Reflecting on Your Personal‐Best Leadership Project
THROUGHOUT The Leadership Challenge Workbook, you have been applying The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® to a real project in order to make it another one of your Personal‐Best Leadership Experiences. Now that the project has been completed—or several significant milestones have been achieved—we encourage you to spend some time reflecting on your experience. Remember, the best leaders are the best learners. To grow as a leader, you need to learn from your experiences so that you can apply those lessons to your next project.
The questions in this chapter take you through the debriefing process for your own project. You can answer these questions on your own or you can gather your team together and answer them as a group. Or you can do both.
When you have finished debriefing, ask yourself, “What do my answers reveal about my leadership practices and about how I can be more effective as a leader in the future?” Armed with this new awareness, you'll be ready to tackle your next Personal‐Best Leadership Experience with a better understanding of and appreciation for what actions and behaviors make a difference.
This debriefing carries an even larger consequence: it's a critical step in the continuing process of your leadership development. Take the time now to answer the questions below, and reap the rewards for the rest of your leadership career.
MY PERSONAL‐BEST LEADERSHIP PROJECT
Review what you wrote on the My Personal‐Best Leadership Project worksheet in Chapter 3. Then answer these questions:
- How did you assess your progress during the project? What criteria did you use?
- Who else besides you evaluated your success? How did they measure it?
- How well did you and your team meet the project goals?
- How well did your project meet the expected time frame? The budget?
- Which aspects of your project proved to be the most frustrating or difficult? Why?
- What surprised you along the way? Why?
- Write down several adjectives that describe how you now feel about the project (e.g., proud, exhausted, fulfilled, excited).
- How do your current feelings compare to how you felt at the beginning of the project? What's changed? What's the reason for any change?
- Overall, what have you learned about leadership that is a new insight? What have you learned about yourself and your leadership competencies?
Model the Way
Review the worksheets you completed in Chapter 4, Model the Way, and answer these questions:
- Which shared values were most important to you in guiding you along the project journey?
- How easy or difficult was it to forge consensus on values? Why do you think this was the case?
- Of all the project team's shared values, which two or three were the most important? How did you model these values?
- What leadership actions proved to be the most significant in creating alignment between the stated values and the values in action? Which actions were the most important in creating consistency between values and actions? To sustain the alignment and consistency between stated values and values in action, what other actions could you take—or repeat?
- What did you learn about Model the Way that you can apply to your next project? What would you do differently the next time?
Inspire a Shared Vision
Review what you wrote on your worksheets in Chapter 5, Inspire a Shared Vision, and answer these questions:
- What higher purpose has this project served?
- How does the reality of what you have accomplished compare to what you envisioned? How does it differ? How do you account for the difference?
- What metaphor would you use now to describe this project?
- What did you learn about Inspire a Shared Vision that you can apply to your next project? What would you do differently the next time?
Challenge the Process
Review what you wrote in all of your worksheets in Chapter 6, Challenge the Process, and answer these questions:
- What innovative methods and techniques did you try in this project, and how did they work out?
- What experiments did you undertake? What did you learn from those experiments?
- What have you learned about being more comfortable with and willing to think outside the box?
- What did you do to help your team members learn from failure and mistakes?
- In what ways did breaking down your project into small wins—incremental “one‐hop‐at‐a‐time” actions—help you achieve your goals?
- What did you learn about Challenge the Process that you can apply to your next project? What would you do differently the next time?
Enable Others to Act
Review what you wrote on all the worksheets in Chapter 7, Enable Others to Act, and answer these questions:
- Which enabling actions were the most successful? Why?
- Were the people on your team able to obtain the information and resources they needed? What actions did you take to facilitate that process?
- Write down some specific examples of when you gave power away. What effect did this have on your constituents? On you?
- What did you do to make your constituents feel powerful? Was this task easier or more difficult than you expected? Why?
- What did you learn about Enable Others to Act that you can apply to your next project? What would you do differently next time?
Encourage the Heart
Review what you wrote on all the worksheets in Chapter 8, Encourage the Heart, and answer these questions:
- What form or forms of recognition had the most positive influence? Why?
- What effects did recognition and celebration have on your team?
- What creative means did you use to recognize individuals?
- What was your most successful team celebration? Why was it effective?
- What did you learn about Encourage the Heart that you can apply to your next project? What would you do differently the next time?
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER
Finally, it's time for some broader reflections on what you learned while using The Leadership Challenge Workbook to complete your Personal‐Best Leadership Project.
- Of all the leadership actions that you took, which three to five do you believe had the most impact on the success of the project?
- What would you make certain that you continue to do on your next project?
- What are the five most important things you learned about yourself as a leader?
- What five things did you learn about the members of your team that helped or hindered the success of the project?
- Which practice was the easiest to implement? The most difficult? Why?
- What do you feel are your strengths as a leader?
- Where do you need to improve your leadership skills?
- In addition to asking others to complete this workbook for themselves, how can you pass on your leadership lessons, especially to those you might be coaching or who might be candidates for leadership roles in the near future?