Presence Podcast - Episode 9: Reflections on Reflecting

In this episode, Ali and John explore the world of Self-Reflection, which very few people take the time to do, but which actually might be the key to building real effectiveness into your leadership walk. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Hi there, everyone, and welcome to the Presence Podcast. I'm John Miller, Executive Director of the Institute for Optimal Leadership Presence, and I'm joined as always by Allie Carson, the founder and CEO of Mouvere Coaching. Allie, what's going on today?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Oh, you know, just the usual trying to stay out of trouble. How are you doing, John?

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Are you being successful? For the most part. Oh, that's good. That's good. I'm doing really good. Thanks. So in this episode, we're going to continue our discussion on self-management, which is really an important part of Aristotle's whole ethos methodology. As you may remember, self-management is the ability to intentionally and proactively create frameworks and guardrails for our thoughts, opinions, words, actions, and behaviors that steer us away from ineffective and damaging behaviors and toward behaviors that align with our values, beliefs, and convictions and create those outcomes that produce the greatest level of value. In our last three episodes, we focused on the first aspect of self-management, which is self-awareness. We learned that leaders need to have both internal self-awareness or self-discovery, which is what I perceive to be true about myself and whether that perception is aligned with who I want to be, and external self-awareness, which is knowing what others perceive me to be, and whether that perception is aligned with their expectations. Both are important and both actually support each other and help us to focus on the strengths that help us create value and on those parts of us that may actually disrupt our value through bad or misplaced behaviors. And Ali, in this episode, we'll take a look at how we need to follow up that awareness in a meaningful way that will point towards behavioral change.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

That's right, John. And then this next piece of self-management is one that we may be tempted to skip over, right? It mainly because of our fast-paced work and life cultures, we often have a hard time slowing down enough to even realize how much we need it. And I'm talking about the all-important practice of self-reflection. Self-reflection is that ability to step back, take a close look at what we've learned from that awareness process that we've been talking about, and beginning to understand the impacts of those behaviors on both ourselves and on others, and then the next steps for us to take to become increasingly effective as a leader. Self-reflection is our ability to slow down long enough to interpret our experience, what happened, what it meant, what it revealed about us, and what we want to do differently the next time. And in this framework that we've been building, self-reflection is where we take the results of internal and external self-awareness, including self-exploration through questions we ask ourselves, assessment results, and direct feedback from others, and we begin to process that data altogether and use it as an overall plan to strengthen our ethos. In other words, reflection is a critical step between awareness and action, and one that too many leaders often completely miss. In fact, many leaders avoid reflection altogether, and that's understandable. We live in a world that rewards speed, productivity, and constant motion. In that context, reflection can feel inefficient, maybe it feels like a waste of time, and sometimes it can feel uncomfortable. But if we never pause to interpret what's going on, we tend to repeat that behavior. And repeating the same patterns, especially the ones connected to our behavioral triggers, can slowly erode trust and effectiveness and really can punch holes in our presence. The payoff here is that self-reflection shortens the distance between experience and learning. We begin to notice patterns sooner. We repair more quickly and lead with more steadiness. And over time, that produces a kind of mature consistency where people know what it feels like to work with you. They know what to expect. So we're going to provide a few tools for you to begin your self-reflection journey, which will hopefully help you ingrain reflection as a consistent part of your own etho story. And we're going to share a process that you can use when your reflection leads you to understanding that your behaviors have actually caused some real damage to those around you and what you need to do about it. More about that in a few minutes.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Yeah, so Allie, let's set the foundation for self-reflection by making sure we start from a healthy mindset. How we approach the reflection process can make all the difference between constructing positive behaviors that move us forward to growth and maturity or spiraling into a destructive victimhood. Dr. Tasha Yurik, whom we referenced in our last episode, has done significant research into self-reflection. As a result of her studies, she strongly advocates for the importance of asking yourself the right question when you engage in reflection. It seems simple, but it's actually quite profound. That productive mindset starts with shifting from why questions to what questions. Now we've talked about the importance of getting curious about the origin stories of our behaviors, the why of our behaviors during the self-awareness process. That is extremely important in uncovering the source of our behaviors and then using the answers to those why questions as a way of revealing what needs to be fixed. However, once we've become aware of the sources of our behaviors, it's really time to leave the why questions behind and engage in asking what questions as a part of reflection and moving forward. This prevents us from unproductive emotional spirals and promotes positive action. So once you're sure that you have your mind set correctly for the reflection process, I would suggest a very simple reflection framework that you can literally apply at any time with any circumstance or with any of your behaviors. It's called the Dance of Reflection, and it literally is like a mental dance. The dance of reflection is an iterative self-reflection exercise designed to help you check in on your performance and behaviors after meetings, conversations, or feedback sessions. The technique involves asking three core what questions, often referred to as the stop, start continue framework. The first move in the dance is asking, what should I stop doing? This is reflecting on words and behaviors that you determine are not working for you. They're holding you back or creating misunderstandings or creating dissonance of some kind. So to be clear, this is about stopping behaviors that are ineffective, not necessarily behaviors that make me or others uncomfortable. For example, I might feel uncomfortable asking tough questions about performance or improper behaviors on the team. But just because those questions and their answers might make me or others feel uncomfortable, that doesn't mean that I shouldn't ask those questions. So you can see there can be a thin veil here when we are determining behaviors that we need to stop. It's really about stopping the behaviors that get in the way of our effectiveness. The second move in the dance is asking the question, what should I start doing? This involves reflecting on new actions, tools, or skills that could lead to improved performance or other positive change. This could mean starting something completely new or considering an alteration to what we're currently doing. Let's return to our tough questions example. While I might need to continue asking those tough questions, I could also think about altering my approach, perhaps being a little less severe in my tone, or perhaps ensuring that I steer away from more closed-ended questions and ask more open-ended questions. Or perhaps I consider a seating arrangement during a tough questions conversation when I'm sitting beside the person rather than across the desk from them, which can sometimes be interpreted as bearing down with authority. And then the final move of the dance is asking, what should I continue doing? This is simpler, but actually still important. This is a validation step that what you're doing in a certain area or behavior is working and is appropriate and a value add to your current style or approach. In our tough questions example, this validation can be important, especially if you're struggling with the difficulty or awkwardness of these kinds of conversations. By consciously agreeing with the practice and that you are continually trying to fine-tune how you behave in this process, you are articulating its importance, its value, and your commitment to the behavior. The dance of reflection helps you focus on what you can control, namely your responses and behaviors. By identifying what works and what doesn't, you can intentionally build a more productive, better way of engaging in future encounters. This approach is highly effective in making small, consistent adjustments rather than waiting for major reviews. And as we said, you can engage in the dance throughout your day as you reflect on how a conversation went, how a meeting unfolded, or how a problem was solved.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

I love this analogy. I love because it's like it's a three-step thing. It's like you're waltzing. It's the dance of reflection of a waltz. It is.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Now don't ask me to visually demonstrate that.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Oh, come on now. Well, and I think it's also important to add that while the dance of reflection can take place at any time throughout our day, there are another couple of useful regularly scheduled exercises that we can use to heighten our reflection reflexes. Say that twice. And they each serve different purposes. The first is an end of the day exercise called Very Simply, How Did I Do Today? This exercise is a brief but really powerful daily reflection method designed to improve productivity and cultivate a sense of accomplishments by taking just five to seven minutes to review your day's achievements and challenges, taking that intentional look backward to see what went really well and where did you maybe struggle a little bit? This habit helps transition away from a busy day, allowing you to learn from mistakes and celebrate small wins and develop that muscle and that habit of doing this. This reflective methodology is composed of three basic questions centered around accomplishments, behaviors, and learning. Question one, what did I actually accomplish today that moved me forward in creating effectiveness and value? Question two, how did I behave today? Was I able to keep my emotions under control? i.e., was I kind? Did I act with intention? Was I able to collaborate with others? Did I show up in meetings with an open mind? Did I make tough choices between what I felt like doing and what I actually needed to do to create value? Question three is what mistakes were made and what can be learned from them? Did I hurt anyone by those mistakes, even unintentionally? And is there anything I need to do before I go home or tomorrow to make things right? This exercise is not necessarily meant to do a deep dive into the day, analyzing every single detail. Instead, it's just meant to put a cap on the day and bookmark those validations, the possible improvements, and sometimes even create a short list of items that need to be taken care of the next day. There are several benefits to this end-of-day exercise. First, we know from the research, studies indicate that five to seven minutes of daily reflection and review can lead to significant increases in performance by helping you understand your emotional responses, triggers, and behaviors, fostering personal growth. Also, taking a step back helps us put daily obstacles into perspective, which lowers your stress levels. And regularly monitoring your actions keeps your goals at the forefront of your mind, preventing you from kind of drifting off course and back into some of those old behaviors that you would really like to put behind you. So, how do you turn an exercise like this into a daily habit, especially when so many of us are counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds before we can vacate the office, right? This is one more thing we're gonna add to your day. And one thing I like to do is to do some habit stacking, which is where you kind of attach it to an existing practice. So maybe while you're shutting down your computer for the day, or while you're walking to or shuttling to the parking lot, maybe during the first mile on your way home, right? You keep the radio turned off and you go through this exercise while you're doing those other habits as a way of making it part of that ritual and enhancing the likelihood of it being something you're actually going to do. Second thing that you want to keep in mind with this, though, is that you don't want to make it a self-bathing party. This isn't the time to really beat yourself up. If there is something truly serious or consequential to deal with, make that a part of a different exercise. And again, we'll talk about something like that in a few minutes. This end of the day exercise is really designed to be a time when you can be honest and gentle, approaching the review with a practical look at how you were able to handle the day and what you can learn, not with harsh judgments. This is where I'll tell you to set your judgy pants aside for a second and look at yourself through some kind eyes.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

And third, I also think it's a really great practice to consider journaling for this reflective review. Again, nothing extensive. You don't have to sit down and do this for 30 minutes, but short and sweet, and of course, obviously not while you're driving, writing down your thoughts, even if it's just one sentence in a journal, can create a record of those thoughts while at the same time solidifying the habit over time. And so for some people, writing things out helps their brain process it in a different way that helps to hardwire the habit that you're trying to create. So this daily, how did you do today exercise, along with the short stints of the dance of reflection, is a great way to keep you thinking about reflection in the day-to-day grind, kind of making sure it doesn't fall off the radar. But sometimes we all need some more significant time and self-reflection as well. Those times when we can take a deeper dive into how we're doing and what we're doing. And we call this exercise the one hour of self-reflection and self-assessment. And ideally, this would be something that you would do on a monthly basis, or at the very least, every six weeks or so. This exercise requires that you do get away by yourself for a full hour and take time to examine how things are really going in your life. And by the way, when we say get away by yourself, we mean solitude. So that means your phone doesn't come on this journey with you, right? Set aside the electronics and any other intrusions as much as you can and carve out that hour to spend with yourself. And John, I know in your presence program, you provide participants with a complete protocol on how to engage in this exercise. But we'll share some of the highlights here. So when you're in this full hour of reflection, you can first start by making a list of those connections, issues, and objectives that are truly vital in your life, such as your most important relationships, your personal goals, your faith, your job, perhaps a cause that you're deeply committed to. In this first phase of reflection, don't think about the quality or the state of these areas of your life quite yet. Simply acknowledge their importance and think about the reason why they are important to you. You may want to categorize these things as either being part of your personal life or professional life, if that's helpful for you. And then you want to sit back and survey your list. Is there anything on this list that's not healthy for you? Perhaps you should question if this area should be important for you. Conversely, if there's anything that's not on the list that should be. And if so, you want to take time to add it to the list. Once you've got that list in a good shape, then you can go through and assess the current state of these areas or relationships. And a simple way to do that is just simply using a scale of one to five, with five being the most satisfied and one is being the most dissatisfied. So on that scale, how would you rate your current level of satisfaction and the current reality in each of these areas? This is not a rating of how important they are, but rather the quality of the current state. One way to think about this is whether or not these areas are bringing you joy and energy as they should be. Once you've done that, you can next take some time to think about your own personal role in the score that you gave to each of these areas. So, for example, if your relationship with the family you scored as a three, how have your attitudes, words, and behaviors contributed to that score? This is where greater honesty is going to give you greater insight. So you want to be sure to be honest with yourself here. And I know it's so easy sometimes to focus on the roles of others and think about what they are or are not doing that may be hindering you in this area. But here we're focusing on the things that we can control, which is pretty much ourselves. So you want to keep your focus there. As you're doing this, you can go through and identify the behaviors that positively contribute to value in these areas and then go through and look at what behaviors that are you exhibiting that may detract from values in these areas. And again, we're not trying to solve the problem right now. We're just identifying what might be contributing to some detracting of value. As you're doing this, think specifically about positive and negative impacts of your attitudes and behaviors to others. So not only what's the value or the impact it's having for you, but what's the impact it's having on others. Take a few minutes and think about two or three specific actions that you can take to improve those essential areas in your life. With this, you can think about what will others see that is different in your behaviors or your approach in this situation, and what kind of impact will these changes have on these areas of your life? When you come to the end of your time of self-assessment, make sure you spend time doing five minutes of celebration. And this is the part that so often we want to forget or rush through because we're so focused on the doing. We've got to stop and take time to celebrate. So ask yourself, what are some things that you are doing that are having a positive impact on the world around you? And what is one thing that you're doing that no one else could quite do in the same way? That is your unique contribution. Celebrate those discoveries and the things that you've had in terms of insights over the last hour. And I know this feels like a lot, but can you imagine how you would feel if you were able to get by yourself for an entire hour and do that kind of deep reflection? It can literally change the patterns of your life. And again, as with all types of reflection, that one hour should be designed as a positive, non-judgmental time, but one in which you can sort through some things pretty seriously and take time to celebrate who you are and what you've done. It also provides a really great way to think about some important things that you can and maybe should be working on.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

So true. So all of these reflection times, the dance of reflection, the how did I do today exercise, as well as the one hour of self-reflection and self-assessment exercise, all of these are designed to get you into the habit of engaging in self-reflection. They can help you understand more about yourself and identify things that are going well and things that you will want to include in your own ethos story action plan, which we'll talk about more specifically in a future episode. And we need to realize that since we're all human, we all will have things that we will need to grow in and change over time. Most of those changes are not made in a day or even a week or a month. And we need to give ourselves the grace to understand that maturity is a lifetime process. However, there are times when we need to take care of certain situations that have happened more urgently, particularly things that we may have caused or created. This requires a different kind of reflection and one that can be critical in helping us to restore trust or even restore relationships when we have said or done something disruptive or that has caused significant dissonance within our teams or with one or more of our colleagues. We've probably all been there. That situation where we've said something in the heat of the moment or made an offer. Handed comment where our mouth got out in front of our brains. Perhaps we were under a stress that had nothing to do with the moment that we're in now, but we let the stress get the better of us, and someone or several some ones got caught in the wake of our brain beast. But whatever the context is, or whatever the cause is, the result is that we've offended, or we've overreached, or we've jumped to conclusions, or we've let our emotions get the better of ourselves, or some combination of all the above. And now we have people who are angry or hurt or confused or disgruntled. And we need to work through how we will begin the process of healing and restoration. The first thing to do in a situation like this is to take a deep breath and understand that we need to think and reflect first before we do anything else. That's why several years ago I put together this process called impact. It represents a structured approach to leadership reflection, particularly for addressing dissonance or disruption in team dynamics. It combines emotional intelligence, accountability, and strategic action to help rebuild trust, aligning closely with established principles of reflective leadership. I believe this process works because it moves beyond mere acknowledgement of mistakes into a structured plan for repairing trust. By navigating the six stages of the impact framework, leaders can shift from creating disruption to fostering a more aligned, trusting environment. These six steps include identification, mapping, personalizing, accountability, compassionate responses, and trust rebuilding. Let's go through each of these briefly and talk about why each is so important to the restoration process. First, let's talk about identification and why we start there. Identifying specific behaviors that cause distractions, dissonance, or disruption is a critical part of the reflection process because it transforms vague dysfunction into actionable, solvable data. Vague reflection leads to temporary solutions. Just an admission that I messed up very rarely satisfies how others are feeling and what we're going to do about it. But by pinpointing specific behaviors and writing them down with descriptive language, like I demonstrated anger and said some unkind things, or I questioned someone's motives without asking for their side of the story, or I jumped to conclusions and judgment before having all the facts. By acknowledging our behaviors, we send specific messages to our brains. I'm not going to let myself off the hook for this. It also provides specifics about what we need to do to make sure that a similar event does not happen again. Once we've identified the behaviors that cause the trouble, we need to map those behaviors to the resulting dissonance. This is putting a simple sentence together that says, My behaviors caused the team or my colleagues to feel and then fill in the blank. Maybe it made them feel hurt, maybe it made them feel angry, maybe it made them feel confused or sad or you fill in the blank there. This is where you as a leader need to come face to face with the outcomes of your behaviors. And here's the thing: when a leader acts poorly, there's very rarely just one impact, but instead a myriad of feelings in the minds and hearts of others. And you need to try to map to all of them. This might actually entail talking to someone on the team or who is familiar with your relationship with the team that you can trust to help you assess what people are thinking and feeling. The purpose of mapping is not to indulge in a prolonged sense of self-blame, but instead to realize the full scope of the damage that you're dealing with. Once we've mapped our behaviors to the outcomes, we need to be able to personalize the feelings of the team based on how you've felt when you've been put in similar situations. Now, a bit of a warning here: no one can absolutely predict how another person is feeling as a result of a given situation. But you do know how you felt when someone hurt you or angered you or misread you, and you know it didn't feel good. So it helps to relive those moments when you were done to to gain an understanding of what others might be feeling now and to gain empathy for that feeling. Next, we need to take accountability for the situation. As a leader, even if what you said or what you did or how you reacted was the result of something that someone else did wrong. For instance, someone turned in sloppy or incomplete work, you need to take proper accountability for your response or resultant action. The old saying always applies to leaders: two wrongs don't make a right. If you caused hurt or disruption with your comments, you must take responsibility for that. In most cases, accountability means owning up in the presence of those that were affected, preferably in person, but by Zoom or Teams, if need be. This coming to terms in person is a critical part of the process and can be vital as a first step to earn back your credibility and trust as a leader. Accountability usually means owning the actions and the impact, apologizing for the hurt caused without using that famous but to make excuses. Listening and allowing those offended to express their feelings without becoming offended yourself by what they say. For example, never say, hey, I said I was sorry, when someone wants to elaborate how they feel. And then, of course, expressing that you're going to be working on the behaviors and are committed to making sure they don't happen again. Sometimes in your accountability discussions, it may be appropriate to humbly share the process that you've taken up to this point, your journey of identification, mapping, and personalization that might demonstrate your vulnerability and how serious you have taken your words and actions. It's also important to determine what the compassionate next step should be to reassure that those who suffered trauma feel heard and validated. This may seem a bit odd, but it's really all about understanding that you should not make dealing with this a robotic or mechanical process. It's really important to come across as being someone who humbly understands the impact of your words and actions and is looking to ask forgiveness and seek a better way forward. Sometimes that compassion is best demonstrated in a one-to-one conversation where you really seek out each individual and how they feel and address that feeling for them as a person. This is really about demonstrating grace and exploring what further they need from you. Only after you have engaged in an authentic process that covers identifying, mapping, personalizing, accountability, and compassion. Only then can you start thinking about rebuilding trust. One of the reasons for this is that you may discover genuinely that demonstrating those first five steps has already begun to restore trust and confidence. But you might think of other ways to build back trust as you move forward. Perhaps the most important thing you can do to regain trust after a fall is to simply change your behaviors. I know that that's not necessarily simple, but you change behaviors and demonstrate consistent growth. For more serious kinds of issues, rebuilding trust can be a slow, often nonlinear process that requires patience and a genuine desire to repair relationships. Ensuring that your actions align with words over time is critical. And sometimes small daily actions that show a change in habits is more effective than any one single large gesture. Also, asking the team for input on how to improve and what actions they need to see to feel secure again, and then checking back in to see how you're doing are also welcome and useful steps. And most important, Allie, is for a leader to never assume anything about trust, especially in the wake of those times when we engage in poor behavioral choice. We just need to lean in at all times to make sure we're doing whatever we need to do to keep that trust, but then also understand that it can be fragile and understand how we can rebuild it when it's damaged.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Yeah, I absolutely agree. I know trust is repaired through care, sincerity, reliability, and competence. And I think leaders should really focus on following through on commitments, which reinforces that you're a leader who's worthy of being followed. So, John, I know we've covered a lot of ground here on the topic of self-reflection and given people some really great tangible tools that they can use to do this. And as you said earlier, this is a step that many of us would often just rather not take part in, right? We just skip this sometimes because it really does force us to come to terms with the results and the impact of our behavior on others and then actually do something about it, deal with them honestly and completely, which is not usually the most comfortable space in the world.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Yeah, that's for sure. So, Ali, in our next episode, we will close out our discussion on self-management with a look at self-discipline. And once again, we'll talk about a process that can help us all get to a place of self-discipline in specific areas of need in our lives. I think it's so important in each of these areas that we're talking about, self-reflection and self-discipline, that can tend to float around in our brains like conceptual clouds. It's just so important that we identify some mental processes that can help us work through issues in a way that actually leads to concrete growth and change. And then also at the end of our next episode, we will tie in self-awareness, self-reflection, and self-discipline together as an integrative thread that can work in tandem to produce self-management. So be sure to join us for episode nine. So, Ali, why don't you go ahead and tell the folks how they can get in touch with you at Movair Coaching?

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Yes, you can find us online at www.movaircoaching.com, also on Instagram, LinkedIn, and now TikTok. TikTok. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

That's right. And just as a reminder, everything that we've talked about in this episode and every episode of the Presence Podcast is covered in our Presence Leadership Development Program. For more information on that, be sure to head on over to the Institute for Optimal Leadership Presence website at iolp.net. And let us know if you'd like to chat about anything else you may have heard in the podcast related to leadership presence. We're always open to conversations. And be sure to join us for our next episode of the Presence Podcast. Until then, take care of yourself and lead the way.