What is Reflective Leadership?

The oth­er day I was throw­ing around the words, “reflec­tive lead­er­ship” when a client stopped me and asked me to explain exact­ly what I meant. I found myself using a fami­lar tool in the human devel­op­ment field, the Johari Win­dow, cre­at­ed by Joe Luft and Har­ry Ing­ham in 1955. The mod­el is a way to look at inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ships and process­es. It is formed of four “panes” that high­light what we under­stand about our­selves com­pared with how much oth­ers know about us. 

Let me share how the mod­el works before com­ing back to my def­i­n­i­tion of reflec­tive leadership.

When you and I share com­mon per­cep­tions, trust and com­mu­ni­ca­tion are like­ly to be high­er, our con­ver­sa­tions are more open, and our prob­lem-solv­ing is eas­i­er. This area, where “what I know about myself” and “what oth­ers know about me” are the same is called the Are­na. For exam­ple, I know my eyes are brown and by look­ing at me you can see that that is so. We don’t dis­agree over this fact. Sim­i­lar­ly, if our sub­jec­tive judg­ments are the same — for instance if you believe I am intel­li­gent and I see myself as intel­li­gent, too — our rela­tion­ship and com­mu­ni­ca­tions are like­ly to be quite open around this point. 

How­ev­er, if what I think about myself is dif­fer­ent than what oth­ers think of me, my rela­tion­ships could be affect­ed by my Blindspot. Per­haps I see myself as very open-mind­ed and inter­per­son­al­ly sen­si­tive, but oth­ers do not see me this way. If I am con­front­ed about this dif­fer­ence two things are like­ly to hap­pen: I will react emo­tion­al­ly and defen­sive­ly, and I will like­ly exhib­it the very behav­iors that con­firm the nature of the Blind Spot (e.g., you sug­gest to me I am insen­si­tive to your feel­ings and I react in a way that dis­plays this insen­si­tiv­i­ty). This is the area of denial — where we can’t see what we can’t see, poten­tial­ly caus­ing mis­un­der­stand­ings, mis­trust, and “undis­cuss­ables” in our rela­tion­ships with one another.

The third area, the Facade, reflects what I know about myself that I keep hid­den and choose not to share. I might not want to dis­close, for exam­ple, that I was fired from my last job, so in my rela­tion­ships with my new co-work­ers I avoid con­ver­sa­tions that could lead to ques­tions about my for­mer work his­to­ry. I might even lie about what hap­pened if asked direct­ly. Oth­er aspects that we keep hid­den include our pri­vate opin­ions of oth­ers or judg­ments that feel too risky to share. I may not share open­ly my per­cep­tions of my boss’s insen­si­tiv­i­ty. In this way, my facade may have some­thing to do with your Blind Spot (and also, per­haps, my own!)

Final­ly, the fourth area, the Unknown, reflects shared lack of aware­ness. It rep­re­sents pure poten­tial that is con­stant­ly in a process of evo­lu­tion and emer­gence. This is an area of great mys­tery, accessed through our intu­itions, feel­ings, dreams, med­i­ta­tions, and spir­i­tu­al or artis­tic self-inquiries. You know it when you see it. For instance, an acquain­tance starts behav­ing in ways that sug­gests he is “not quite him­self” — and he agrees with you and also real­ly does­n’t know why he is behav­ing as he is. That’s the Unknown show­ing up.

The Goal

The Are­na clar­i­fies the fun­da­men­tal inter­per­son­al goal of reflec­tive lead­er­ship with the oth­er panes defin­ing key tasks to achiev­ing it. The Are­na is the place where our shared under­stand­ing of our­selves puts us in real and gen­uine con­tact with one anoth­er, intel­lec­tu­al­ly, emo­tion­al­ly, and spir­i­tu­al­ly, and there­fore gives us the capac­i­ty to cre­ate a com­mon vision for change. Out of this con­tact comes a rich sense of who we are for one anoth­er; our assump­tions about our­selves, oth­ers, and the sys­tems with­in which we oper­ate; how much we will trust and col­lab­o­rate with one anoth­er; our self-inter­ests, needs, and desired pay­offs; and how we will deploy our sep­a­rate gifts toward a com­mon end. Our indi­vid­ual and shared self-knowl­edge becomes our shared capac­i­ty to lead. Reflec­tive lead­ers are inten­tion­al around this goal and intense­ly con­scious of the lev­el at which they are con­nect­ing with others.

Cre­at­ing a wide-open Are­na with oth­ers varies in the time and effort we choose to give to it. Once in awhile you or I find a spon­ta­neous sense of com­mu­nion (of com­mu­ni­ty) with anoth­er per­son. When that hap­pens, it can be a lit­tle sur­pris­ing, pret­ty much like find­ing a new friend, whether or not that friend­ship lasts a life­time or only for a few moments. In oth­er cas­es, that con­nec­tion is a task that is con­scious­ly and inten­tion­al­ly worked at in the way the part­ners of a busi­ness or of a mar­riage work at it, con­stant­ly deep­en­ing to find a way through the thick­ets of past con­di­tion­ing and pri­vate his­to­ries. Some­times those “thick­ets” turn out to be con­ti­nents. No mat­ter, the goal is to tru­ly “meet” the oth­er, and that inevitably dri­ves the reflec­tive leader to access each of the three oth­er tasks implied by the oth­er panes of the Johari Window.

The Tasks

The reflec­tive lead­er­ship task asso­ci­at­ed with the Blindspot is under­stand­ing per­son­al impact. We are all prone to be unaware of some aspects of our­selves and to defend against aware­ness. The quest for self-knowl­edge can take us on a jour­ney through the under­world of per­son­al demons we would real­ly rather avoid. But fail­ing to take that jour­ney restricts our capac­i­ties to move in the world and pos­i­tive­ly influ­ence our sur­round­ings. A leader who does not know about what oth­ers see and know about him or her is uncon­scious­ly build­ing a tightrope for oth­ers to walk or set­ting up a labyrinth for them to find their way through. What is not seen, and what facil­i­tates gen­uine aware­ness is not only nam­ing the blind spot but also under­stand­ing its full impact. For exam­ple, if I have trou­ble accept­ing myself (but don’t acknowl­edge it), I may be prone to being swayed by oth­ers who ques­tion my judg­ments. My being swayed by oth­ers inap­pro­pri­ate­ly then has an effect: I can’t be trust­ed in my deci­sions because it seems that my deci­sions change too eas­i­ly and are based on who I last talked to. Or, on the oth­er side of that coin, if I have trou­ble keep­ing an open mind because I don’t ques­tion myself enough (and don’t acknowl­edge that), I may also lose trust, dri­ving peo­ple to stay away from me to under­mine the deci­sions I have made. Depend­ing on the size of an orga­ni­za­tion or change effort, these impacts of a lead­er’s blindspots mul­ti­ply their effects. The for­tunes of a For­tune 100 com­pa­ny, let alone a small­er enter­prise, can be eas­i­ly thrown off. A reflec­tive leader always wants to know how an enter­prise or change effort is a reflec­tion of per­son­al style. “How is this thing I’ve found­ed and cre­at­ed over the years,” a small busi­ness own­er might ask, “lim­it­ed by who I am?” A reflec­tive leader will ask for per­son­al feed­back con­stant­ly and look for the pat­terns that get in the way. That leader intu­itive­ly knows that dis­miss­ing the impor­tance of per­son­al blindspots is pre­cise­ly what gives those blindspots their pow­er and effect in the world. The worst case is the leader who believes he or she has no blindspots. This is dis­as­ter in the making.

A sec­ond task of reflec­tive lead­er­ship is authen­tic­i­ty, the prac­tice of “show­ing up” in a way that is gen­uine and true and real as a per­son. The facade rep­re­sents the cho­sen lim­its of authen­tic­i­ty. Most of us are good at hold­ing infor­ma­tion pri­vate, includ­ing infor­ma­tion that might be very use­ful to oth­ers, as a way to pro­tect our­selves and we, frankly, are not alto­geth­er aware of how hid­den we may be. We live in an imper­fect world and need to be savvy. We enjoy and even envy at moments the child’s refresh­ing naivete in speak­ing her mind or ask­ing ques­tions but we’ve learned as adults, almost as a sec­ond nature, there may be a cost to per­son­al open­ness. Some of this is appro­pri­ate, some not. A reflec­tive leader is high­ly aware of the point when that lack of per­son­al open­ness becomes a pat­tern of dys­func­tion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion, when what he or she is not say­ing gets in the way of the very changes he or she would like to bring about or is oth­er­wise incon­gru­ent with close­ly held per­son­al val­ues. The reflec­tive leader opens the dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions that peo­ple in rela­tion­ship need to have, mod­els a con­nec­tive, respect­ful vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, and shows not only that such con­ver­sa­tions are “sur­viv­able” but that they are frankly essen­tial to the sur­vival of rela­tion­ships (and per­haps the enter­prise, too).

Final­ly, the third task is to enter the Unknown. Above all this is the spir­i­tu­al task of indi­vid­ual growth into poten­tials that have not yet come into per­son­al or group con­scious­ness. This is the task of find­ing one’s call­ing and des­tiny where the unique mean­ing of one’s life and work becomes man­i­fest and is con­scious­ly expe­ri­enced. The words here are cum­ber­some because enter­ing the Unknown is the place where choice com­bines with an inar­tic­u­late some­thing pre-exist­ing, an “acorn” that a per­son expe­ri­ences with­in that becomes through the course of a life-time the oak tree that is “meant to be.” A reflec­tive leader takes the task of unearthing this acorn seri­ous­ly, know­ing that it is only through this dis­cov­ery that he or she will find real joy and ful­fill­ment and have the sta­mi­na to lead in the world.

A leader who becomes cen­tered in the goal of con­nec­tion, who is open to learn­ing about his or her blindspots, who sees through his or her own per­son­al facades and leads into need­ed, pow­er­ful con­ver­sa­tions, who gives time and effort to dis­cov­er­ing the per­son­al mean­ings of work and life — that per­son can be said to lead reflectively. 

There is so much more that could be voiced about any of these points as parts of the def­i­n­i­tion of reflec­tive lead­er­ship. But for today, it is enough — a good start.

ADDENDUM

A few moments ago, a friend sug­gest­ed a call to action that needs to be includ­ed here: “Think of one action you could take today to prac­tice what I’ve sug­gest­ed in this post and let me know how it went.” 

This is a great idea. So if you have a mind to, please email me or sim­ply com­ment below!

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