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Reflection as leadership survival

“Reflection doesn’t take anything away from decisiveness, from being a person of action. In fact, it generates the inner toughness you need to be an effective person of action ………. to be a leader” -  Peter Koestenbaum

Slowing down, taking time out for reflection, are not typically things that busy leaders have an opportunity to do. We live in a time where the deadlines always loom too large, where the ‘to do’ list is perpetually being added to and the conflicting demands of work, family, and time for self seem to be in an unending struggle for one’s time, energy and resources.

We see many executives and senior leaders in our workshops and personal coaching sessions who talk about the loneliness of the job. The pressures are enormous, the world is more complex and fuzzy than ever before and there is nowhere to talk about what all of it is doing to you. You often feel stressed, overwhelmed, torn and anxious. You can’t take this home, your colleagues are in the same boat and you are often in competition with them anyway, and your boss is the last person you feel you can confide in or allow yourself to be vulnerable with, and it is unfair to unburden yourself on your staff.

The power of journaling

So what does this have to do with journaling?

Keeping a journal has been used by people over many centuries as a way of recording what is happening in their life and their world. Many journals have now become valuable social commentaries of their day e.g. Samuel Pepys’s diaries that chronicle Victorian England, or those of the early explorers that give us an idea of what pioneering sea voyages or expeditions into Antarctica were like. Those are journals that have helped to tell the story of the day. Then there are the journals like ‘Letters to my unborn child’ that describe the inner landscape of what it means to be human. They help us to understand our collective and individual madness and normality, grief and loss, hopes and love and joy. They are the safe place in which to learn more about ourselves.

Journals can serve the purpose of being deeply private and personal or can be written with the intention of publication to serve a wider audience. So much of our experience as humans is at once both extraordinarily unique and personal while at the same time also universal.

The way in which we would like to encourage you to use your journal is in the personal sense (although there is nothing to stop you from publishing it of course!). To use it as a space in which you can capture what is happening in your world of leadership, what you are thinking and feeling, what gremlins you are wrestling with and what questions are besieging you and what triumphs and successes you are celebrating.

“it always comes back to the same necessity; go deep enough and there is a bedrock of truth, however hard”  May Sarton

Your journal is a safe place in which to explore your deepest fears and wildest dreams, your longings, frustrations, rage and challenges. It is safe because it does not answer back and there are no consequences for anyone else of saying exactly what you think and feel.

The power of journaling is that through the act of writing you discover what you think. It is in the process of reflecting on your writing over time that you discover the patterns and trends that are influencing your thinking, behavior and life. It is in the discovery of answers from within to the questions that intrigue or maybe trouble you, that you discover more about who you are and the power that lies within your own experience. These types of insights will never be possible if you just keep your thoughts circulating in your own head.

Practical ways to use a journal

“the events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves, they find their own order……… the continuous thread of revelation” Eudora Welty.

If you have never journalled before give it a try. You will find your own rhythm and what works for you, in terms of time of day and place for writing, frequency and length of entries. There are no rules, but to make the journal meaningful you probably need to write at least once a week. When you write just let your thoughts flow – even if they don’t make too much sense in the moment, remember the journal is there for you and no-one else.

 Some uses of a journal are:

• When something has happened – i.e. write about an interaction or event. Be sure to capture the things that go well as well as the ones that don’t.
• A place to dump feelings when you are feeling troubled, sad, angry, anxious, frustrated, excited, hopeful etc. Write your way into and through the feelings.
• To capture ideas and thoughts that you don’t want to lose – those ‘ah-ha’ moments.
• For raising and exploring questions that you are grappling with – it is often interesting to see how these questions change over time – you may want to write about those questions – to unpack them as you have a conversation with yourself. But it can also be useful to just write down the questions that arise. In many ways the questions we grapple with are more important than the solutions we find. Staying with the questions often creates eventual insights that would not have been possible if you had rushed to a solution.
• A place in which to be curious about yourself.

Remember there are no rights and wrongs; there is only the discovery of what works for you. Sometimes you will write a sentence and at other times several pages. The important thing is that you get into the habit of writing down what is happening in your external and internal world.

You may want to keep your journal on-line, but if that is your preference it is a good idea to supplement it with a book in which you can write by hand. Something different happens when you write in the old-fashioned way. It is also useful to keep it with you so that you can capture thoughts as they happen.

It is also useful to also draw, create symbols, shapes, and write poems or songs. It is the place to bring your creativity to bear and see what happens as you play and experiment on this journey of discovery.

You may well find that although this is primarily a journal of your leadership journey that it is also appropriate to write about things that are happening in the more personal and social aspects of your life.

The King “that was wonderful I will remember it for the rest of my life.

The Queen “no you won’t, not unless you write it down” from Alice in Wonderland

So have fun with your journal, be curious and experiment with it over the next few months and see what you discover about yourself, your leadership and your life through the process.