[September 30, 2021] The world is becoming increasingly unstable, with this constant fear of the unknown COVID-19 pandemic and its variants. Every individual is uncertain as to what is to happen?
When a person is afraid and is genuinely uncertain, there is always someone among us that stands up and gives a direction to our thoughts. That particular someone is the leader and has genuine leadership skills.
Given that the world is in constant turbulence, the need for an effective leader has become even more in demand, and reflection is paramount to be an effective leader.
Let us tell you a bit more about what reflective leadership means.
Reflective Leadership
Reflective leadership refers to leadership skills where the person is aware of his strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, he has the ability to utilize his strengths for his benefit and work to overcome his weaknesses.
So before you become a leader and manage your team, you must reflect on your thought. A leader who micromanages results in disgruntled and unhappy employees, an indecisive leader is someone who will always keep his team confused.
John Dewey, who was a great American philosopher, was a believer in reflective thought. He believed that reflection helps people, especially leaders learn from their experiences.
He further referred to the mental process of mirroring as including the process of research, clarification, finding a doubt, and then finding a solution for it. For a reflective leader, if you put out a series of unstructured thoughts in front of him, he will make something out of it.
Make Sense Out of Chaos
If you put out a bunch of tasks in front of people, very few would be able to make some sense out of it and structure it wisely. This is one of the most essential skills of a leader that they can quickly put things in order, come out with a vision, mission, and a task list.
However, one has to have clarity of mind to do this. However, to attain clarity, one has to make intentional decisions to manage their emotional and mental state of mind.
In today’s time especially, if you are not thinking on your feet and managing situations, you might see yourself stuck in a loophole—one of the elements that come in the job description of leadership in crises management.
Hope
Reflection gives an individual some hope and some direction. To take an example, when you graduate college with a degree, you have some hope and aspiration that keeps you going.
Similarly, when you join the corporate world, those hopes and aspiration is something that keeps you going through tough times and keeps you focused on your vision and mission as well.
Whether you are working for a digital marketing agency or have your own startup, always remember what skills and passions led you to this career path.
Reflection Will Lead To Effective Leadership
You must develop a habit to reflect if you want to become a great leader. Reflection is a great tool to make some sense out of things and drive lessons from experiences. While these are the three things you always need to keep in mind, additionally, always have a powerful intention, and lastly, stay calm and patient.
“Make Sense Out of Chaos.” You hit on an important, key idea with this. Leaders makes sense out of chaos. Only by doing so can you led. Otherwise the leader is just part of the crowd running away from a problem. I recommend you develop this idea further. Gen. Satterfield has given space here to the ideas of Dr. Jordan Peterson. Please go to the Dr. Peterson YouTube and watch what he has to say. You will find what you are saying about chaos in line with this Dr. P. Thanks.
Right, Gen. Satterfield wrote about Dr. Peterson just a couple of weeks ago. The article, “Valuable Things to Know” can be found here:
https://www.theleadermaker.com/valuable-things-to-know/
Yes, indeed, an important concept to develop.
Hi, I hope you keep writing. Well done!!! 😊
Great job, keep up the great works and keep on writing about leadership. One thing you will see is that Gen. Satterfield is very generous about his site and allows anyone with good sense and a leadership message to post here. Return him the favor.
Mr. Muhammad Shoaib, you have some good ideas here. I would like to encourage you to keep up your writing on leadership. You have a future with it. The trick, I believe, is to make it interesting (that means entertaining) so that what you write attracts people. Stay with it, develop your talents. Thanks and best of luck. Oh, Gen. Satterfield has given you a platform from which to show what you do. Help him out too. Send others to this website and comment, comment, comment.
Eric, yes I agree that this is a good article. I’d like to see a little more on the “reflection” idea Muhammad is writing about. Thanks.
Yes Muhammad, let us all “look in the mirror” to see whether we honestly can admit that we are a good leader or not. Stay calm! I agree with that as well.