Leadership Reflection
Twelve Prompts for Directors, Three Worked Examples and How to Test Them Against Evidence

The key insight:

Reflection is not a quiet hour with a notebook. It is a short, specific account of what you did, what happened and what you will do differently, written while you can still remember it.

Most directors reflect all the time and call it something else: the drive home, the replay of a difficult meeting, the 3am list of what they should have said. That is rumination, and it rarely changes behaviour. Leadership reflection is the disciplined version: a short, specific review of something you did, written down, ending in one change you will make.

This guide is about reflecting on what you did. It is not a guide to who you are; that is covered in our pieces on self-awareness exercises and your leadership philosophy. It sets out twelve prompts grouped by situation, three short worked examples and a way to test your reflections against evidence rather than memory. If you want that outside view now, you can take the free Leadership Psychometric, a 50-question leadership profile scoring five dimensions.

Why bother: the evidence in two sentences

In a set of experimental studies reported by Giada Di Stefano, Francesca Gino, Gary Pisano and Bradley Staats, reflection on accumulated practice aided learning across ten experiments with 4,340 participants. The authors found that most people, given the choice, keep practising rather than reflect, that the benefit is greatest early on once there is experience to reflect on, and that how you reflect matters. A public-sector example points the same way: the Australian Public Service Academy's learning reflection template says reflecting on work experiences helps people turn them into skills and avoid repeating the same mistake.

For a director the practical point is that you already have the experience. What is usually missing is the structure.

Twelve prompts, grouped by situation

Use one or two prompts, not all of them. Write the answers; a thought you have not written down is easy to bend later.

After a hard decision

1. What did I know when I decided, and what did I assume?
2. Who did I consult, and who did I leave out?
3. If this goes badly, what will the cause most likely be?

After feedback

1. What is the specific behaviour being described, not the verdict?
2. Where have I heard a version of this before?
3. What would I have to do differently on Monday for the person to notice?

At quarter end

1. Which three decisions of mine did the most good, and which did the most damage?
2. Where did I do work that someone on my team should have done?
3. What did I avoid this quarter because it was uncomfortable?

Before a promotion case

1. What is the strongest evidence that I already operate at the next level?
2. What would a sceptical peer say is missing?
3. Which of my strengths is carrying more weight than it should?

If you are preparing a promotion case, our guide to whether you are ready for promotion turns prompts 10 to 12 into a fuller checklist.

Three worked examples

These are illustrative composites, not real individuals, written the way a useful reflection reads: short, specific and ending in an action.

After a hard decision. "I closed the regional office after two weeks of analysis. I consulted finance and HR but not the regional head, because I expected her to resist. The decision was right on cost. What I missed was that three of her team would leave within a month and take two clients. I assumed resistance meant lack of insight. Next time I will brief the person most affected before the decision, not after, and ask them to argue the other side."

After feedback. "A peer said my updates feel like instructions. I had thought they were clear. Looking at my last three emails, each ends with a deadline and none asks a question. I do that when I am anxious about delivery. From next week, every update to my direct reports will end with one question and I will ask one of them in a month whether it has changed anything."

Before a promotion case. "I have run the division for two years and hit target both years. My strongest evidence is that I now handle the chief executive's questions about the numbers without notes. What is missing is evidence of influence outside my division. I have never changed a decision owned by someone else. In the next quarter I will take one cross-divisional issue to the executive committee and track whether the decision moves."

Notice what each does: names the event, separates fact from assumption and ends in a change that someone else could observe.

Check your reflection against evidence

The weakness of reflection is that you are both the witness and the judge. Senior leaders tend to over-rate some strengths and under-rate others, and a reflection that only uses your own memory will confirm what you already believe. Three outside checks help.

Patterns, not events. If the same lesson appears in three reflections, it is a habit rather than an incident.

Other people's accounts. One honest conversation with a trusted colleague about a specific event is worth more than a month of private review. JOH Partners' note on spotting executive derailment in the first ninety days shows the same principle in a board setting: the leader's own read is invited first, then compared with what others see.

A structured profile. The Leadership Psychometric is a 50-question leadership profile across five dimensions:

• Vision Thinking: how naturally you set direction and see beyond the current plan.
• Execution Drive: how reliably you turn direction into delivery.
• Influencing Power: how well you move people who do not report to you.
• People Intelligence: how accurately you read and develop others.
• Composure: how steady you are when the pressure is highest.

Read your reflections, then read your profile. Where they agree, you have confirmation. Where they disagree, for example a reflection that credits your influence and a profile that scores it low, you have found the most useful thing on the page. The profile requires a free account, so create one and take the free Leadership Psychometric. If you would like to see what it covers first, the public overview page sets it out. For a wider self-review, our guide to leadership self-assessment sets out how to combine the sources.

Make it a routine, not a project

Reflection works when it is cheap. A workable rhythm is five minutes after a hard decision or piece of feedback, thirty minutes at quarter end and an hour before any promotion discussion. Keep the entries in one place so you can read across them. For leaders who run regular one-to-ones, the questions in our guide to one-on-one meeting questions are a source of material, because the answers your team gives are evidence your own memory will not supply. The wider Leadership collection covers the rest of the territory.

Key takeaways

• Leadership reflection is a short, written review of something specific you did, ending in one change. It is not rumination and it is not a journal habit.
• Experimental evidence shows reflection aids learning, particularly once you have experience to draw on, but most people skip it in favour of more practice.
• Twelve prompts across four situations cover most senior needs: after a hard decision, after feedback, at quarter end and before a promotion case.
• A reflection built only on your own memory confirms what you already believe. Test it against patterns, other people and a structured profile.
• The free Leadership Psychometric is a 50-question profile across Vision Thinking, Execution Drive, Influencing Power, People Intelligence and Composure.

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