Self-Awareness: The Leadership Growth That Happens When You Finally Stop
Leadership is busy.
Especially when you're managing people.
There are meetings to run, decisions to make, emails to answer, deadlines to hit and problems to solve.
And then there are the people problems.
The employee who isn't meeting expectations.
The conversation that didn't go the way you expected.
The team member who keeps asking questions.
The disagreement you didn't see coming.
The meeting where everyone seemed to agree—and then nothing happened afterward.
It's easy to move from one situation to the next without stopping to think about what just happened.
But that's where an important leadership skill can get lost: reflection.
Self-Awareness Starts With Looking at Yourself
It's natural to notice what other people are doing.
A manager might think:
“They don't communicate well.”
“They're too slow.”
“They ask too many questions.”
“They're too sensitive.”
“They don't take enough initiative.”
Sometimes those observations may be completely legitimate.
But there's another question worth asking: What am I contributing to this situation?
That's where self-awareness comes in.
Self-awareness isn't simply knowing your personality type or being able to describe your strengths and weaknesses. It's understanding how your behavior affects the people around you.
Maybe you move quickly and expect others to keep up.
Maybe you prefer direct communication while someone on your team needs more context.
Maybe you value independence and become frustrated when someone asks for frequent guidance.
Maybe you want your employees to challenge your thinking—but your reaction when they disagree makes them hesitant to do it.
None of those things necessarily make you a bad leader.
But they are worth noticing.
Because what feels completely normal to you may not feel normal to the person you're leading.
The Problem With Never Pausing
Managers spend a lot of time doing.
They don't always spend much time processing.
Something happens. You react. You solve it. You move on. Then another problem appears.
Without reflection, an experience can simply become another thing that happened. Reflection gives you the opportunity to turn that experience into something useful.
John C. Maxwell's Law of Reflection describes this as: “Learning to Pause Allows Growth to Catch Up with You.” The purpose isn't to sit around overanalyzing everything you've ever done.
It's to intentionally create space to learn from your experiences.
The Reflection Worksheet I created around Maxwell's Law of Reflection suggests creating intentional reflection periods—daily, weekly, quarterly or annually—and walking through a simple process.
Three Simple Steps for Leadership Reflection
1. Create a space to think
Find a quiet place where you aren't constantly being interrupted.
It doesn't have to be complicated. A favorite chair. A walk. A notebook. A quiet office.
The important part is creating enough space to actually think.
2. Review what happened
Think about recent events, achievements and challenges.
Ask: What went well? Why did it go well? What didn't go as planned? Why?
This is where you start moving from simply remembering an event to learning from it.
3. Ask better questions
The Reflection Worksheet uses four questions:
What am I learning from this experience?
How can I apply these lessons moving forward?
What should I stop, start or continue doing?
How has this grown my skills, mindset or relationships?
Notice what these questions don't ask.
They don't ask: “Whose fault was this?”
They don't ask: “Why is everyone else so difficult?”
They ask what you can learn.
That's a very different starting point.
Reflection Can Change the Way You See Difficult Conversations
Imagine you have a conversation with an employee and it doesn't go well.
Your first reaction might be:
“They were defensive.”
“They weren't listening.”
“They just don't get it.”
Reflection gives you another option.
You can ask:
What actually happened?
How did I communicate?
What was the other person reacting to?
What might I do differently next time?
Maybe you discover that your message wasn't as clear as you thought.
Maybe you realize you entered the conversation frustrated.
Maybe you recognize that you made an assumption.
Or maybe you conclude that you handled the conversation appropriately and the employee still reacted poorly. That's useful information too.
Self-awareness doesn't mean taking responsibility for everything.
It means being willing to examine your part.
The Leadership Question to Try This Week
The next time someone on your team frustrates you, resist the immediate urge to ask:
“What's wrong with them?” Instead, pause.
Ask: “What am I learning from this?”
That one question can create a completely different conversation with yourself.
And sometimes that's where the leadership growth starts.
Free Reflection Worksheet
If you'd like some structure for this process, I've created a free Reflection Worksheet based on John C. Maxwell's Law of Reflection.
It walks you through:
Creating your reflection space
Reviewing recent experiences
Identifying what went well and what didn't
Asking four reflection questions
Capturing insights and specific actions
Scheduling your next reflection session
Give yourself some time to pause.
You might be surprised by what you learn.
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