This book looks at how leaders, in the midst of their busy working lives, can develop the habit of reflection and how this capacity to reflect can make a tangible difference to the flourishing of an organization.
The writer H. G. Wells reportedly said most individuals only think once or twice in a lifetime. In contrast, he claimed that he had made an international reputation by thinking once or twice a year. Getting into the habit of reflecting is not straightforward. It is easier to go along with the myths that my group has about itself and not face up to hard truths about the organization we are leading or are part of.
Honest reflection is time consuming, costly and challenging. The opportunity for reflection is essential for everyone within an organization. But it is especially important for those responsible for its overall direction and its culture. A vital part of a leader’s responsibility is to create an organization that values and practises the habit of reflection so that everyone can contribute to its flourishing.
The cost of short-termism
According to Craig Mundie, Microsoft chief research and strategy officer, ‘A great many companies have a fairly short lifespan. Even many big, great companies only last thirty years or so.’ Who would have thought that Woolworths, which was such a familiar sight on every high street in the United Kingdom, would have collapsed so suddenly?
It is significant that most business leaders are in post for just a few years. Boards of large organizations are impatient and are always looking for the one great leader who can help them grow and outperform their competitors. Many leaders are unceremoniously replaced the moment the organization goes through a bad patch. This is a phenomenon that is all too familiar to managers of professional football teams.
Why do so few organizations survive for long periods and why do many leaders stay in post for a short time? Part of the answer is that leaders are under such pressure to ‘do’ that they do not have enough time and space to reflect. Do they have time to look to previous experience and to understand some of the age-old insights about human nature, and how people can work together successfully?
In his book The Defence of the Realm (Penguin, 2010), Christopher Andrews, professor of modern and contemporary history at Cambridge University, describes a phenomenon called, ‘Historical Attention Span Deficit Syndrome’ (HASDS). ‘Short-termism’, he says, ‘has been the distinguishing intellectual vice of our age. For the first time in recorded history, there has been a widespread assumption that the experience of all previous generations is irrelevant to present policy’ (p. 585). Andrews attributes the banking crisis which broke in 2008 at least in part to this ‘syndrome’. We thought we had little to learn from the past. We kidded ourselves that in this brave new world of economic expansion we could never experience the sort of financial crises that our grandparents had to endure. How wrong we were.
Drawing on insights from the past
It is here that leaders can benefit from drawing on the spiritual and monastic wisdom which has been the foundation of so much of the progress in the Western world. In the medieval period there were two texts about leadership which were of supreme importance: the Rule of St Benedict and the Pastoral Rule of St Gregory the Great. They summarize centuries of distilled wisdom about how human beings can organize their life together and how leadership might be best exercised. These texts still pose penetrating questions about how we exercise leadership today. For example, Gregory identified two qualities above all others that are vital for a leader. First, he wrote about ‘contemplation before action’, which is the theme of this book. Second, he pointed to service. Those leaders who think that their individual actions are the most important factor in an organization are kidding themselves. What is required is someone who serves the organization so that it flourishes and grows.
We draw from these sources of ancient wisdom, along with contemporary insights, to help leaders think about their core values and to develop the practice of regular reflection.
The structure of this book
We have sought to make the book relevant to you whether you are leading two people or two hundred people. You might be responsible for employees or volunteers. The organization you work in might be in the private, public or voluntary sectors. It might be a company, a charity, a church or a prison.
This book explores reflection in four key areas, namely:
Know yourself. Be clear what you are trying to achieve. Identify your core values and motivations. How can you build on your strengths and compensate for your limitations?
How can we understand others better? What motivates us? What paralyses us?
How can we enable teams to flourish? How do we help teams grow and excel?
How can we read the context more accurately? In a changing world, how do we keep abreast of what is going on?
Each of the 31 chapters ends with questions. Many of these touch on our deepest values and motivations. We suggest that as you work through the chapters of the book, you give time to mull over the questions. You may find it helpful to read it at the same time as a colleague, so that you have someone else with whom you can discuss the ideas and who will help you work through your own responses. The book can be used to provide a reflection a day over a month. You may wish to read it again a year later and revisit the same questions to see what changes have been made.
We hope that this book will be a means of enabling you to grow in self-knowledge and understanding as you develop the vital discipline of reflection.
Part One: Know yourself
One of the most fundamental questions for any leader is ‘How well do I know myself?’ Understanding ourselves well can create stability and calmness. It enables us to be less thrown by the events of the week. Accepting ourselves for who we are, warts and all, provides an essential starting point on the journey to become a measured and reflective leader.
Part One suggests that we need to be clear about what we are trying to achieve and about the importance of our values. We need to know what motivates us, to identify our strengths, to compensate for our weaknesses and to acknowledge our default behaviours.
It concludes with some practical suggestions about how to reflect more effectively. We hope this will stimulate you to develop sources of reflection that work well for you.
1. Know what you are trying to do
Stephanie’s predecessor, Bill, was known as someone who led from the front. While some considered Bill to be dynamic, others experienced him as dominating and felt that he did not listen to their opinions. There was not much discussion about future direction. Bill expected his staff to implement his decisions with little debate.
Stephanie had been surprised and delighted by her meteoric rise to lead the organization. Her colleagues agreed that she was immensely able and most of them were genuinely excited by her appointment. Her first step was to call together her team and explain that she wanted to work with them to build a vision for the whole organization and to grow it.
She asked each of them to provide a brief report on the trends of the previous five years. They spent time together analysing the factors that were impinging on their work. From this mass of data they then worked on building a consensus on the way forward. They distilled this into six statements that described what they were trying to achieve. From this they devised the strategy that undergirded the rapid growth of the organization. Once agreed, Stephanie found she did not have to persuade her colleagues to implement the new strategy. Having been involved in developing it, they were already fully committed to it.
It sounds an obvious thing to ask, but do you know what you are setting out to do? If asked, can you summarize what you want to do and how you hope to achieve it? Are you clear about the underlying trends affecting your organization which you either need to build on or counter? Can you identify the main threats to its thriving that you