The Leader You've Actually Been

Leaders often move from crisis to crisis and success to success without ever stopping to ask a harder question: What are the actual patterns in how I lead? In this episode, Mike McDonnell introduces the The Field Notes exercise — a structured, two-hour reflective practice designed to give leaders an honest, complete picture of what kind of leader they have been across their professional lives, deepening self-awareness.

The Field Notes draws on a five-hundred-year-old Ignatian practice from the Spiritual Exercises — a meditation in which one systematically examines one's sins, organized by life period, to reveal deeper patterns of behavior. Mike encountered this meditation during his 30-day silent retreat as a Jesuit novice and has since refined it for secular leadership development. The secular version examines both sides of the ledger: not just failures and regrets, but moments of genuine pride, courage, effectiveness, when one is their “best self.”

 The exercise is organized into three Parts. In Part One, the Positive Field Notes, leaders move through the segments of their professional life and identify the specific actions — not achievements — that represent their best self: moments of courage, integrity, generosity, or honest truth-telling. In Part Two, The Disappointments, leaders catalog the choices they made that, measured against their own values, they remember with regret or shame — such as moments of avoidance, self-protection, dishonesty, or harm to others. Critically, both Parts focus on personal agency: what you did, not what happened to you.

Part Three, the Pattern Work, is where the real value emerges. By stepping back from the individual events and looking across time periods, leaders begin to identify recurring patterns and themes — the conditions under which their best self reliably appears, the triggers that reliably produce their worst behavior, and, often surprisingly, the ways in which their greatest strengths and deepest failure modes can be two sides of the same coin.

 Mike closes by encouraging leaders to translate what they find into specific behavioral commitments, share their patterns with a trusted partner, and return to the practice annually. The Field Notes, he argues, provides leaders with the kind of self-knowledge that builds leadership capability and wisdom over time.    

Transcript

A Hard Question To Start

Speaker 0:07

Let's start today with a question. When was the last time you really looked at your entire life, your choices, the things you did that you're proud of, and the things that you did that still, even years later, make you wince? Today's episode is about an exercise that I call the Field Notes. I've been practicing Field Notes annually for decades. It works alongside the daily examine and the foundation to create a powerful toolkit for self-awareness and inner freedom. It doesn't require a therapist, a retreat, a journal, or a particular belief system. It requires about two hours of uninterrupted time, some courage, and a willingness to be really honest with yourself in a way that can sometimes be quite uncomfortable. And today I want to walk you through the Field Notes exercise step by step. I'm Mike McDonnell. This is CEO Exercises. Let's begin.

Origins of Field Notes And A Secular Rewrite

Speaker 1:00

I first encountered the spiritual version of this exercise while on my 30-day silent retreat, working through the spiritual exercises as a Jesuit novice. One of the practices within the spiritual exercises is what Ignatius called a meditation on one's sins, those times when one's decisions and actions turned away from God. This meditation is a systematic, honest look backwards at the sins one committed throughout life up to that point. It's organized by a time period looking for patterns of behavior that reveal our inner depths. Now you might be thinking, Mike, I'm here for leadership insights, not a confession. Hey, don't worry, I've modified it and added to it so that it can be very valuable in a secular context for leaders. The other significant modification I've made is that we're going to look at both sides of the ledger. Ignatius' focus in the meditation was obviously on sin, on turning away from God. In a secular adaptation, we might replace the word sin with regret, disappointment, and things we should have done differently. But I think this view is only half the picture. A leader who only catalogs their regrets is not doing a full field notes. What we really seek is understanding, and understanding requires the full account, the moments you're proud of alongside the moments you're not. So we're going to do both. Now let me set up the exercise before we

The Preparation for Field Notes

Speaker 2:34

begin. You should do this obviously in a quiet place, somewhere you can think without interruption. Attempting it while driving or at a coffee shop is not recommended. Give yourself a couple hours. You want a way to capture your thoughts. Paper or digital doesn't matter, but write things down. You'll need the written record for the pattern recognition work at a later part of the field notes exercise. The act of writing also slows the mind and deepens your thinking. This exercise is a slow walk through your professional history. Here's how we're going to structure it. You're going to move through your life in periods, not necessarily year by year, though that can work if you prefer that level of granularity. You could think about periods perhaps as chapters in a book. I'd encourage you not to start later than your early professional years. Some of the most formative patterns in how we lead were set long before we had anyone reporting to us. I like to start with my first professional job. And by the way, you might remember the burrito dinner story from episode one, which is exactly where my own field notes begin. Then I move on to my first leadership role and then through each company I worked at one at a time. However, your professional life naturally breaks into distinct phases, those are your periods. So let's

Part 1: The Positive Actions

Speaker 3:55

start with part one, the positive field notes. For each period of your life, ask this question. What did you do that you're authentically proud of? Maybe it was a conversation where you told someone a hard truth when it would have been far easier to stay quiet. Maybe it was a decision to walk away from a deal that didn't feel right, even when the numbers looked attractive. Maybe it was the way you handled a team member who was struggling, the patience you showed, the time you gave, the outcome you helped create. Maybe it was something very small, a letter you wrote, an apology you gave, a risk you took that no one else knew about. Write these down period by period without judgment and without filtering for size. Not every entry has to be a landmark moment. Often the most telling entries are the quiet ones, the choices you made when no one was watching and no one was grading you. Focus on the actions, not the achievements. Actions and achievements are not the same thing. You might have closed the biggest deal of the year, but feel poorly about how you did it. Or you might have failed to close a deal but feel proud of the integrity you maintain throughout. We're not listing achievements here, listing actions, things you chose to do, that you remember with warmth and respect for yourself. Go period by period, don't rush, and let the memory surface. If something comes to mind that feels right, write it down. If you're not sure it belongs, write it down anyway and revisit it later. The goal at this stage is breadth, not precision. Then

Part 2: The Disappointing Actions

Speaker 5:49

we turn to part two, the disappointments. For each period of your life, ask another question. What did I do this time that I remember with disappointment? Something that, when I'm honest, carries a degree of shame or regret. Notice we're not asking what happened to you, we're asking what you did. This is about agency, the choices you made, the words you spoke, the actions you took or didn't take. Let me be a little careful about the word shame here. I'm not talking about the shame that comes from other people's judgments of you. I'm talking about the shame that arises when your deepest values come into direct conflict with your actual behavior and your values lose. This is internal. This is not what your board thinks or what your competitors said. This is about the gap between who you know yourself to want to be and what you actually did in a given moment. So what kinds of things tend to show up here? For many leaders, it's the times they lack courage, when they knew a situation was wrong and said nothing, when they allowed a culture problem to persist because addressing it felt hard, when they let someone take the blame for something that was, at least in part, their own failure. For others, it's a pattern of disrespect dressed up as high standards, the public criticism that wasn't necessary, the condescension that came out under pressure, the person they dismissed or diminished who deserved better. For others, it's dishonesty, not necessarily the dramatic dishonesty, but the quiet kind. The slightly misleading projection shared with the board, the conversation when they shaped the story to make themselves look better than the facts warranted, the credit they took for the work they didn't do. Some of you will think of broken relationships, colleagues, partners, team members, mentors, people whose trust you misused, or whose investment in you you didn't respect. Some of you will think of decisions that harm people, not intentionally, but the harm was real and you probably knew it. You're in a process of understanding, and understanding requires looking. Go period by period, be thorough. This is meant to feel uncomfortable. That discomfort is a sign you're doing it right. Write all of these down period by period, and be careful about minimizing the actions. The internal voice that says, well, everyone did that, or that was just how business worked then, or I was under a lot of pressure. Context is real, and we'll return to it later, but context doesn't belong in this part. This part is just the facts of the matter, what happened, and how you honestly feel about it. Now we

Part 3: Pattern Recognitions

Speaker 8:41

move into part three, the pattern work. And this is where the real work begins and where things get very interesting. Because this isn't just a trip down memory lane, this is pattern recognition. This is where we find the signal in the noise. This pattern recognition is the part that the Ignatian tradition understood, and that I think modern leadership development sometimes misses. The individual event is rarely the most important thing. The pattern is. You now have two lists, the positive actions and the disappointing ones. Sorted by time period. Now step back from the specifics and ask yourself a different set of questions. On the positive side, what do your best self moments have in common? Is there a type of situation in which you can reliably show up at your best? Do you see a pattern of people development? Times when you invested in someone else's growth, when you made someone else's success your priority? Do you see a pattern of integrity? Times when you chose the harder right over the easier wrong, when you kept commitments even when it cost you? Is there a particular quality, courage or generosity, or creativity or patience that appears again and again? What are the conditions under which the best version of you operates most naturally? Maybe you see a pattern of innovation, or bridge building, or truth telling. Whatever it is, write it down. What are your patterns of strength? When you're at your best, what are you actually doing? These patterns are not just interesting biographical footnotes. They're strategic information. They tell you where to position yourself, what kinds of roles and contexts allow you to contribute at the level you're truly capable of, and where your leadership has real depth rather than just competence. And then turn to the disappointing side. What do your low moments and regrets have in common? Are there triggers? Particular types of pressure, particular kinds of people, particular situations that reliably produce your worst behavior? Is there a recurring failure mode? This requires real honesty and real courage because you're going to see things about yourself that aren't flattering. But everyone has these patterns. I have them. Every leader I've worked with has them. The question isn't whether you have weaknesses and recurring mistakes. The question is whether you're willing to see them clearly and work on them. So what do you see? What patterns emerge? Do you see a pattern of conflict avoidance? Times when you knew something needed to be addressed but stayed silent? Times when you let problems fester? Do you see a pattern of self-protection? Times when you threw someone else under the bus? Or claimed credit you didn't earn? Or made decisions based on fear of looking bad? Do you see a pattern of impatience? Times when you steamrolled people or didn't listen, or moved too fast and left some casualties? Do you see a pattern of people pleasing? Times when you said yes when you should have said no, or avoided disappointing someone even when it was the right thing to do? Maybe you see a pattern of arrogance or rigidity or disconnection from the human impact of your decisions. Whatever it is, name it. Write it down. What are your patterns of weakness? When you fall short, what's actually happening? Are there conditions such as stress or scarcity or a threat to status or fear of failure, under which a particular version of you tends to emerge that you don't like? That version didn't appear by accident, it was probably formed over many years in your past. Understanding why the pattern is there is not the same as excusing it, but as the beginning of actually changing it, rather than just feeling bad about it repeatedly. Many leaders, when they do this honestly, find that their patterns are surprisingly consistent across decades. Different companies, different titles, but structurally the same choice made badly again and again. Finally, now look for the relationship between the two lists. Sometimes our areas of greatest pride and our areas of greatest shame are surprisingly close to each other. Two sides of the same strength. The leader who is boldest in pursuing a vision is sometimes also the one most likely to run over the people who stand in the way. The leader who cares most deeply about relationships is sometimes also the one most prone to avoiding the hard conversations, those conversations that would serve those relationships in the long. This is not an accident. Strength and shadow often travel together. If you see this kind of pairing in your own field notes, pay close attention. It may be some of the most important information you have. So what do we do with all this? Well, here's what you've just done. You've created a reasonably complete picture of yourself as a leader. The actual truth of your real strengths and persistent challenges. Not the story you tell yourself. Not your resume. And now you know some valuable things. You know what conditions bring out your best. You know what situations tend to trigger your worst. You know where you consistently add value and where you consistently create problems. This is self-knowledge. This is an enabler of meaningful change. But there's one more step, and it's crucial.

From Insight To A Real Commitment to Change

Speaker 14:17

We need to move from knowledge to commitment. The purpose of this field notes is not to feel good about your past or feel bad about your past. It's to see your past more clearly than you've ever seen it before, and then to use that clarity to make better choices going forward. There are a few ways I see leaders doing this well. Some choose one pattern from the disappointment section and commit to a specific behavior change. Not a value, like I want to be more courageous, but an action that says, when I notice I'm about to stay quiet in a meeting because the conversation feels risky, I'll force myself to contribute to the discussion. Patterns change through small, repeated, specific choices, not through intentions. Some people choose to surface their findings with a trusted partner, a coach or a spouse or a long-term colleague, because speaking a pattern out loud to another person has a way of making it more real, more tangible, more workable than it is when it only lives inside your head. Some other people use field notes as a preparation for a specific decision. If you're about to take on a new role or lead a major change or build a new team, going into that moment with a clear picture of what conditions bring out your best and what conditions trigger your worst is not a soft, touchy-feely exercise. It is a strategic preparation for a specific decision. And some simply let the field notes sit for a while and return to it later. The patterns don't always reveal themselves immediately. Sometimes you need to sleep on what you've written. Sometimes a conversation two weeks or two months later will suddenly illuminate something you couldn't quite name in the moment. The document doesn't have to produce an action plan on the day you write it. What I'd encourage you to avoid is doing this practice once and then dismissing what you found because it was uncomfortable or because it complicated the story you tell about yourself. The leaders who develop most, who seem to grow in wisdom over time rather than just accumulating more credentials and more confidence, are almost always the ones willing to keep looking at the full picture of who they've been, and with an honest curiosity. So that's the field notes. Block two hours, find a quiet space, divide your life into periods, and for each period write what you're proud of and what you're not. Then step back and look for what connects. Look for the conditions under which you shine, look for the patterns and where you've fallen short. Look at where those two things might be closer together than you previously admitted. It's a simple process, but not an easy one. I do think it may be one of the more valuable things you do for your leadership. Here's what St. Ignatius understood 500 years ago, and what modern psychology has confirmed. We grow through reflection. We change through honest self-examination. We become better leaders, not only by accumulating knowledge, but by actually seeing ourselves, our real selves, not our idealized selves. An exercise like field notes isn't something a lot of leaders do. Instead, they move from crisis to crisis, success to success, never stopping to ask what's the pattern here? What's my part in this? Where am I consistently strong, and where do I consistently stumble? When you do your field notes exercise, you'll have answers to these questions. Three

Closing Points

Speaker 17:56

things before we close. First, this isn't a one-time exercise. I recommend doing it once a year. Your patterns will evolve, new ones will emerge, and old ones may fade. Keep tracking. Second, consider sharing this with someone you trust. Not all of it, but share your identified patterns and your commitments. Accountability accelerates change. Third, be patient with yourself. You're going to keep making mistakes. You're going to see these same patterns show up again. That's not failure, that's being human. The question is whether you see it faster, recover more quickly, and gradually shift the ratio of your best self to your worst self. Great leadership isn't about perfection. It's about self-awareness, commitment to growth, and the courage to keep looking in the mirror. Even when what we see is uncomfortable. You're doing that with your own field notes. Thanks for listening. I'm Mike McDonnell. This is CEO Exercises.