When I interview applicants for a position, I like to ask candidates to share a professional mistake that they made. Most look at me quizzically, trying to determine what I am getting at. Some seem sure that I know something about them. Others take it as an opportunity to show their brash confidence in themselves.
But most get quiet for a minute and then share some error of bravado they made as a novice leader; a time when they jumped headfirst into a project without first getting the buy-in of others; a time when a professional relationship went awry; or other such examples of the way that reality has a way of creeping into our leadership. I then ask them what they would do differently if they had it to do over again.
It has been my deep experience that self-reflection is a necessary condition of effective leadership, and effective teaching, for that matter. It is mindset and way of being that has everything to do with humility and a respect for the “other.” The very best leaders I have observed are constantly engaged in a cycle of self-reflection and genuine input-seeking from others — ever balancing their own critique and course correction and the understanding of the limitation of their perspective. It is a very human art, and one that makes all the difference.
I ask this particular question of candidates as a gauge of their self-reflection as well as as a measure of the very humble and courageous art of self-disclosure. It takes some degree of centeredness to share a time when things went awry. And that, too, is a measure of the effective leader. These conversations often change the tone of an interview from a bright walk-through of a candidates resume and addressing situational hypotheticals to a human moment about what lies at the heart of leadership.
I find that artists and those that consume art reflectively have a natural pathway to this skill. To make art, or to deeply experience it, requires stepping outside of oneself and into the skin of another. That is a good thing.
In these days of far too plentiful models of leadership that are brash and brazen; centered in self-interest at the expense of others, it is good to double down on the quiet art of self-reflection. Some engage in that art through quiet moments with a coffee cup, some through honest talks with trusted friends or colleagues, and some through daily practices such as journaling. In my view, the form doesn’t matter as much as the substance.
In those quiet moments, wherever you find them, lies the potential for deepening your own leadership that changes things for the better.
And that is something worth reflecting on.