Why Leaders Must Practise Self-Reflection

The path to honest and transformative leadership begins with self-reflection. Daily self-reflection strengthens a leader’s self-awareness and translates into a powerful organization. 

Why do leaders need self-reflection?

Simply, because it is a powerful tool that infuses humility into a person and helps him identify his strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.  

Leadership is a tough game where you need to balance multiple roles such as project management, budgeting, hiring, paperwork, motivating the team, conflict resolution, and many more. Balancing responsibilities of such magnitude could be stressful and require a combination of many qualities like patience, passion, confidence, integrity, and transparency.

Among the many qualities of a leader, I consider self-reflection to be indispensable. It increases self-awareness and makes a leader stand out from the rest. A leader has to coach the team members to reach higher levels of productivity, develop performance plans for the employees, and meet the overall organizational objectives. Carrying out all these responsibilities requires the leader to grow strong internally through self-reflection. 

A leader who doesn't spare time for self-reflection is hampering his internal growth and also the growth of his team. 

So, what is self-reflection?

Self-reflection or introspection is a method of observing oneself to understand the strengths and weaknesses and grow into a better person. By understanding oneself thoroughly, a person can identify what steps are feasible to achieve his personal and professional goals. The process of self-reflection involves a complete introspection into what kind of person you are, who you would like to grow into, and what steps you should take to reach your goals.

The time invested in self-reflection should never be viewed as unproductive. It is a valuable investment where you get the opportunity to think about your qualities in isolation and act on your weaknesses.

How do leaders gain from self-reflection?

The benefits of self-reflection for leaders are innumerable. Here are some benefits I feel leaders can gain through daily self-reflection.

• Emotional intelligence - Practising self-reflection daily can boost your emotional intelligence. When you examine your internal qualities, it builds two components of emotional intelligence in your personality - self-regulation, and self-awareness. By developing self-awareness, you can understand your strengths and weaknesses clearly. It gives the ability to have a better grasp on your emotions and also an excellent picture of what drives your values and goals. Self-awareness also helps to realize the impact of your actions on others. Through self-regulation, you get the ability to control your disruptive emotions and adapt yourself to the evolving circumstances. When you develop these emotional components through self-reflection, you can improve your people management and leadership skills tremendously.
•  Integrity - Look deep into your values. Self-reflection throws light on the areas of your personality that need improvement. It helps you understand your values and morals better and also get a clear picture of how you should change yourself. Many times leaders have to go through stressful situations. When you are clear about your core values, you can strengthen your integrity and take better decisions. Self-reflection helps to consolidate your values and bring personal discipline. It can help you to review the key decisions in the recent past and improve decision-making in the future.  Integrity also helps you to project yourself as a role model and encourage the team to perform to their best.
• Confidence - Leaders need to have strong self-confidence to lead their organizations to success. Confidence improves communication and decision-making skills. Self-reflection will help you eliminate your negative traits and help you emerge as a confident leader.  
• Improved workplace relationships - Take time to understand how you are treating others at work. This can help you to identify the drawbacks in your communication and interactions. You can change your behavior and create harmonious relationships in the workplace. Self-reflection is an excellent aid to assess emotional reactions and find ways to overcome the negative aspects of your behavior. For building good relationships, you should have the ability to think from the other person’s shoes. Self-reflection gives you the opportunity to consider the views and feelings of others and also appreciate the value of relationships. A true leader values every relationship at the workplace and respects each employee for his caliber. Introspection also helps leaders to overcome any personal bias they might have towards their colleagues.
• Clarity of thought - You can think about things in isolation and have better clarity about your thoughts and emotions. Self-reflection clears your mind and allows you to assess situations rationally. It helps to take a well-rounded perspective to the events and provides the mindset for reaching reasoned conclusions.

Final thoughts

Do you feel that you do not have time for self-reflection in your busy schedule? It doesn't matter what time you do it. Set aside 15 minutes in a day and retreat to solitude. Calm your thoughts and let your mind run free. These times can give you the best insight into yourself and the situations at work. It can empower you as a leader and allow you to overcome the challenges easily through integrity and strength of character. 

During self-reflection, I suggest that you write your thoughts down on a piece of paper. This can help you organize your thoughts and feelings more effectively. Healthy self-reflection empowers and motivates you and guides you to emerge as powerful leaders.