THE SELF-REFLECTION CONNECTION

Self-reflection is central to your leadership. The more you self-reflect, the better you know yourself: your strengths, weaknesses, abilities, and areas to be developed. Being self-aware, you know what you stand for and what is most important to you. With this clarity, you are able to connect and communicate with others more effectively. Grounded in self-knowledge, your leadership becomes more authentic.

All too often, when people aspire to leadership, they want to emulate someone else's style. They want to be like Jack Welch or Ronald Reagan or Abraham Lincoln or another recognizable leader. Although we can all learn a lot from the example of others, your leadership must come from your core. You cannot determine the kind of leader you are without first figuring out who you are. Your leadership needs to be rooted in the real world and reflective of your views, life experiences, and professional path. I believe self-reflection is so important that I make it the focus of my leadership classes at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. My goal is to give the hundreds of students I teach each year a tool that I believe will make a significant difference in the choices they make professionally as well as personally.

Self-reflection enhances leadership by helping you become more aware of the decisions you make, as well as the likely outcomes and implications of them. I refer to this as making your decisions explicitly rather than implicitly. With an explicit decision, you understand that you are not making one decision by itself in a vacuum. An explicit decision takes into account all the factors that are affected by or have an influence on the decision. There are causes, contributing factors, previous decisions, and direct and indirect outcomes to consider. By being explicit, the process becomes transparent. In contrast, implicit decision making takes only a narrow focus without much regard for the big picture—an approach that can lead to surprises, often unpleasant ones.

Making an explicit decision requires you to be self-reflective, ensuring that you stay consistent with who you are, your goals, your values, and your priorities. Therefore, the likelihood of being dealt an unexpected disappointment is far less when you are introspective. Your decision can even be a bit “out of the box” and still have a high probability of producing the expected results, as long as you spend some time in reflection and discernment. Such was the case at Baxter when we decided to promote an unconventional candidate into a very important position.

Baxter's senior vice president of human resources, Mike Tucker, and I sat down to discuss the creation of a talent management process for the entire company, which would be led by one person. Rather than make a quick decision to put someone from HR in that job, we looked at the position holistically. We determined that the ideal candidate would have a good understanding of the total company, with exposure to different divisions, functions, and geographic locations. When we looked at the position with that perspective, someone immediately came to mind: Karen May, who had a background in finance and auditing and was a CPA. She had the company knowledge, the people skills, and a deep understanding of various functions. On the surface, the decision to promote Karen to the job was not obvious; after all, she had no specific HR experience. However, by stepping back and reflecting on the type of person who would be best suited for the job, we could see that Karen was a perfect fit.

She was so successful that two years later Mike told me she was qualified to take over his position as senior vice president of HR for the entire company. Today Karen is an executive vice president for Kraft, a $50 billion global firm. Were we surprised? Truthfully, no. Being self-reflective increased our chances of making a decision that turned out as we had expected. Had we not been introspective and merely followed the usual hiring route, we never would have offered Karen the job, and would have missed out on the contribution she made to talent management at Baxter, and currently at Kraft.

Karen, too, had to engage in self-reflection in order to determine whether she wanted to pursue this opportunity and, if so, for what reason. In a conversation I had with Karen recently, she recalled that when Mike and I approached her about the talent management position, it prompted her to reflect on her inventory of skills. As she explained it, “Was I really a CPA and accountant, because if that was who I was, why would they want me to do this job? But as I reflected on my personal inventory of skills, it raised the question, ‘What would I do to bring value to the table?’”

Her conclusion was that the new job provided another lens through which to gain perspective on her career and how she could contribute her knowledge, talent, and experience in new ways—all priorities of hers. “I saw this as something different ... as an opportunity to grow in a much different and more rapid way than if I did something that I was more comfortable with,” Karen added.

Looking back, Karen also found it enlightening to reflect on what did not come to mind at the time. “I did not think about ‘What are people going to say?’ or ‘What about my career?’” she recalled. “It never occurred to me to think that way about a job opportunity, which others would probably have seen as a huge risk. I didn't see it as a risk. I saw it as an opportunity to grow.”

Explicit decisions also help you with your relationships with other people, helping you determine how your choices and actions affect others. Nowhere has this skill been more critical for me than in balancing my personal and professional life. There have been times when my youngest son, Daniel, has asked me to go on a bike ride with him. Normally, nothing would make me happier. But on one particular day, I was about to leave for Kellogg to teach. I had to say no to Daniel, which was disappointing for him, but it was the right decision. The next day, Daniel asked me if I could color a picture with him. Unfortunately, I was about to head out the door to give a speech, so I could not. Two days later, a Saturday, I was going to the gym. I couldn't wait to work out. Daniel stopped me before I left and asked if I would watch one of his Disney DVDs with him. Before I said yes or no, I realized that I was not making one decision in that moment. I was actually making the third of three decisions in a row: the first two resulted in my saying no to him about a bike ride and coloring a picture. I cannot say that my children are very important to me if I continuously put other priorities in front of them. With that understanding, I put my gym bag down and went to watch Mickey Mouse.

Whether you are trying to set priorities about time spent with your children or with your team members, self-reflection helps you pause and look at things holistically. Has a member of your team asked to speak to you on several different occasions, but you were always too busy with something else? If you don't make time to speak with him or her and to live up to your stated value of having an open-door policy with your team, what are the chances that this valued team member will seek opportunity elsewhere? Through self-reflection, you can see that certain decisions are not just one-off incidents but part of a pattern. Therefore, if making time for your team members, spending quality time with your family, or whatever you have identified as a priority is important to you, then saying no to someone or something three times (or more) in a row is a pattern you should avoid. Something must be wrong, and you may have confused your values and priorities—or you may have not set your priorities well to begin with. Self-reflection also plays a critical role in that process.