Looking back to move forwards: A guide to effective leadership reflection and development planning

Did you know that reportedly, 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by February? Despite the tradition of resolutions going back to the ancient Babylonians, after 4,000 years of practice we’re still pretty poor at making effective resolutions.  

This is a problem for business leaders, since evidence shows that development based on reflection on past performance is critical to future success – those that do reflect tend to improve, those that don’t are at risk of derailing. But reflecting on performance and identifying what to do about it is easier said than done.  Read on for an evidence-based guide to how leaders should use reflection and resolution making to enhance their ability to deliver results in 2020.

How can leaders use feedback and reflection to make resolutions that will actually improve their performance?

Reflection for development requires more than just casual introspective thinking about events and experiences at work, it needs systematic thinking leading to deep-level insight [1].  

Based on our work with senior leaders over the past 50 years, here are some of the common mistakes to be avoided, and our recommendations for helping leaders to make resolutions that translate into business impact:

Recommendations on how to avoid common mistakes:

1. Many leaders focus on the wrong things

Many leaders focus on the wrong things - the way people perceive their capability and make sense of performance feedback is often biased.  ‘Confirmation bias’ means that we look for evidence to support what we want to - or already – believe. A study revealed, for example, that high performing doctors (those who tended to provide more accurate diagnoses) learn from feedback on both their successes and failures, whereas lower performers focus primarily on their successes, resulting in a downward cycle of poor performance. [3] Consequently, it’s essential that senior leaders base their resolutions (and ongoing development objectives) on independent feedback which includes both strengths and development areas, based on an objective assessment of their current capability.

2. Leadership success is context-dependent

Leadership success is context-dependent, so feedback and reflection must be anchored in your business context – to be effective leaders must develop the specific capabilities required to navigate the challenges presented by their specific business context and strategy.  This makes developing a clear leadership strategy an essential foundation of leadership development, to define the mindsets and skillsets demanded by the challenges of your own business context, and then help leaders to identify the gaps between this and their current performance or capability.

3. The road to under-performance is paved with good intentions

The road to underperformance is paved with good intentions – making changes to the way you lead is difficult, so provide coaching to help leaders translate intentions into reality. The evidence speaks for itself: Combining feedback with individual coaching increases leadership effectiveness up to 60% [4].

Essential leadership lessons

For business leaders these days, the pace of change means that each week brings new challenges. This makes providing leaders with robust feedback data and coaching to extract critical leadership lessons is essential in order to improve their future capability.  

Find out how Kiddy & Partners can help your leaders improve their performance through psychology-driven approaches to leadership development. Get in touch with the team on the contact details below.