Improving your leadership skills with self-reflection — collect new insights, think creatively, make better decisions

Have you ever finished a busy workweek, wondering what it was that you’ve accomplished throughout?
Me too.

I bet you spend time every day racing between numerous tasks on your to-do list. Perhaps you’re rushing from one meeting to the next. Do you ever stop before picking up the next task at hand, reflect on what you just did, or process what was said at the last meeting you attended? Do you ever give extra thought to insights raised or contemplate actions taken?

As managers or leaders, we make dozens of decisions every day but rarely get immediate feedback on them. Unlike developers’ craft of writing code and seeing its effect on users within minutes or hours, leaders may see the consequences of their actions weeks or even months after a decision was made. While a developer pushes code to Git and receives instant feedback from his peers, there’s no PR process for a leader’s decisions, insights, or creations. The impact is not easily measured.

As an engineering manager who led multiple teams and complex projects, I’ve learned that self-reflection is a valuable asset for growth, which most leaders don’t utilize. Leadership journal to the rescue.

What is a leadership journal?

A leadership journal is the best tool I’ve seen for improving your leadership skills, and it requires only 10 minutes at the end of every workday.

In the process, you’ll self-reflect on your decisions, collect interesting insights, think creatively, and execute ideas you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. You’ll figure out new ways to perform better and discover actions you can take to enable others to thrive. Oh, and one more thing — you’ll get higher satisfaction from your hard leadership work.

Start by shutting down ALL interruptions: disable Slack mentions and email notifications, place your phone out of sight, and enter your flow by wearing your noise-canceling headset. Once you feel focused, go over today’s calendar, skim through your to-do list, and self-reflect on the following:

• Creations: What did you create today?
• Decisions: What were the top decisions you made today?
• Insights: What interesting ideas did you or others raise today?
• Challenges: What were the main challenges you faced today?
• Tomorrow: How do you make the most of tomorrow?

Let’s take a deeper dive.

Creations

As our leadership evolves, we don’t do as much hands-on work as we were used to. This may lead to the feeling of generating less value for the organization.

Leaders’ creations are difficult to spot at first sight. The obvious for us, developers, is building software, but great leaders normally create significant, long-term value in a variety of ways.

Creations can be made by putting an interesting product idea into words and requesting feedback, by architecting new components, devising a growth plan for your employee, or writing the first draft of a blog post. You may plan a workshop for your team, create an important discussion forum, simplify the team’s hiring process or improve its onboarding program. I’m sure you can find your own examples of meaningful creations.

Protip: block time in your calendar for deep work, during times of day when you are most efficient. Insist on writing down at least one strategic creation every day. As time goes on, this alone will give you motivation for building new things, creating more value for your surroundings.

Decisions

What were the top decisions you’ve made today? Obviously, you won’t remember all of them, but skimming through your daily agenda will remind you of the important ones.

Now, it’s time to pause and reflect on these decisions: was a decision made wisely, or could it have been taken differently? While sharing a decision with your peers, did you explain the motivation behind it, connecting the dots to the bigger picture, or did you take the vision for granted?

Think about choices you’ve made in different topics: system design, employee feedback and growth, company branding and recruitment, and anything else you can think of. Over time, as you understand the motivation behind your decisions, you’ll gain clarity, improve your decision-making skills, think strategically, and make smart long-term decisions.

Protip: did you make an important decision today that was not work-related? Write it down and reflect on it. Organize your thoughts, and assess what led you to where you are today.

Insights

Several ideas crossed your mind today. I bet a colleague of yours suggested an interesting direction worth exploring, but you didn’t write it down. You may have had an idea for a new feature but didn’t let it grow. A moment before these ideas slip your mind, in this part of the journal you’ll collect, digest, and evolve them.

Insights can arrive in many ways: they can be highly technical, like performance improvement to your system, or people-oriented such as an idea for challenging your employee in a way that serves her personal growth. Did you learn a new skill today that you’d like to share with your peers, or think of a colleague who can benefit from your feedback, advice, or mentorship? Write down today’s insights and simply give them a moment to develop.

Protip: After processing today’s main insights, you’ll reach new perceptions on top of them. Add these discoveries to your favorite task management tool. If they are actionable, avoid procrastinating by scheduling time for them.

Challenges

In this part of your leadership journal, it’s time to think of the top 1–2 challenges you’ve faced today. Can’t think of any? Dig deeper. Anything works — technical challenges, employee issues, passing feedback to colleagues, or a problem you simply don’t know how to solve. Yet.

When you discover that major challenge, process it in your mind, and you’ll figure out new ways to resolve it. Even if you don’t have answers immediately, thinking of it has planted the issue in your subconscious. Solutions will arrive when you least expect them to.

Protip: here’s a challenge I’m sure you deal with every day: trying to overcome your immense to-do list. Write your single most important task. If you find that multiple tasks are equally important, then nothing is important. Ask yourself: what is essential? Prioritize and schedule your most valuable priority for tomorrow.

Tomorrow

I left the best for last. This is your chance to make tomorrow a great day.

First, skim through tomorrow’s agenda. Ask yourself about any meeting you find there: “Is my attendance pivotal? Do I have something meaningful to contribute?” If you answered ‘no’ to both, skip this meeting. But wait, perhaps you can use it as a growth opportunity for one of your employees. If so, ask him to represent the team and send a summary. Alternatively, politely decline. Don’t feel bad — the fact you were invited doesn’t mean you must attend. You’ll use this time to provide better value for your company.

Second, prioritize long-term goals over short-term rewards: do you have at least one item in tomorrow’s schedule that is strategic for your team? Schedule time for yourself to think clearly about the team’s longer-term plan. Placing it on the calendar forces prioritization, rather than keeping it in your never-ending to-do list.

Third, create buffers for the unexpected. If you are a manager, leave open slots in your calendar for your employees’ emerging needs.

Protip: visualize a key meeting you have tomorrow: how you want it to go, what role you will play in it, what could derail the meeting, and how people should feel after it.

Final words

As a leader, your role is to create high value for others.

Committing to the habit of writing a leadership journal will help you to develop proactive leadership, rather than spending most of your day reacting and putting out fires.

A short while after doing it for five days a week, you’ll see results, become a better leader in your group, increase your impact on the organization and perhaps even have a bit of industry influence — who knows?

Adopt the leadership journal habit and make it a part of your daily routine. Once it sticks, it will become effortless. You won’t regret it.

Leadership Journal: Become an Inspiring Leader in 10 Minutes a Day was originally published in Better Programming on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.