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A Reflection on Leadership based on my experience with the LEADER Project

Nov 2, 2012

A Reflection on Leadership based on my experience with the LEADER Project

Leadership is a quality that's innate in me. Whether it was in the playground at pre-school, the soccer-field growing up, student council in high school or various teams I am involved in at Ivey, a common theme has been my desire and willingness to lead. For a long time I thought this was because I enjoyed being in a position of control, a position of influence where I could shape the direction of a particular project or initiative. To some extent, this was the case; but I only recently realized that it was the desire to have an impact that I love most about being a leader. In fact, the ability to make an impact is how I would define leadership. Often times, leadership is seen as a title, a position that one is chosen for or given to make decisions and lead a group of people. These individuals are leaders, of course, as they're able to make significant impact on a large group of people; but we forget that leaders are everywhere in our society and more often than not they are leaders in an unorthodox sense. Whether they are artists, teachers, or musicians, many of them make an impact on their communities and those who choose to do so intentionally are leaders in their own right.

Danish Ajmeri

This is not to say that everyone can be a leader. I believe there are certain personality traits, skillsets and motivations that need to be present for effective leadership to take place. However, I believe leadership is a means to generating impact and I believe there are numerous individuals out there who do this on a daily basis who we would never consider as being leaders in the traditional sense of the word.

My LEADER experience has been paramount to me redefining my definition of leadership. I have personally been very fortunate to have had formal opportunities to develop my leadership skills and be provided with opportunities to exhibit it as well. This has given me tremendous exposure to new opportunities and only accelerated my growth as a leader. However, after visiting Russia I realized that such opportunities are unheard of in their communities. They don't have student councils, leadership institutes, summer enrichment programs or entrepreneurship incubators. These were all formal institutions that allowed me to practice and develop my leadership skills. This begged the question: is there a lack of leaders in Russia? Absolutely not. Many of the students I had a chance to work with were budding entrepreneurs with ambitious goals for solving critical problems in their communities. Several of them had already pursued various community service projects and some even had international experiences which they sought out on their own.

One student in our class, Julia, was particularly inspirational. She came from a very low-income family and was financing her tuition by founding an adventure sports startup. Specifically, she had partnered with a hot-air balloon pilot and began offering excursions to individuals in the nearby city of Samara. This was a brand new offering unbeknownst to a region that attracted little to no tourists. Despite this seemingly massive hurdle, Julia persevered with her vision and successfully ran this business over the course of the last two years. Since then, she has expanded their offerings to include mountain biking and hiking tours as well. This just goes to show the determination and commitment she made to her education and creating a service that genuinely added value in a unique way for her community. Julia didn't have mentors, venture capitalists or incubators to help guide her through this process. She did her own research, invested the little capital that she could afford and courage to take on this enormous challenge. Julia is a true leader.

Despite a lack of formal infrastructure in place to foster leaders in the traditional sense, many students were still forging their own ways of making an impact. This is what leadership is all about. I'm extremely fortunate and grateful for having the opportunity to experience this first hand. It inspires me to know that youth all around the world embody a passion for change, a desire to lead and a commitment to making an impact. LEADER is a phenomenal initiative that is supporting this dream and opening doors that otherwise may never have opened - for our students, the entrepreneurs, and for us, the LEADERites.

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The Importance of Reflective Leadership in Business

Business leader speaking to three members of their team, who are seated at a table with laptops

  • 05 Sep 2023

Effective leadership is essential to business success. As an organizational leader , you not only guide decision-making but create your company’s culture, retain its talent, and move it toward bigger, better things.

Your leadership style —the behavioral patterns consistent across your decision-making—influences your impact on your organization and team. One of the most beneficial styles to adopt is reflective leadership.

If you want to learn more about reflective leadership’s role in business, here’s an overview of its components, why it’s effective, and how to become a reflective leader.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Reflective Leadership?

Reflective leadership involves self-awareness, introspection, and continuous learning and growth to make better decisions, enhance leadership skills , and improve team performance .

“Reflective leadership requires the continuous practice of reflection over time,” says Harvard Business School Professor Nien-hê Hsieh in the online course Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “This allows you to regularly examine and re-evaluate your decisions and responsibilities to practice, broaden, and deepen your skills, and to apply this knowledge when analyzing present situations.”

Reflective leadership also enables you to help your team grow.

“Reflective leadership is about helping others on your team or in your organization,” Hsieh says. “It’s about helping them develop their own skills in awareness, judgment, and action.”

In Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , Hsieh delves into the reflective leadership model , a framework for conceptualizing your responsibilities as an ethical leader.

The Reflective Leadership Model

The model has four components:

  • Awareness: Recognize your legal, economic, and ethical responsibilities to stakeholders.
  • Judgment: Consider biases and shared concepts that influence your decision-making.
  • Action: Act on your decisions in an accountable, consistent way.
  • Reflection: Reflect on all three components throughout the process to learn from past experiences.

“The reflective leadership model involves not only reflection on business decisions but also continuous reflection on your own personal beliefs, goals, and commitments,” Hsieh says in the course. “These aspects of self are often significant influences on your decisions and internal guides when navigating difficult situations.”

The Importance of Reflective Leadership

Before diving into the importance of reflective leadership, it’s critical to note the pitfalls of being an inadequate leader.

According to recruitment services company Zippia , 79 percent of employees leave their companies because they don’t feel appreciated by leaders, and upwards of 69 percent believe they’d work harder if recognized. In addition, only 33 percent report feeling engaged in the workplace.

Companies also lack focus on leadership development. Zippia reports that 77 percent struggle to find and develop leaders, and only five percent implement leadership development at all levels.

Since reflective leadership focuses on continuously improving and developing, it’s one of the more effective leadership styles. By regularly reflecting on your beliefs and values and incorporating them into your actions, you can make ethical decisions and enable your company to be more purpose-driven .

“Along with responsibility, leadership brings opportunities,” Hsieh explains in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “These include opportunities to make ethical decisions where someone else wouldn’t, to influence others to do the right thing, and to make a positive impact on the world.”

Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability | Develop a toolkit for making tough leadership decisions| Learn More

Reflective leadership also helps you build authentic, supportive relationships with team members and create a workplace of ethics and accountability .

If you want to adopt a reflective leadership style, here are the competencies to develop.

How to Become a Reflective Leader

Be self-reflective.

Self-reflection is at reflective leadership’s core. According to Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , you can practice self-reflection by:

  • Reviewing, analyzing, and evaluating your decisions—in the moment and over time.
  • Continuously deepening your awareness and self-knowledge.
  • Developing a general framework for judgment.
  • Improving your capacity for action and leadership.

Leading with self-reflection won’t just help you learn from past experiences but also encourage and enable your team members to adopt reflective mentalities.

Identify Your Commitments

Knowing your commitments is also essential to effective leadership.

“It’s important to identify and define your own commitments,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , “both to set a baseline for what you will and won’t do and to evaluate and clarify your thoughts, opinions, and feelings when making decisions.”

To create that baseline, Hsieh recommends asking the following questions:

  • What’s core to my identity?
  • What lines or boundaries won’t I cross?
  • What kind of life do I want to live?
  • What kind of leader do I want to be?

By identifying your commitments, you can better guide yourself and your team.

Consider Your Accountability

Becoming a reflective leader also requires accountability to successfully execute on your values and implement them into action plans.

This refers to the reflective leadership model’s “action” step—putting your decisions into practice in a way that’s accountable and consistent with your responsibilities.

“When leading reflectively, straightforward action planning may not be enough,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “An accountable leader will go beyond just answering ‘How will we do it?’ to ask ‘How can I do it accountably?’”

How to Become a More Effective Leader | Access Your Free E-Book | Download Now

Reflective Leadership Training for Businesses

By incorporating your values into your leadership style, you can learn from your experiences on a deeper level and develop into a better leader.

One way to gain the skills and frameworks to succeed long term is by taking an online course, such as Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . Through a dynamic, interactive learning experience, the course provides the opportunity to apply the reflective leadership model to real-world business ethics challenges.

Are you ready to become a reflective leader? Apply to Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability —one of our online leadership and management courses —and download our free e-book on effective leadership.

reflective essay on leading change

About the Author

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The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Human Resource Development pp 243–255 Cite as

Reflecting on Leadership, Leading, and Leaders

  • Carole J. Elliott 3  
  • First Online: 18 November 2022

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To develop responsible leadership practice for equitable organizations, societies require continuous critical scrutiny of the sociohistorical conditions that shape leadership. Critical HRD scholarship and practice accept a responsibility to question accepted leadership norms, and to propose alternatives to leadership practice that sustain asymmetries of power. Informed by the critical leadership studies literature, this chapter proposes the framework of People, Place, and Process as a critical lens that critical HRD scholars can adopt and adapt when researching leadership or developing leadership capacity in a range of contexts. The chapter concludes by proposing tools and learning practices that critical HRD scholars can employ to promote cycles of critical reflexivity helpful in challenging traditional assumptions and beliefs about leadership.

  • Critical leadership studies
  • Critical HRD
  • Asymmetries of power
  • Qualitative methodologies

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Elliott, C.J. (2023). Reflecting on Leadership, Leading, and Leaders. In: Collins, J.C., Callahan, J.L. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Human Resource Development. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10453-4_14

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The Most Successful Approaches to Leading Organizational Change

  • Deborah Rowland,
  • Michael Thorley,
  • Nicole Brauckmann

reflective essay on leading change

A closer look at four distinct ways to drive transformation.

When tasked with implementing large-scale organizational change, leaders often give too much attention to the what of change — such as a new organization strategy, operating model or acquisition integration — not the how — the particular way they will approach such changes. Such inattention to the how comes with the major risk that old routines will be used to get to new places. Any unquestioned, “default” approach to change may lead to a lot of busy action, but not genuine system transformation. Through their practice and research, the authors have identified the optimal ways to conceive, design, and implement successful organizational change.

Management of long-term, complex, large-scale change has a reputation of not delivering the anticipated benefits. A primary reason for this is that leaders generally fail to consider how to approach change in a way that matches their intent.

reflective essay on leading change

  • Deborah Rowland is the co-author of  Sustaining Change: Leadership That Works , Still Moving: How to Lead Mindful Change , and the Still Moving Field Guide: Change Vitality at Your Fingertips . She has personally led change at Shell, Gucci Group, BBC Worldwide, and PepsiCo and pioneered original research in the field, accepted as a paper at the 2016 Academy of Management and the 2019 European Academy of Management. Thinkers50 Radar named as one of the generation of management thinkers changing the world of business in 2017, and she’s on the 2021 HR Most Influential Thinker list. She is Cambridge University 1st Class Archaeology & Anthropology Graduate.
  • Michael Thorley is a qualified accountant, psychotherapist, executive psychological coach, and coach supervisor integrating all modalities to create a unique approach. Combining his extensive experience of running P&L accounts and developing approaches that combine “hard”-edged and “softer”-edged management approaches, he works as a non-executive director and advisor to many different organizations across the world that wish to generate a new perspective on change.
  • Nicole Brauckmann focuses on helping organizations and individuals create the conditions for successful emergent change to unfold. As an executive and consultant, she has worked to deliver large-scale complex change across different industries, including energy, engineering, financial services, media, and not-for profit. She holds a PhD at Faculty of Philosophy, Westfaelische Wilhelms University Muenster and spent several years on academic research and teaching at University of San Diego Business School.

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Home > Books > Contemporary Leadership Challenges

Reflective Leadership: Learning to Manage and Lead Human Organizations

Submitted: 02 July 2016 Reviewed: 20 July 2016 Published: 01 February 2017

DOI: 10.5772/64968

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This chapter mainly focuses on the concept of reflection as a process, both individual and collaborative, involving experience and uncertainty under the theme of reflective leadership. This type of leadership basically means learning to manage and lead human organizations. It originates from the concept of reflection defining leadership roles and responsibilities in all types of organizations. Focusing on reflection for learning in an effort to create reflective learning communities for all stakeholders taking part in both administrative and executive positions in organizations, this chapter is expected to contribute to leadership theories, to link theory and practice in concrete terms describing new leadership roles and responsibilities under the reflective thought considering its unique impact on organizational functioning.

  • reflective practice
  • organizations
  • reflective learning

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Süleyman davut göker *.

  • Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Education, Artvin Çoruh University, Turkey

Kıvanç Bozkuş

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected]

1. Introduction

In the literature, leadership is defined by many theories that try to explain what leadership is, in terms of different standpoints. However, the real world is very complicated that cannot be prescribed in some given patterns. This is the very first fact that leaders realize once they enter into professional practice. This is when prescribed theories do not meet the requirements of real practice. How can leaders be effective in an environment that is so distinct from those portrayed on paper? The answer is the grail that many if not all practising leaders had committed him-/herself to following of it. Reflective leadership goes to bat for anyone in the realm of leadership which is not mapped yet.

We start to explore reflective leadership by discussing what reflection is and then its role in creating reflective learning communities in organizations. The route to leadership through reflective thinking is the next topic we will address. Finally, we conclude with reflective practice which is the essence of reflective leadership and its models of implementation.

2. Reflection

Reflection is not only a personal process but also a collaborative one, which involves uncertainty along with experience, and consists of specifying inquiries and essential components of a thing that came out as important, later taking a person’s thoughts into dialogue with himself or herself and with other people. Individuals evaluate insights developed from that process in regard to additional perspectives, values, experiences, beliefs and the larger context within which the questions are raised. Through reflection, new-found clarity to base changes in action or disposition is achieved. New questions naturally arise, and the process spirals onwards [ 1 ].

Within this context, we argue that reflection is a vital component of leaders’ daily life, not a detached or disconnected action but primal, promoted by the culture and structures of an organization, which affects choices, policies and decisions together with the emotions and politics related to them. Considered from this angle, to be reflective should not be considered as a method, which has been acquired and occasionally used, but an inherent component of what to manage or lead means.

2.1. Dewey: father of reflection

Thinking includes all of these steps, - the sense of a problem, the observation of conditions, the formation and rational elaboration of a suggested conclusion, and the active experimental testing. [ 2 ]

For him, reflection is a deliberate and cognitive process triggered by a state of doubt, mental difficulty and hesitation. He sees reflection as a process of researching, clarifying and finding the right way that eliminates the doubt and difficulties. The mental process of reflection is activated by a problem, unstructured ideas and complicated situations to find a solution.

Forestalling something of the spirit of the progresses we maintain in this chapter, Dewey conceptualized this aspect of learning as more important than a problem-solving process. Dewey’s vision was of an educational process which had reflection and action linked at its core and was the means by which individuals gained ‘a personal interest in social relationships and control’—a platform for social change to a more democratic social order and preparation for membership of it [ 2 ].

2.2. Schön: reflection in action

Schön sees reflection as closely related to action and personal experience. The reflective practitioner engages in thinking along with the effect of action. Thus, Schön classified reflection into two types: reflection in action and reflection on action. Reflection in action is conscious thinking and modification while on the job [ 3 ]. The reflective practitioner immediately reflects on the action upon confronting it. Reflection on action is the reflection done after experiencing the action. The practitioner evaluates to understand whether the activity was successful or not by making judgements.

On-the-spot surfacing, criticizing, restructuring, and testing of intuitive understanding of experienced phenomena; often it takes the form of a reflective conversation with the situation. [ 4 ]

… on the feeling for a situation which has led him to adopt a particular course of action, on the way he has framed the problem he is trying to solve, or on the role he has constructed for himself within a larger institutional ‘context.’ [ 4 ]

As discussed above, this included ‘reflection on action’ and ‘reflection in action’ in practical terms. Human beings always tend to take shelter in experienced and accustomed forms of working and in practised processes or similar methods. That is to say, all endeavours to see the unknown in everyday life let people confront routines and connections and to alter those sides of working thought and practice taken for granted. For example, the capacity to make use of certain images, emotions, metaphors, to engage both rationally and aesthetically and to look at relational dynamics considering settings allows for the production of discrete styles of practising and thinking.

2.3. Reflection for learning: creating reflective learning communities in organizations

Ultimately, the outcome of reflection is learning [ 6 ]. It widens our perspective on a problem (broadens knowledge). It helps us develop strategies for dealing with it (develop skills). It helps us acquire new insights into our behaviour (changes attitudes).

Learning is not an individual behavioural attribute or capability but a ‘double-loop’ cognitive learning process that can be shared, and if everyone can participate in shared learning, then, in principle, everyone is capable of leading [ 7 ]. Within this context, the learning organization assures whatever the classical human-centred view about learning treasured at all times that commitment to learning will rescue us from obedience in blind authority in the end.

Even though learning itself as an action could seem self-evident, it is concerned with many issues in determining in what ways learning individually could be ‘effective’ or ‘rational’ against ‘self-deception’ and ‘defence reasoning’ [ 8 ]. As the difference between reflexivity and learning is hard to understand, in all attempts to understand that difference, reflexivity in the organizational development tradition has often been problematic [ 4 , 9 , 10 ]. The question is so clear: is it a neutral and instrumental expression of expert knowledge and control, or is it a methodology of feedback and diagnostic practice that pursues to develop really inclusive forms of distributed knowledge and learning [ 11 ]. The former position treats self-reflection as ‘I think’, whereas the latter tends to treat it as an expression of ‘I do’ [ 12 – 14 ]. What can be said here is that these two conflicting positions usually finish up as remedial approaches to learning. Learning could be thought as a deliberate way of ‘reflexive thinking’, allowing us to keep our distance from existent actions or behaviours and alter them. In contrast, learning as doing is bound by pre-reflective practices, so it is difficult to retrospectively translate or transmit learning or knowing in practice into intentional actions designed to change behaviour [ 13 ].

Leading for learning is an essential aim in creating reflective learning communities, which aim to create strong and fair opportunities of learning for all in an organization and encourage them to benefit from these opportunities. Leaders can accomplish this by committing themselves to the following areas of action: establishing a focus on learning, building professional communities that value learning, engaging external environments that matter for learning, acting strategically and creating coherence [ 15 , 16 ]. The perception suggested centres on supplying each learner, no matter what problems they confront, the ways to overcome intriguing skills and to advance habits of mind for additional and autonomous learning.

‘Let’s try it out and see how it works’ is an active learner’s phrase; ‘Let’s think it through first’ is the reflective learner’s response in a reflective learning community [ 17 ]. Leaders’ learning incorporates skills, the knowledge and standpoints, which they obtain while getting ready for and regenerating their practice. Interacting with other professionals who offer moral support, critique, ideas and inspiration for the renewal process will also promote opportunities for effective professional development.

Nearly all managers wish to create more powerful and equitable learning opportunities when they are given time to reflect. Nevertheless, their abilities depend on how they perceive the existent and prospective links between learning and leading in their own context. Managers can use reflective tools like optimizing video as a self-assessment tool, strengthening electronic portfolios with reflective journal writing, making use of associated resources on the Internet, taking advantage of on-line peer mentoring and stimulating reflection via learning communities as part of professional development.

Creating such a reflective learning community requires building professional communities that value learning, acting strategically and sharing leadership and engaging external environments that matter for learning. This type of reflective learning also fosters system learning, in which opportunities come up by means of evaluation of policies, programmes and resource use, strategic planning endeavours, action research focused on system-wide issues and application of indicators to measure progress towards goals defined. Leaders will be able to support system learning through inquiry into how an organization performs.

2.4. The route to leadership through reflective thinking

Reflective thinking is not only an internal process but an external one promoting improved critical thinking skills together with self-understanding as an essential way of inner work which emerges in the energy for employing in outer work. This type of thinking is required for understanding what it means to be significant for oneself and in one’s organization or practice. Being aware of one’s thinking is essential to make informed and logical decisions while working with others. In other words, taking to heart the feelings, thoughts and behaviours of other people also eases improvement in accomplishing organizational and professional objectives. In this chapter, we keep focusing on becoming a reflective thinker as a means to becoming a reflective leader. Therefore, we believe that managers can raise their awareness on their potential capacity for leadership.

Reflective leaders regard learning as a lifelong process, and they tend to equilibrate the practice ‘telling’ with ‘asking’ and frequently depend on the collective intelligence capacity of the teams formed in their organizations. Rather than being ‘in judgement’, these leaders ‘use judgement’ in handing down significant decisions. They regularly tend to step out of their routine and accustomed settings to think, explore and learn. Because the business environment has grown more complex, volatile and fast paced, leaders are more and more willing to adopt a ‘bias for action’, but effective leaders reflect on their past experiences and search for relevant, different insights before decision-making process.

What have I learnt?

What were my feelings and thoughts as it was happening?

How could I explain my experience?

How could I make use of learning for my future actions?

What is your opinion of way I felt and acted?

How have I reacted and behaved?

Based on the answers to the questions asked above, reflective leadership can be considered as a way of approaching the work of being a leader by leading one’s life with presence and personal mastery. In other words, it requires learning to be present, to be aware and attentive to our experience with people in our daily life, and it regards leadership from the standpoint of human experience. Taking the science of phenomenology into consideration, self-awareness and reflection on one’s own experience together with the experience of other people are the starting point for the process of reflective leadership, which ultimately aim to achieve improved communication changing leadership practice.

We have developed further questions and possible responses to encourage managers to become reflective leaders. Through these six questions and responses, we aim to create awareness on how to become a reflective leader in practice:

2.4.1. In what ways can reflection evoke my self-interests?

People’s self-interests can be met if they reflect on how their work has affected their learning and lives. These effects entail their progress and apprehension in some fields like career search, development of leadership, social justice, civic responsibility and consciousness, intellectual interests and self-actualization. People tend to concentrate on self-learning on particular occasions. They also consider issues related to career search when they finish university. For example, people remember their civic responsibilities only when they vote. The forms of reflection we have been discussing are drawn up to link people’s work experiences to personal development.

2.4.2. How should I proceed to be a reflective thinker?

A reflective thinking model illustrating the process of reflective thinking was developed by Taggart and Wilson [ 18 ]. To identify a problem, dilemma or challenge could be one of the initial efforts. As the next step, you should draw back from the problem concerned for a while and use an outsider perspective to re-evaluate that problem. Within this process you can employ ways of observation, data collection and reflection. They will help you obtain a cognitive picture about the way you think for the sake of defining the setting of that circumstance. This position may be integrated with a similar event in the past to lead you to get probable ways to attempt to solve the problem. You should ask a question at this stage: How have I dealt with the almost identical situation in the past and what makes the present situation different from the one in the past? You will naturally remember your experiences and make predictions and create different approaches. Doing so, you will also have tested the approaches used systematically. Finally, you will review the actions you have taken together with the consequences, and that process will provide you with a new opportunity to reframe the situation concerned.

2.4.3. What do I understand by reflective leadership?

As discussed earlier, a dedication to the continuous process of maintained critical self-awareness and development is essential in reflective leadership. How can you do that? If you are determined to become a reflective leader, you should exchange reflective thoughts of yours with those of others establishing new relationships and ask them to see the situation. We tend to make use of feelings that we highly value, let ourselves experience them and pass along them whenever available. This sort of approach, which is genuine, will certainly give us a space where we will be able to value the contributions of others. This is how we support other people by means of our own reflective practice.

Learning from others basically requires listening to them within the framework of reflective leadership, which will require receptivity to other people. Listening attentively is both an art and a skill to be practised. Effective leaders must listen to cases and stories from all workers to reflect on in what ways they could enrich and change practices. Within this context, those stories providing data about what does work or what does not will tell us to look for significance. Any discussion and reflection on those stories will enrich, change and provide us with opportunities to install any possible changes into practice.

2.4.4. What types of strategies, resources and tools do I need to be more reflective and self-aware?

Awareness is created through communication. To achieve a high level of communication, awareness on what you have been thinking is necessary. In other words, it will enable you a tool to discover yourself and become more self-aware. To do so, any sort of conflict should be seen as an opportunity to understand more of your true self as well as other people. The questions and answers to what you are sensing, thinking, feeling and willing or not willing to do will take time to get. So, you should go on asking them till you could past strong emotions like resentment and anger, because those emotions play a key role in guiding you to what you have been thinking. After reflecting on genuine answers, you can share them with other people directly. Whatever language you use in answering to those questions will encourage ownership, thus enhancing connection. Through this process, you could get a tool to monitor your awareness, expand your opinions and listen to others attentively to resolve problem.

Another efficient approach to work with other people effectively is to be aware of your natural talents. This is something to do with exploration of your strengths. Identifying your talents will naturally provide you with many strategies to build them into your strengths. Knowing what gifts and talents you possess will help you see your weaknesses and align your goals and job with your own talents.

2.4.5. In what ways do reflective leaders affect leadership practice positively and create reflective leaders to be?

Reflective thinking lets you both share your concerns and reveal the concealed issues for you and other people concerned. This process will create an opportunity for you and other people to reflect on your and their point of view, thus providing a sort of catharsis. Doing so will help you develop a wider viewpoint, a new appreciation for everybody and deeper understanding.

As reflective practice is seen as a transformative process, you and the other people around could proceed in a more interconnected way. So, you could define common objectives and goals together with guidelines to avoid possible conflicts in the future. In creating open channels of communication, this environment will bring informal and regular meetings to allow reflective practices supporting reflective leadership. These types of meetings are highly valued by reflective leaders as they see them as productive environments to provide collaborative work supporting the greater sense of collegiality.

Being open and letting testing of propositions and inquiring about one’s strength are another significant task for reflective leaders. It could be necessary for you to face problems like defensiveness of yours and that of other people and the inefficiency of your team for the sake of ensuring the impact of approach you use. So, a reflective learning community, in which reflection is an ideal way of support and learning, should be created by reflective leaders. In such a community, you provide a safe environment for self-expression, identify objectives, give feedback and stimulate self-observation. In defining the strengths of the individuals, you offer other people optional approaches to be successful in their work.

2.4.6. Which leadership processes enhance reflective leaders’ powers and achieve success in other people?

First of all, peer reflection, which helps question assumptions, is one of the main means for reflective leaders to carry out with other reflective leaders. Peers are of paramount importance in clarifying our values. This process helps us build our and peers’ strengths, compensate weaknesses and search for better problem-solving approaches [ 19 ].

To be able to achieve the task, effective leaders should form and maintain the teams in developing individuals. The aspirations can best be achieved if leaders can function in a collegial and collaborative ways by means of reflective practices, which initiate the process of perspective transformation. In other words, reflective leadership is considered to be transformative as long as it builds success in other people by reducing barriers while implementing leadership behaviours. Barriers, to a certain extent, are determined by means of reflection. They are regarded to be intrinsic to our human ego—strivings to achieve, to manage our situation and to compensate for our lack of confidence. The barriers can be reduced by deliberately reacting to what challenges us as a leader under different circumstances. Reflective leaders do that by having a deeper awareness of what sort of leader he/she wished to be, what sort human being is required and what sort of legacy is left by them. These choices direct leaders in how they take up daily leadership. That is to say that the way how leaders go about their day will determine ultimately whether they feel successful and rest with integrity and peace of mind or not.

The rapid rate of changes in our age seems to be one of the biggest demands for leaders. The other striking demand is the need for new frameworks for leadership skills. Leaders can cope with those challenges as long as they can bring each individual to the table to model the future with strong collective dialogues and cooperative actions. Among the other reflective leadership skills, they should be able to manage conflicts, model an adaptive capacity and be efficient in establishing and maintaining relationships. As they are expected to be the cocreators of change, they should accept that any individual or circumstance cannot move out their individual peace or competency. Viewed in this light, they should be able to communicate those feelings to other people in a way that will encourage and enable them to clasp the future and partake in its formation. Ultimately, they should be able to act as a model for other people in their exploration of the value and meaning of whatever they do. They can exhibit behaviours of personal growth and self-awareness if they have a commitment to the ongoing reflective practice.

To conclude, being a reflective leader is initiated through reflective practice. You can begin by being more fully present in every task in your daily life. This requires attending to verbal and nonverbal communication in your interaction with others, often inquiring and clearing up worries and being an attentive listener. You should further take your own experience into consideration together with the experience of other people and each assumption before making decisions. Only after these reflective practices can you establish a sense of mutual respect and sound relationships and see that other people are drawn to you and search for your compassionate consideration about any problem encountered. This transformative process followed will make advance on the way to becoming a reflective leader.

3. Reflective practice

Managers and leaders focus upon events through an intellectual exercise in order to determine in what ways individual assumptions and beliefs together with their experiences and background impact organizational functioning. This is what we call reflective practice that inculcates the intellectual discipline needed to discern ‘what is’ in practice episodes as well as to engage in the self-growth necessary if one is to manage and lead others.

The success of reflective practice depends on learning. For reflective leaders, doing immerses learning. Being aware of what we have been doing does not always create learning as it is a purposeful endeavour. Approached from this angle, realizing the required role of reflection in taking out learning from experience and being aware of the essential principles of a reflective practice will let leaders begin to act on the conception that knowledge is planted in their experience and understand the significance of that knowledge in fostering their practice.

Through learning from experience, reflective practice aims to create a structure, habit or routine. So, a reflective practice can differentiate with regard to how much, how often and why reflection is carried out. Carrying out a reflective practice requires not only clearing the aims it needs to serve but also creating opportunities to install reflection into our activity that are down to earth and yet come about at the right intervals and with adequate depth to be meaningful. However, it is structured; sustaining a reflective practice will transform the probability of learning from our practice into an actuality.

Sergiovanni [ 20 ] classifies three distinct knowledge of leadership conceptions regarding the relationship between theory and practice: (1) there is no relation, (2) theory is superordinate to practice, and (3) practice is superordinate to theory (p. 7). People who adopt the first conception believe that professional practice in leadership relies solely on intuitive feelings disconnected from theory and research. People who put special emphasis on theory feel that leadership is an ‘applied science’ which can be prescribed by theoretical concepts, strategies and depictions. Believers of the last conception see leadership as a ‘craft-like science’ consisting of reflective practice not prescribed but informed by theory.

Since the first conception claims no relation between theory and practice, implication of leadership as no science makes no sense to many, and thus it did not find enough grounds to permeate. Unlikely, the theory-oriented conception of leadership as an applied science pervades throughout the literature on leadership. Its clear-cut linear fashion simplifies every decision to be made into steps and processes predefined in literature. When one has to end organizational conflicts, then there are models of conflict management. When some important decisions have to be made, there are decision-making processes that explain every step in detail. This tool-based approach to leadership has long lived for its feasibility, but when it was realized that the real life is more complicated that it cannot be predetermined to a degree which enables theory to make tools for every situation in leadership, then reflective practice seemed a more realistic way of generating professional knowledge that is different from scientific knowledge. It is different because professionals create it by crafting their intuitions once they encounter situations not defined by scientific knowledge unlike ones in applied science conception. Thus, the craft-like science conception distinguishes professional knowledge from scientific knowledge; the former is created on demand, while the latter is predetermined as a contingency. Reflective practice is about professional knowledge creation by ‘deciding what to do. What purposes should be pursued? What strategies and practice should be used? What should be emphasized and when? In what ways should resources be deployed? How will we know we are on track, and so on’ [ 20 ].

Another distinction implicit in our understanding is that scientific knowledge is prescribed by theory, while professional knowledge is informed by theory. It is informed by interacting elements of reflective practice: practice episodes, theories of practice and antecedents (p. 15). Practice episodes consist of intentions, actions and realities. Leader’s priorities, preferences, strategies and decisions determine his or her intentions that impel actions in the form of leadership and management tactics and behaviours. After actions are performed, realities occur as results, outcomes and consequences. The realities further affect intentions and then actions in a loop which never ends ( Figure 1 ). This infinite loop of practice episodes affects and is affected by theories of practice and leadership antecedents. Theories of practice are mental scenes of a leader’s beliefs and assumptions about how things work in the real world. These are greatly affected by leadership antecedents especially by the theoretical knowledge antecedent. These mental images perform as mindscapes that govern leadership actions both consciously and unconsciously. ‘A reflective mindscape is a perspective in which purposeful activity…is always subject to disciplined examination and re-examination using whatever resources are helpful’ [ 21 ]. Theories of practice may arise from social interactions between leader and others or even from myths on how organizations work. ‘The bundles of beliefs and assumptions about how organizations work, the role of power, authority, management, and leadership, the organization’s purposes, the role of competition, and the nature of human nature’ may evolve into theories [ 20 ]. Workplace is where leaders can best learn about their theories of practice. Therefore, a detailed explanation of these implicit theories cannot be made.

reflective essay on leading change

Figure 1.

Elements of reflective practice [ 20 ].

At this point, we will focus on five key leadership antecedents, which play an essential key role in understanding the reflective practice. They are cultural milieu, theoretical knowledge, craft knowledge, self-knowledge and critical knowledge.

3.1. Cultural milieu

As reflective practice is expected to be contextualized in work, it should not be considered separately from the cultural milieu together with the setting and purposes of organization. The cultural milieu includes the elements of educational background, social background, religious background, economic background and historical background, which plays a key role in shaping in what ways a person sees and interprets the outer world. This means that reflective practices will differentiate from individual to individual and from organization to organization and that companies will form different reflective practices that emerge from and further inform their backgrounds mentioned above.

On the other hand, reflective practice can occur through a visioning process or a bigger process of culture change or organizational change. Tucker and Russell [ 22 ] concluded that transformational leaders can have a major influence on organizational culture and change. As culture is a medium by means of which leadership travels and affects performance of the organization, reflective leaders play a key role in transmitting the culture that they believe will most augment organizational functioning.

3.2. Theoretical knowledge

The second antecedent of leadership is the theoretical knowledge, which consists of technical, cognitive and rational knowledge. It means that theoretical knowledge is factual in nature, based in scientific rationality. Reflective approach to leadership is important to the integration of theoretical knowledge, skill development and individualized contexts. The learning organization was often based on a systems theory that handled practice as a result of theoretical knowledge [ 23 ]. Professional learning communities, the name given to leaders’ collaborative professional learning, have become so overused that the term’s meaning is often lost. Only when leaders reflect on their practice based on their theoretical knowledge, consider the impact leadership has on workers and implement insights gained from a meeting to improve their leadership performance can this process be called a professional learning community.

3.3. Craft knowledge

Craft knowledge is believed to be implicit in practitioner; it provides the ‘feel for’ what one does [ 24 ] and manifests itself in the refined ability to interpret what is and to discern what ought to be and what one should do to get there. According to Kluge [ 25 ], knowledge management shows unique leadership challenges. ‘From a leadership perspective, knowledge management has been viewed more like a craft and less like a science. Because of the very nature of knowledge, it is difficult for managers to predict what measures can really improve performance, and how to encourage and guide knowledge flows within an organization’ [ 25 ]. The leaders, according to them, should presume the function of advancing leadership and knowledge in the organization. They should set the tone for the organization and demonstrate that knowledge together with its administration are carefully taken into consideration.

Leaders, from this standpoint of view, should signal a shift in tone when they ask their team to reflect on their learning. Reflective leaders help them realize that they can now look back rather than move forwards. They will take a break from what they have been doing, step away from their work and ask themselves, ‘What have I (or we) learned from doing this activity?’ Some leaders could use music to signal the change in thinking.

In the reflective settings, leaders could invite the teams to learn from their experiences orally or in written form. They ask them to reflect on their learning, to evaluate their metacognitive strategies, to compare intended with actual outcomes, to analyze and draw causal relationships and to synthesize meanings and use their learning in different and future events. Members of the team realize that they will not ‘fail’ or make a ‘mistake’, because these terms are broadly described. Nonetheless, reflective teams realize that they can learn from all their experiences and develop personal insight.

3.4. Self-knowledge

Self-knowledge, even though it is often neglected, enables a vital lens through which leaders could better understand, realize and interpret organizational reality and their position in it. It mainly includes self-awareness, self-understanding and self-management. Without self-knowledge, it is hard for the leaders to understand their weakness and strengths together with their super powers. It lets the best business builders walk the tightrope of leadership: projecting conviction while at the same time staying humble enough to be open to different ideas and opposite thoughts since it is an essential element for organizational functioning. To improve self-knowledge, we highly recommend reflective leaders to (1) observe yourself to learn, (2) keep testing and knowing yourself better and (3) be conscious of other people as well.

While building a team, self-knowledge is also a crucial factor as being aware of one’s weaknesses together with strengths makes them a better recruiter and allocator of talent. In the meantime, you should also be an acute observer of others’ weaknesses and strengths. Reflective teams consist of people who both understand and complement each other. Whenever you notice people developing a common goal by pursuing different ways, there is an implied feedback loop based on peers and systemic learning in that observation itself. Should you have the right complement of people as well as a supportive learning organization, it lets you look at yourself and other people.

That is called the leash of self-awareness: know, improve and complement thyself. They are the common sense principles even though they are not generally practised. In other words, people do not often commit to stand in the face of truth. Rigorous commitment, intellectual honesty and active truth seeking are sine qua non to any process of self-awareness.

3.5. Critical knowledge

The final antecedent of reflective practice is critical knowledge, which includes assumptions, beliefs and values. In other words, critical knowledge (sometimes called ‘philosophical’ or ‘ethical’ knowledge) is a conscious awareness of that which is of transcendent or ultimate value and which perjures beyond the individual. Reflective practice creates an opportunity for development for people holding leadership positions. If you want to manage a team, you should have a clear balance between technical expertise and people skills because this type of role is hard to play. Reflective practice gives an opportunity to leaders to re-evaluate what has been achieved and what improvements could be made.

As discussed earlier, reflection is the conscious and intentional examination of one’s behaviour. Through this process, new understandings and appreciations may be acquired. Leaders should be an active reflector keeping their personal journals. When a difficult event takes place, they can often scribble in their journal to decanter their emotions and thoughts. Schön [ 4 ] described three processes to reflection—awareness of uncomfortable feelings or thoughts, followed by a critical analysis of experience, leading to the development of new perspectives. The phases are not necessarily linear and can involve both looking forwards and looking back.

Asking open and curious questions: let yourself practise asking genius-level questions, which only other people can answer, and about which you should not have any possible theory. For example, you could ask your colleagues about what they are genuinely excited in their work or what their biggest worries are.

Reflecting on the iceberg: doing so takes us back from repairing symptoms and being sensitive to what is going on around us. For example, you can think of a certain event and detail whatever you saw at the level of any event or action. You can then note the different patterns of behaviour seeming to contribute to that action. Detail on different organizational structures and cultural milieu, which created those behaviours.

Using visual art: this is basically a practice for shifting out of words. You could use newsprint or flipchart material with large coloured magic markers and start scrawling, drawing, scribbling or sketching whatever you think. Do not use any words till you feel that you are tired and leave the ‘artwork’ overnight. Look at it for a few minutes, give a name and date it the following day.

Journal writing: to give a chance to what our own inner wisdom says and listen. Doing so, you could learn from your own lives. This sort of practice helps create a greater awareness of your processes of thought. Give yourself some time every day to write in a free way with no prejudice. This process of writing might reflect the sense you possess about tomorrow or what now breaks for you about yesterday.

Role models: without any prejudice, you could observe a leader having a different approach different from that of ours. This practice will help you identify leaders whom you admire. To shadow those leaders, give yourself a day and observe them. Try to have a short interview with any of them asking how they think about leadership and handle the change.

Tackling creative endeavour: spend some time each day for some creative capacity such as writing poems, cooking, playing music, painting or sketching. These can rest our mind placing you in a flow state and enable significant perspectives to understand the world in different ways.

Reaching physical wisdom: to have a better reflection, you should devote to attempt in processes creating different understanding in your body. You may spend some time for some activities like playing golf, jogging, taking up skiing, woodworking or gardening courses.

Discovering people who draw the best out of you: identify who in your life draws your best energies and in whose presence you are the one who you would like to be. Also identify what you have in common. Spend more time with those people who give you best energies.

Through these processes, it will be much easier to learn from colleagues; write downshifts in your awareness and in your sense of purpose. Ask yourself whether you are aware of things you have not noticed earlier, by virtue of any of these processes or practices. The possible responses you will have will contribute to your effectiveness as a leader; increase the capacity to lead change. When people are asked about the most effective leaders, they will talk about the extraordinary capacity of leader to listen. Listening is an essential cognitive skill for a leader. One might conclude from this that reflective practice begins within yourself, and it is a significant transformational leadership skill, which will help you notice and change the profound processes of thought.

3.6. The models of reflective practice

To make reflective practice more concrete, there are some models offered to leaders. A useful model that explains reflective practice is the ALACT model of Korthagen [ 26 ]. The model has continuous phases of action, looking back on the action, awareness of essential aspects, creating alternative methods of action and trial ( Figure 2 ). A leader or manager does an action; judges how well he or she did the action; considers elements that attributed to success of the action or prevented the action to be successful, based on that judgement develops better ways of doing action; and finally tries the action in a better way. Note that the first and the last phases are the same. A sample implementation of this approach would be like this one [ 26 ]:

A: A mathematics lesson was given.

L: This lesson went fine. They were a bit noisier than usual, but I could control them all the same.

A: Ronnie was not present; that may have been a cause of the extra noise. In my opinion he is a kind of ‘leader’, and because he was always cooperative, the others cooperated too. Now that he wasn’t there, the others didn’t know how to behave. Yet they all worked well. Another cause may be that we started at 8:30, which is earlier than usual. The children hadn’t blown off steam yet, but I wanted to start quickly all the same, for I had only 1 h.

reflective essay on leading change

Figure 2.

The ALACT model of reflection [ 26 ].

C: The next time I will take more time.

Reflective questioning is another way of performing reflective practice. This model offers questions to be asked by reflective practitioners in three levels of reflective practice, which are descriptive, that is, theory-building, knowledge-building and action-oriented levels of reflection ( Table 1 ). The levels are a type of reflection in action. Reflective leaders first describe the situation they are in and then move to scrutinize the situation to construct knowledge to be used in the action-oriented level of reflection. In this final level, questions to improve the consequences of the action are asked by the reflective leaders.

Table 1.

Reflective questioning [ 27 ].

Gibbs’ model of reflective cycle takes feelings into account when reflecting on and learning from experience. It starts with a brief description of an event and then feelings about the event are expressed ( Figure 3 ). In the evaluation stage, value judgements are made for further analysis in the next stage to draw a personal understanding of the event. In the conclusion stage, insights into how behaviour affected the outcome of the event are developed. Finally, an action plan is developed to be used when encountered the same or similar event. The plan should constitute learned intuition of what a leader would do differently in the next time. This model is a type of reflection on action. A very good example reflection done by a leader using Gibbs’ model can be read at [ 29 ]. Instructions about how to implement each stage are further detailed in Table 2 .

reflective essay on leading change

Figure 3.

Reflective cycle [ 28 ].

Table 2.

Stages of reflective cycle [ 28 ].

Kolb’s reflective model presents another circular approach to reflective practice ( Figure 4 ). New knowledge is generated upon experience building on prior experiences and knowledge. The cycle starts with a concrete experience in which a person is actively involved. In the reflective observation stage, reviewing of what has been done and experienced takes place. The next stage is called abstract conceptualization that involves making sense of what happened by interpreting relations between events. The final stage of active experimentation is about testing implications of concepts, which are developed in the previous stage, in new situations.

reflective essay on leading change

Figure 4.

Kolb’s reflective model [ 30 ].

Experience needs to be seen as constructed, shaped and contained by social power relations.

Complex and unequal relations around knowledge are constructed between people as an integral part of the learning process.

There is a need to focus on the here-and-now experience and the mirroring process between the people within the education environment and the organizations they represent.

Finding ways of working with underlying and unconscious processes, particularly defence mechanisms, is necessary.

Second-order or metaprocesses relating to each aspect of the cycle are included.

4. Conclusions

Leadership is so complex that everything about it cannot be written in a handbook nor can be prescribed in the literature on leadership. So, how can new knowledge about leadership be generated when it is needed but not available at hand? Reflective leadership fills the gap between theory and practice by enabling leaders to construct their own theories of practice during, after and even before their actions. It teaches leaders how to catch fish instead of giving them fishes. It is a self-development tool and requires little mastery to use. We believe that this chapter is a good starting point for all leaders to acquire this mastery that paves the way for growing as reflective leaders who are self-efficient in creating and updating their own practice of leadership.

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Leading Change-Self Reflection: Free Sample Essay To Follow

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Introduction

As the head of the information technology department of the Emirates Airline, there is a need to introduce varying degrees of change within each section of the unit to inject efficiency in the entire operations. As such, the changes will focus on customer booking and seat reservations to improve customer care and uplift the overall image of the department. The change is of low urgency because it is a long-term endeavor that will gradually ensure quality services to the entire clientele. Further, it is proactive and has been informed by the deliberations within the Department, aiming to introduce sustainable long-term quality customer care measures. With the introduction of the change, the customers will receive better and quality services while the cargo handling services will greatly improve to ensure that the customers get value for their money. The change involves the introduction of efficient technologies at all areas related to customers care and cargo handling. The ticketing portals will be accessed directly by the customers, which will enable them to decide on the suitable payment option as a measure to save time. The system will enable the customers to make payments and indicate their locations in the respective countries so that they can access the company's shuttle services to the airport. The change is aimed at introducing a unique customer service that will create an extensive customer base and increase the levels of customer loyalty. The change will further ensure timely check-ins to minimize lateness which has been a source of inefficiency in the past causing a loss of business in the company. The change is about going the extra mile to ensure that the customers and the cargo arrive at the airports in time for the scheduled departures. The measure will involve developing an application for the mobile phone to ensure that customers consistently communicate with the customer services department in anticipation of travel. The anticipated change will involve a realignment of the customer care executives with the new technologies to improve the level of interactions with the customers. The access to the department's range of services will be readily available to the clients who will increase confidence with the operations of the department to enhance the image of the entire organization (Lussier & Achua, 2015). Despite the fact that the Emirates Airline has a reputation for efficiency, the change will improve the image in line with the need to confront the competition experienced in the air transport at the moment.

Barriers to change implementation

In the implementation of change, one of the greatest obstacles is convincing the team members in the department that change is necessary. The barrier is based on the fact that members will have fears that changes may be more demanding than the application of the technologies they are conversant with, currently. Therefore, the level of resistance will be quite high as the team members are unsure whether the anticipated changes could lead to retrenchment of the workforce. The teams may also be anxious about compensation in that they may not be sure whether reward system offered by the department will be commensurate with the additional responsibilities if at all they will be there (Vecchio, Justin & Pearce, 2008). The team members will be concerned that the new technologies will be difficult to learn, hence lowering their levels of productivity which could sour the relations with the managements. The team members might be concerned that they lack the capacity to handle the anticipated change in the department as they may consider themselves as lacking the necessary skills to deal with changes of the expected magnitude. Communication is a significant barrier in the implementation of a change process. Even when emails and memo are applied to communicate to the team members of the department, there is a likelihood of creating misunderstanding and misinterpretation (Cummings & Worley, 2014). The use of emails may not adequately convey all the details about the possible change. The communication may be manipulated by the team members due to their personal prejudices. The unwillingness to adopt new technologies could further be a major obstacle in the implementation of change. The team members might be anxious about the impending change concerned how they will cope with the changes when they are finally introduced in the department. The team members will have no idea how the likely change will affect the operations of the organization (Seibert, Wang & Courtright, 2011). The group members will have how the shifts in the IT department will affect the culture in the organization. The members will be concerned how the impending change will influence the administrative structure of the department. According to the workforce in the department, the shifts in the organizational fabric may occasion a shift in the work area obligations and the job responsibilities including the supervision procedures (Dennis, Wixom, & Tegarden, 2015). The team may feel that their feelings and intuitions will not be considered in the implementation of the change process.

Techniques/Strategies to Overcome the Barriers

The introduction of the change in the IT department will only succeed if the employees are involved from the beginning. The concept will ensure that the team members are involved in the change process to make them feel part of the change (Cameron & Green, 2015). The change will incorporate the opinions of the employees. The involvement of the workforce in the department will assure them that the change is for the common good of all in the department and the entire organization. The strategy will involve incorporating the skills of the existing workforce in the desired change in the department (Shields, et al.2015). The provision of the necessary resources to reassure them that they are well positioned for the change in the administration will be required. Such a measure will prepare the team members and make them comfortable with the impending change within the department. The idea is to involve the employees so that they understand the need for change in the department. The application of effective communication to all the team members will ensure that they are not only informed about the changes but the details related to change. The team members will be notified how the changes will affect them and also how they will be expected to adapt to the changes. Effective communication on all the details related to the change such as the compensation and reward mechanisms will also be communicated (Clarke, 2013). As such, there is a need to communicate how the changes will affect the work environment and the administrative structure of the IT department. The emails must be explicit to ensure that the messages forwarded to the team members so that the full information related to the change is captured. According to Doppelt (2012) effective leaders implement change in an organization effectively only when they adopt a sustainable approach that transforms the peoples thinking and behavior. For this reason, the team members will be informed about any planned retraining on the skills necessary for the introduction of the technologies in the department. Every aspect of the anticipated changes will be communicated to the team members so that they understand the long-term objectives related to the shifts in the IT department. Before the introduction of the change in the IT department, there will be a need to understand the existing blueprint of the company fully. The blueprint is necessary to enable the planning and to transition to the future state of the company (Van Dam, Oreg & Schyns, 2008). The rationale is to ensure that the change in the IT department addresses the long-term objectives of the organization. A contradict between the organizational blueprint and objectives of the change will adverse effect affect the implementation of the change process (Nahavandi, 2016). Therefore, the current state of IT department at the Emirates Airline will be interrogated to accommodate the desired change.

How Change Will Be Implemented

Creating a Climate for Change The change will be implemented using the Kotter's eight step model to ensure that the appropriate change achieves the required objectives in the IT department at the Emirates Airline. In that regard the urgency for the introduction of the transformative changes in the department. The concept will form and lay the background for the right climate for the change in the IT department. Cohen, (2013) proposed the need for a change to be supported by a rational business model that identifies the gaps that exists between the desired performances in an organization. As such, the proposed changes in the organization are aimed at improving the performance of the organization, which will enhance its performance and profitability. With the application of Kotter's model, there will be the formation of a powerful the coalition to effect the desired changes in the IT department. There will be a thorough consultation such that there is exhaustive information to address for every aspect of the desired changes in the IT department at the airline (Van der Voet, 2014). The members of the entire department will be involved to ensure that they are members of the larger team responsible for the introduction of the changes in the department. Such an approach will ensure that there is cooperation of the entire team during the implementation of the change process. Bridges will be created to ensure that the network is tangible enough to support the changes in the department. With the application of the model, there will be a need to create a vision for the change. It would be critical to communicate the aspect of the organizational vision that the changes will endeavor to achieve. Such communication is necessary to make the team members understand how the changes in the department will address the long-term vision of the Emirates Airline. Moser & Dilling (2007) argues that effective communication increases the support through behavior change and collective action of the involved parties. Further, effective communication enables persuasion and expression of issues concerning the proposed changes.

Engaging and Enabling the IT Department

It will be important to communicate the vision of the IT department to the entire stakeholders. Such a communicating will be necessary to solicit the support of all in the introduction of the change in the office. The communication will ensure that the team members, the entire organization, and external stakeholders understand what the changes desire to achieve in the long-term (Hmieleski, Cole, & Baron, 2012). In the communication, the stakeholders will be informed of the need to improve efficiency in the IT department to enhance the services to the clients. The changes will be related to the vision of the company for an easier understanding by all. It will be critical to empower the team members responsible for the change in the department. As such there will BE the mobilization of the necessary skills to ensure that the department is well prepared for the anticipated change (Ganz, 2010). There will be coordination with the human resources department to mobilize the available skills with the Activities to inform the request changes in the IT department. The necessary technologies will be availed to ensure that the team members familiarize themselves before the change process begins. Through the application of transformation leadership, the members of the team will be motivated to provide innovation and creativity in the implementation of the change process. It will be crucial to get the support of all by ensuring that the benefits of the project are clarified. The measure is significant to engage the stakeholders and prove that the changes in the IT department will be beneficial and will make positive contributions to the entire organization. The initial steps of the change are necessary to gather the momentum necessary for the desired outcomes in the IT department.

Implementing and Sustaining the Change

The building on the change will entail efficient monitoring process by leveraging on the positive aspects of the change. The successful change dynamics such as effective technologies will be encouraged as reassessment measures are employed to ensure ineffective procedures are halted. The skills that occasion positive changes will be employed while those that do not respond to the change objectives are discouraged (Short, et al.2007). The stage is necessary to evaluate the processes and measures that respond positively to the change process. After identifying the processes, procedures and the skills that work, it would be important to observe the aspects of the change implementation that yield most desired results in the change process. The stage of the implementing process will employ the systems and skills that appear to achieve the highest levels of success in the introduction of the change. The capitalization on the strong areas of the change process and other dynamics will be crucial to maintaining the momentum and bring about the necessary customer care and cargo handling procedures.

How to Communicate About the Change

It is critical to point out that effective communication is essential in the change process. The effective communication ensures that the entire group of the stakeholders for the department is involved in enhancing cooperation which is crucial to accelerating the change outcomes. To gather the necessary support from all the members, it will be significant to communicate the consequences that the changes will have on the department (Jones, Jimmieson, & Griffiths, 2005). In that regard, the communication on how the changes will influence the employees will be crucial. In the communication, it will be critical to anticipate negative reactions from the employees in the department as well as from the special implementing teams. Some of the reactions will be informed by the fear of change, while other negative reactions will be genuine (Anderson & Anderson, 2010). It will be important to ensure that the communication assures the employees that all their concerns will be addressed as the change measures are adopted. Effective communication will cater for all the reactions to accommodate the divergent views and take all on board to change to form the correct perspectives about the anticipated change. The communications will also involve documenting the positive outcomes of the change for the employees, the department, and the entire organization. The communications of the positive outcomes will ensure that the team members remain optimistic in the implementation of the change process. It will also ensure that the team members are cooperative in the change process and improve the levels of confidence in the management of the process. The documentation of a summary of the changes in the department will be necessary. The document in the form of a report will offer the reasons why the change is taking place, which areas will be impacted, and how and when the desired changes will be employed. The document will provide the background to address the negative and the positive consequences of the changes. The communications about training to position the employees in the department for the anticipated changes will be important. Details on the compensation for the changes will also be important. The motivation and the rewarding procedures will be explicitly spelled (Jones, Jimmieson, & Griffiths, 2005). The measures will be communicated through interactive sessions so that the employees have the opportunities to ask questions as a measure to ensure that all their questions are addressed. The move ensures that the changes receive the support of the entire implementing team. The communication will also ensure continuous communication of the progress reports so that the implementing team is updated on the changes in the It department. There will be constant communication as the changes continue as a way to manage the goals and expectations of the entire team.

As a conclusion, the changes in the IT department will involve putting the members of the implementing team first. Consequently, the employees of the department will be included in each level of the process. Such a move will ensure that the support of all is achieved which is crucial in the implementation of the change. Effective communication will be necessary so that everyone understands the details related to the change process. An inventory of the skills and the resources required to effect the desired changes is crucial and monitoring procedures will ensure that the team does not deviate from the goals of the process.

Anderson, D., & Anderson, L. A. (2010). Beyond change management: How to achieve breakthrough results through conscious change leadership. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Cohen, D. (2013). The Heart of Change Field Guide: Tools And Tactics for Leading Change in Your Organization. Boston Massachusets : Harvard Business Press. Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: a complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. New Jersey: Kogan Page Publishers. Clarke, S. (2013). Safety leadership: A meta‐analytic review of transformational and transactional leadership styles as antecedents of safety behaviors. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 86(1), 22-49. Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2014). Organization development and change. London: Cengage learning. Dennis, A., Wixom, B. H., & Tegarden, D. (2015). Systems analysis and design: An object-oriented approach with UML. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Doppelt, B. (2012). The Power of Sustainable Thinking: How to Create a Positive Future for the Climate, the Planet, Your Organization and Your Life. London: Earthscan. Ganz, M. (2010). Leading change: Leadership, organization, and social movements. Handbook of leadership theory and practice, 19. Shared authentic leadership and new venture. Boston Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Hmieleski, K. M., Cole, M. S., & Baron, R. A. (2012). Shared authentic leadership and new venture. Journal of Management, 1476-1499 Jones, R. A., Jimmieson, N. L., & Griffiths, A. (2005). The impact of organizational culture and reshaping capabilities on change implementation success: The mediating role of readiness for change. Journal of Management Studies, 42(2), 361-386. Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2015). Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development. Nelson Education.performance. Journal of Management, 38(5), 1476-1499. McCleskey, J. A. (2014). Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 117. Moser, S., & Dilling, L. (2007). Creating a Climate for Change: Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change. London : Cambridge University Press. Nahavandi, A. (2016). The Art and Science of Leadership -Global Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Education. Parris, D. L., & Peachey, J. W. (2013). A systematic literature review of servant leadership theory in organizational contexts. Journal of business ethics, 113(3), 377-393. Seibert, S. E., Wang, G., & Courtright, S. H. (2011). Antecedents and consequences of psychological and team empowerment in organizations: a meta-analytic review. Journal of Applied Psychology, (96)5, 981–1003. Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S. Dolle-Samuel, C., North-Samardzic, A., McLean, P. & Plimmer, G. (2015). Managing Employee Performance & Reward: Concepts, Practices, Strategies. London: Cambridge University Press. Short, J. C., Ketchen, D. J., Palmer, T. B., & Hult, G. T. M. (2007). Firm, strategic group, and industry influences on performance. Strategic Management Journal, 28(2), 147-167. Van Dam, K., Oreg, S., & Schyns, B. (2008). Daily work contexts and resistance to organizational change: The role of leader–member exchange, development climate, and change process characteristics. Applied psychology, 57(2), 313-334. Van der Voet, J. (2014). The effectiveness and specificity of change management in a public organization: Transformational leadership and a bureaucratic organizational structure. European Management Journal, 32(3), 373-382. Vecchio, R. P. Justin, J. E., & Pearce, C. L. (2008). The utility of transactional and transformational leadership for predicting performance and satisfaction within a path‐goal theory framework. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 81(1), 71-82.

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Living With Muscular Dystrophy at 50 Makes Death My Shadow Partner

reflective essay on leading change

I am an Aries through and through—bold, ambitious, fiery, and confident.  Today, March 27, marks my 50th year on this planet, something I could never have imagined. I was diagnosed with an undetermined type of muscular dystrophy as a young child, and doctors told my parents I wouldn’t live to become an adult. My immigrant parents cried when they heard the news. Even though this news was devastating, they never treated me like a fragile egg about to break. In fact, as the first born child of three girls, I had a lot of responsibilities and expectations which only reinforced my Aries tendencies.

While my parents always supported me, I knew at an early age that my life was different. And since they didn’t sugarcoat anything to me, I had a very clear sense that my time was limited. In my bedroom, with a scary clown ceiling light above me at night, my vivid imagination wondered how I would die–would it be a slow and painful death? Would it be fast from a medical emergency? Knowing my muscles are progressively weakening as I struggled to walk as a child and breathe as a teenager always kept death at the forefront of my mind. Believing I had no future shaped me in ways I am still processing today.

Birthdays have given me pause for reflection, especially this year. I recently looked at a picture taken from my 40th birthday party and could not recognize myself. I wasn’t wearing a BiPap mask because at the time I only had to use it intermittently to support my breathing. I did not wear a belt across my chest which I need now because my upper body has grown weaker. I recalled being exhausted after the party. When I got home, I immediately put my mask on and turned on the ventilator. It was a sweet relief. Shortly after I started to use it for longer periods of time until I began using it all day and night. I didn’t see it as a failure of my body but part of the inevitable downward slide toward my final destination.

Read more: ‘This Is Really Life or Death.’ For People With Disabilities, Coronavirus Is Making It Harder Than Ever to Receive Care

Two years ago, I experienced the most harrowing and traumatic series of medical crises that led to weeks in the ICU which left me without the ability to speak due to a tracheostomy, a tube in the throat connected to a ventilator, and the ability to swallow and eat or drink by mouth. This resulted in needing a feeding tube that goes into my stomach and intestine. During my hospitalization, I also lost sensation in my bladder so now I urinate through a catheter four to five times a day. Those weeks were like a fever dream–I couldn’t sleep for days because every time I closed my eyes I feared I would never wake up. I was in tremendous pain and could only communicate by mouthing words to my sisters or scrawling on a pad of paper. In the few moments when I could write, I outlined instructions to my sisters on what to do if I didn’t make it. Was this the way I would die? It was my closest brush with death in a series of many but I lived to tell another tale. But I was determined to claw my way forward to another day.

I am still adjusting to life again in a new body and way of life that requires a considerable number of resources, supplies, and machinery to stay alive and avoid institutionalization. The amount of maintenance and administrative work it takes to be disabled in America has also taken a toll—the additional out-of-pocket home care that I need now is $840 a day. With the donations from my GoFundMe dwindling, managing and directing a team of caregivers for my daily activities requires a lot of forethought and clear communication.  Being disabled in a nondisabled world is precarious, one of constant adaptation. I remade myself into a new cyborg form that still has a voice , a breath, and a will to live.

Right now, as my body is at its lowest point, I am at the height of my powers. I have never been more happy, free, and resolute on what I want to do. As I turn 50, I am filled with mixed emotions. I dread what lies ahead if I reach 60. Will this be my final decade of life? Maybe it’s ok that I can’t predict what will happen or what the future will hold since no one can. What I will do is spend my time, energy, and labor intentionally with the people I care about. I will host dinner parties, make chili crisp for my friends, and spoil my cats Bert and Ernie. I will treasure every breath pushed through my ventilator and be grateful to have a rare night’s sleep without pain. And most importantly, I will try to rest and care for myself.

Death remains my intimate shadow partner. It has been with me since birth, always hovering close by. I understand one day we will finally waltz together into the ether. I hope when that time comes, I die with the satisfaction of a life well-lived, unapologetic, joyful, and full of love.

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What is Palm Sunday and how is it celebrated worldwide?

FILE - Nuns wait for the start of the Palm Sunday's mass celebrate by pope Francis in St. Peter's Square at The Vatican Sunday, April 2, 2023. Palm Sunday will be celebrated by Christians worldwide Sunday, March 24, 2024. It commemorates the Christian belief in the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, when palm branches were strewn before him. It marks the start of Holy Week. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

FILE - Nuns wait for the start of the Palm Sunday’s mass celebrate by pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square at The Vatican Sunday, April 2, 2023. Palm Sunday will be celebrated by Christians worldwide Sunday, March 24, 2024. It commemorates the Christian belief in the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, when palm branches were strewn before him. It marks the start of Holy Week. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

FILE - Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, center, walks in a procession during the Palm Sunday Mass in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Sunday, April 2, 2023. TPalm Sunday will be celebrated by Christians worldwide Sunday, March 24, 2024. It commemorates the Christian belief in the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, when palm branches were strewn before him. It marks the start of Holy Week. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)

FILE - Christian faithful march carrying green Palm branches to commemorate Palm Sunday, which marks the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, in the streets of Nairobi, Kenya, Sunday, April 2, 2023. Palm Sunday will be celebrated by Christians worldwide Sunday, March 24, 2024. It commemorates the Christian belief in the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, when palm branches were strewn before him. It marks the start of Holy Week. (AP Photo, File)

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Palm Sunday commemorates the Christian belief in the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, when he was greeted by cheering crowds waving palm branches that they set out on the ground along his path, according to the Bible.

This year, Palm Sunday falls on March 24. Also known as Passion Sunday, it marks the start of Holy Week. The most sacred week of the Christian year includes the Good Friday re-enactment of Jesus’ crucifixion story and death, and their belief in his resurrection on Easter.

Here is a quick look at Palm Sunday’s significance.

IS THERE A DONKEY IN THIS STORY?

The procession of Jesus into Jerusalem is described by the four Gospel writers in the Bible.

The Gospels differ, but based on one expert they agree on this: Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey — or a colt. So, which one is it?

Colt is defined as “a young male horse that is usually not castrated.” But in the Bible, the word meaning “colt” is used almost exclusively for young donkeys, not horses, writes Joanne M. Pierce , professor emerita of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross.

Pierce writes that this brings to mind a reference from the Book of Zechariah in Jewish scriptures, where the prophet describes a victorious king who enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey.

Chaplain of The Covenant School Matthew Sullivan stands in the school's church sanctuary where he lead chapel service in the past, Friday, March 22, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. Facing the first anniversary of a tragic shooting which left six people dead, the school, which has been meeting in a temporary location, prepares to move back into the building where it happened. (AP Photo/John Amis)

In Judaism, she says, the passage from Zechariah refers to the Messiah , a spiritual king who would peacefully redeem Israel, and the donkey is interpreted as a sign of humility .

“In Christianity, this animal becomes almost a symbol of Christ himself, given how it patiently suffers and bears others’ burdens,” Pierce writes in a piece published by The Conversation . “Horses, on the other hand, tend to be associated with royalty, power and war.”

WHAT ABOUT THE PALMS?

In the biblical Palm Sunday story, a cheering crowd greeted Jesus along the road. Some spread their garments on the ground; others threw down leafy branches they had cut from the fields. In the Gospel of John, they are branches from palms, a tree that symbolized victory and triumph.

In the Gospel of Matthew, people began to shout: “Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” The word “Hosanna” was a plea for salvation and an exclamation of adoration.

After the procession, the Bible says Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.

HOW IS PALM SUNDAY CELEBRATED?

The ritual or liturgy typically starts with a blessing of the palms by clergy. It’s followed by a reading of the Passion of Christ, meaning an account of the final events of Jesus’ life.

Some ceremonies in German-speaking countries used to include a figure of Jesus riding a donkey, Encyclopedia Britannica says . The figure is called a “ Palmesel ,” or German for “palm donkey,” according to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which on its site recounts how worshippers would lay palms on the ground before the Palmesel during lively processions.

Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land mark Palm Sunday by holding Masses and processions retracing Jesus’ triumphal entry. Worshippers carry palm fronds and olive branches and march from the top of the neighboring Mount of Olives to Jerusalem’s historic Old City, home to holy sites of the three Abrahamic monotheistic faiths.

In churches around the world, the palms are often taken home by congregants, and some will become ashes.

HOW DO THE PALMS TURN INTO ASHES?

Ashes can be purchased, but some churches make their own by burning the palms from prior years.

They’re used to make the ashes for Ash Wednesday , the solemn day of fasting and reflection that signals the start of Christianity’s most penitent season.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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