense of moral imperative and the need to act according to one’s conscience.
Martin Luther King Jr. provides some insights on this theme. He once said, On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right? There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.
This civil rights icon was alluding to our modern notion of moral imperative. Many educators today use this term regularly to describe their motivation in making decisions in schools. Often, we use this to test actions related to the life chances of students and their role in ensuring that their actions can withstand the highest test is this the right course of action in this situation?
Deep introspection helps leaders reflect on the leadership lessons learned and insights gained over time. Because these lessons represent the seeds they have sown and determine the reputation that remains throughout their career and lifetime, it is important for leaders to think deeply about the impact they are having on the people they serve, their colleagues, and the organizations they lead.
When I was a secondary school vice principal, I had very high expectations of staff similar to those I had for myself. My main motivation was to get things done quickly for the benefit of students. My popular refrain was “the children cannot wait.” I felt that their time in school was finite and that we should not waste it in any way. Things had to be done with a sense of urgency in order to achieve the outcomes that we had established for the students. In that situation, what I wanted was to have all staff members involved with students outside of their regular teaching duties. This meant that teachers were being asked to assume some form of extracurricular activities to support student engagement and well-being.
One of the oldest members of the staff someone close to retirement came to my office to see me. He told me that he couldn’t do any more than he was currently doing because his wife was very ill and he was having serious problems with his teenage son. I was so touched with his sincerity and pain that I began to cry. I remember vividly my reflections at the moment. I thought to myself, Here you are, thinking you are a cracker-jack vice principal, always talking about how important empathy is, how empathetic you are, and how much you care about people. But you were not being considerate of the needs of all your staff members in this case! You were more interested in getting things done than considering the needs of the people who are expected to do the work. This calls for leadership team development.
Through deep introspection, I decided that it was necessary to change my behavior in a manner that was more consistent with the values I espoused and openly expressed on many occasions. In other words, I knew I had to work harder at practicing what I was preaching. This incident was a catalyst in my career a watershed moment. I became more self-aware and more vigilant, and monitored more closely how I behaved toward the people I supervised. It was a life lesson learned that stayed with me throughout my career as a leader. This incident and the accompanying takeaways also had implications for relationships in other contexts.
Having position power means that it is incumbent upon leaders to use the power that accompanies leadership roles wisely and ethically. How a leader treats the custodians, the secretaries, the clerks in the finance department, or the mom or dad from the poorest part of the community matters significantly! It is so easy for leaders to treat people differentially in terms of the respect and attention shown to them, based on a host of factors if leaders do not have the values-driven, people-oriented inner radar that helps monitor their behavior. Biases and prejudices that we have all picked up along the way can surreptitiously undermine our best intentions. They can greatly influence the behavior of even those leaders who consider themselves to be fair-minded individuals who have acknowledged, and continue to work on, dislodging their own biases and prejudices by following the diffused leadership model.
Self-knowledge and awareness are enhanced when leaders take the time to think critically about their role, decisions, intentions, motivations, and modus operandi. Most important, it would serve leaders well to think long and hard about the meaning of power, privilege, and entitlement in their own lives and how they use this when they are entrusted with positions of added responsibility. This awareness, when acted upon, can be a source for either leadership success or dismal failure in the role when it is underdeveloped and which could be developed via leadership development program.
Leadership reflections for meetings
On the question of how leaders use power, which was mentioned earlier, it is important for leaders to reject the “power over” mentality in their pronouncements about who they are when describing their leadership communication style. Over the years, I have seen the impact that this type of leadership characteristics list has had and the havoc it has inflicted on people’s lives, sense of well-being, and job satisfaction. On the other hand, when leaders understand themselves and what having real power means, they eschew negative notions of power and adopt more positive approaches. They see power as working with and through people to get things done and to realize their goals. They take seriously how they lead and reflect on issues such as what it takes to motivate and inspire people so that they can realize their full potential and contribute to the collective success.
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