Reflecting on Growth & Leadership
“It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.”
Rev. Ken Untener (1979) Prophets of a Future Not Our Own.
December is an interesting month. It takes so many months to reach it and, on the way, we often think how far away it is. You go to work in June and think, ‘Thanksgiving’ and the ‘Festive Season’ seem so far away. Before you know it, though, the big end-of-year sales are on, carols are being sung, and messages of peace, hope, and goodwill seem to abound. The year is almost over, and you start thinking, ‘What have I done throughout the year?’ It is a question that we all ask ourselves at some point. It was most famously asked and immortalized by John Lennon in his well-known “Happy Xmas (War is Over).
So, this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
Lennon, John., Ono, Yoko. (1971). Happy Xmas (War is Over). New York, NY:
(Lyrics) Downtown Music Publishing.
Reflection, including self-reflection, is perhaps the most valuable yet underrated tool in leadership. All too often, the focus is on the operations or the tasks to be done. Why spend so much time constructing, checking, and focusing on the ‘To-Do List’? Sure, it has a role in helping you remember the things you wanted to do that day, but they can be restrictive, even depressing. Consider this daily scenario. Jo arrives at work, turns the computer on, and logs into the email. Jo lets the email download while getting coffee from the local cafe. Over the coffee, Jo constructs the day’s ’To-Do List.’ She looks at the list for yesterday and realizes that of the ten items, two were completed yesterday. In bringing the eight across from yesterday, Jo realizes that there are at least 2 more things that need to be done by the end of this day. This, of course, creates a sensation that it is ‘ground-hog Day,’ where things keep repeating themselves. There is very little that is life-giving in this scenario. That said, if the scenario of seeing the incomplete list from yesterday gave rise to some reflective questions, perhaps it might be the genesis for a life-giving day at work. Reflection on a personal transformation level is often highly effective when you put the year you have had against the Personal Plan you created for yourself at the start of the year. A Personal Plan covers the following areas for this author and is revisited throughout the year. It also gives a starting or departure point for the next plan in the new year.
Areas for a Personal Plan
- Family and Friends
- Personal Health and Well-Being
- Study (Formal and Informal)
- Career (Plan it with your Coach)
- Wealth Creation (Think Retirement)
- Inner Health and Well-Being
See the Template by David Ivers for a Personal Plan
Why does this Personal Plan focus on setting goals for key areas of your life? Goal setting allows you to measure and determine your growth and achievement. This activates the reward part of the Brain, notably ‘the mesolimbic dopamine system.’ To read more about this, look at: “Brain Reward Pathways” (from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York).
Personal Growth is very much embedded in Neuroscience. It gives the Brain purpose and often creates a sense of hope and a sense that something can be achieved. Purpose is at the heart of our human condition. Everyone needs to feel as though they have a purpose in life, no matter how small. They need to know that they have contributed something to their world and the world. According to Behavior Change Coach Christina Lattimer, a basic understanding of Neuroscience and how your brain works can lead to powerful personal and professional growth strategies. The Personal Plan Template is all about getting you to think about your life. It gets you to focus on harnessing the adaptability of the Brain, its Neuroplasticity, what are the things that consume your thinking, what limits and empowers you, and the importance of setting goals that, when worked on incrementally, can lead to personal and professional transformation. The article by Christina Lattimer is well worth reading.
“Neuroscience science reveals that personal growth isn’t just about willpower—it’s about working with your brain’s natural mechanisms to create lasting change. You can transform your life by harnessing these neuroscience-backed strategies, including neuroplasticity, focusing your thoughts, breaking limiting patterns, and setting clear goals.”
Lattimer, Christina. (2024). Unlocking Your Potential: Neuroscience and Personal Growth Strategies (in People Development Magazine – December 2, 2024).
The secret here is that personal and, for that matter, professional transformation is not just about ‘willpower.’ If it were that simple, we’d all be doing exceedingly well. It is very much about reflection, self-reflection in particular, and undertaking work on your inner life. This is the genesis for the next big-ticket item, living life to the full.
Reflective thinking, especially self-reflective thinking, can often lead to choices. It is not unusual for people to reflect on the year that has been and turn their thoughts, as a result, to a career change in the New Year. They might consider relocating to a coastal town (sea change) or a rural town (tree change). There is some evidence to suggest this. Taking the Quit Rates from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics over the last five complete years of data (2019-2023), the Median Quit Rate is 2.4%, with the two highest months being March (2.5%) and May (2.6%). Think of it this way. If I decide to make a career change over the festive season (December), I will probably revisit the practical side in early to mid-January. Assuming it is worth pursuing, I’ll polish up my CV and look at websites such as careersingov.com for job opportunities. Assuming I am interviewed in mid-February and allowing for background checks and referee checks to be done, the job offer may not come my way till the last week of February. Common practice is to wait until a letter of offer or a contract has been received and the paperwork is done before resigning. This puts you into March. In other words, the Quit Rate reflects decisions people may have made months before resigning.
Often, people feel they should move on but can’t justify it upon reflection. The most likely reason is that they are asking the wrong question. People, especially after a tough year, will ask themselves: “Why don’t I just quit and get a better job somewhere else?” The problem with this question is that the answers will easily find you. The likely contenders are: it’s an easy commute, it pays the bills, what about the mortgage, the people are friendly, the work itself is ok, and so on. The better question is: “Why do I stay?” That question takes your reflection past the obvious reasons and into some soul-searching territory. If you can’t answer that question, you should consider other prospects. If you can answer the question but the answers suggest you should leave, then seriously consider doing so. One theory often found in Economics and appropriated by Anthropology is ‘Rational Choice Theory.’ Whilst this approach may underpin it, it should be taken with caution. Usually, these career decisions are far from rational.
“Rational Choice Theory is a normative (i.e., what should happen) theory for how people should behave across all kinds of situations. It assumes that individuals decide by comparing the costs and benefits of various options and choosing the one that maximizes their personal advantage. This theory is based on the idea that individuals act rationally, which lots of research suggests isn’t always true.”
Paulus, Nathan. (2024) Expert Insights on Rational Choice Theory (Interview with Assoc. Prof. Ye Li). Riverside: CA. University of California, Riverside.
Reflection, including self-reflection, is perhaps the most valuable yet underrated tool in leadership.
Another theory in anthropology that might have something to give regarding career decision-making and choices is the rupture theory. Essentially, ruptures occur regularly throughout our day but often go undetected because they are so minor. A minor rupture might be getting your morning coffee from a different vendor rather than using the same one you have used for the last 5 years. It might be that they are closed for the day, or a colleague recommended this new place or the queue isn’t as deep, and you’re in a hurry. Rational Choice Theory might well have something to say with this scenario. On the other hand, the decision for a person to jettison an impressive career, one in which their star is in the ascendency, not just for a different employer but a different industry, all for no rational reason, is a rupture of some magnitude. The only real explanation is that the person seeks renewal, resetting, or rejuvenation.
Ruptures can “instigate a significant break with existing conditions – by the same token it can act as a positive or dynamic impulse towards escape, redirection, reconstitution, and sometimes renewal. In our conceptualization, then, ruptures are moments at which value emerges through a break with something.”
Martin Holbraad, Bruce Kapferer and Julia F. Sauma (2019) ‘Introduction: Critical Ruptures’ in Holbraad, M., Kapferer, B. and Sauma, J.F. (eds). 2019. Ruptures: Anthropologies of Discontinuity in Times of Turmoil. London: UCL Press.
Whether you choose to create the rupture for rational and logical reasons or whether the rupture finds you, it comes with the possibility of renewal, of personal and maybe also professional transformation. The problem comes in people, leaders, and team members with sufficient self-awareness to know possible growth areas. Leaders must build their capacity to be self-reflective before helping others on their team do the same. In his excellent book, ‘Lead From The Heart’, Mark C. Crowley put forward some simple questions that leaders can use as a starting point with their team.
Once again, simple, straightforward questions will elicit what you need to uncover:
- What kind of success do you want in your life, and what kind do you want in your work?
- How do you feel about your progress in your current role?
- What specific skills would you like to grow or develop?
- Have you considered what you might like to do next in your career and even further down the line?
- What are the things that I can do to help you achieve these dreams?
Crowley, Mark. C. (2022). Lead From The Heart: Transformational Leadership For The 21st Century (eBook). Carlsbad. California: Hay House, Inc. (Ch 6. p153 of 295).
Reflecting on what you are trying to achieve and what you can contribute is a wonderful place to start. The reflective leader and, indeed, the reflective team leader will likely connect all of this to their journey and their mission. Your team should be encouraged to do the same. It is, of course, the role of the leader to ensure that they get the very best out of their staff. As a leader, you should want your staff to be a better iteration of themselves than yesterday. By the way, you should also like that for yourself as a leader. It also means being aspirational for your team, always wanting their best.
At this time of year, it is not unusual for people to dream about the possibilities of the New Year. Dream big; think about what could be changed and how things could improve. Start by improving the organization’s culture. Start by making the big goal for the New Year that the world, humanity itself, might be slightly better because of your efforts. Tom Peters puts this well in his outstanding book Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism.
“I even dare to hope that the new organizational cultures we might build in the face of today’s madness will, in fact, usher in a widespread revolution marked by more humane and more energized workplaces committed to extreme (there’s that word again) employee growth and the creation of products and services that are marked by excellence and even dare I say it, make the world a wee bit better.”
Peters,Tom. (2021). Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism (eBook). Chicago. Illinois. | Networking Publishing. (Introduction. p16-17 of 296).
Employee growth is always a hot topic and goes hand in glove with employee engagement. Please make no mistake about it. The more people are engaged with what is happening, the more they will grow, the more they will get out of it, and have an essential sense of belonging and ownership. By all means, honor each person’s strengths on the team and work out ways to build their skills. The expectation is not that they should be good at everything, but it is good to have diverse skills. When you take on a leadership role with a new team, meet the team members. Chat with them, find out something about them, and, importantly, discern where their strengths are to be found. In Governance, having a ‘Skills Register’ for each member of the Board is not unusual. Why would you not want that information organization-wide? Empower people to be the genius they could be. When they have done something well, celebrate it, perhaps ask them to present it to the group.
Let the leadership emerge from within the group. At a personal level, ask some basic questions: What will happen if I continue my current path? What change do I want to make in my life? How will I bring about this change? What are the roadblocks that might prevent me from making this change? How will I celebrate when I’ve achieved this change? Tom Peters talked about ‘organizational culture.’ Culture in any environment is created (and damaged) by people. Connecting their Plan for transformation to one for Professional Growth transformation gives a continuous approach to employee growth. As the New Year approaches, may it be full of the blessings and beauty that personal and professional transformation can bring. When you notice that there are people around you who seem to be joyful and who work and live in the magic of life, ask yourself the question: How? The answer is simple. They have a plan.
“Anything less than a conscious commitment to the important
is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.”
Stephen R. Covey. (2015) First Things First. Miami. Florida: Mango Media. (p34 of 399).
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