Reflection for leadership growth

When we talk about leadership for human workplaces, I often describe three lenses leaders need to hold at the same time.

• Human dignity and care

• Human systems

• Leadership growth

All three matter. And they are inseparable.

Today, I want to linger on leadership growth; the kind that shapes how we show up, particularly when things feel pressured or uncertain.

Leadership growth is what enables us to keep leading organisations and humans well over time. Without it, the changing contexts we are asked to lead become more complex than our inner world enables us to make sense of. 

One of the simplest, and hardest, practices of leadership growth is reflection.

I say that as someone who teaches this work, and who is also hit and miss at inviting in reflection to my work days.

Today, though, something shifted. I knew the pressure was building inside me and I had been trying to avoid it. Over the past couple of weeks, I had noticed myself becoming more inward. More focused on how things were landing for me than on the wider systems I am part of, my family, my workplace, the people I care about.

Today, I managed to get out at lunchtime, sit in the shade of one of my favourite trees (the tree pictured here, although at a different time with one of my human work buddies, Jim Wicks), and open my journal. And as tends to happen when I slow down enough to listen, I found clarity and some relief.

What surfaced first though was discomfort. Instead of reaching for my journal, I had been reaching for my avoidance tool of preference; staying relentlessly productive. Anything to avoid sitting with what feels uncomfortable.

The irony was not lost on me.

I am deeply committed to human workplaces. Places where people experience dignity. Where systems work for human lives. Where growth is possible. And yet here I was, noticing how hard it can be to bring my best self to the way I am with others, even when I know what matters.

Through my journaling, I saw, at the heart of my recent self orientation was fear.

Fear shows up for me in small ways that add up - feeling scarcity of belonging, of work, of connection with people I care about. Worrying about why I was not included in a conversation, an opportunity. And then starting to question myself.

When fear is driving, my world shrinks. My attention narrows. Love and care for others become harder to access.And yet, human work requires dignity and care for each other and systems that enable that - so it’s easy to see how the three lenses of human work are inter-related….

When I am able to think beyond myself, to the systems I am part of, I notice something different. I act with more generosity. I remember what I am here for. It feels expansive.

That distinction matters for leaders. Leadership is not only about strategy and decisions. It is also about the inner conditions we bring into the systems we lead. Our fears do not stay private. They shape tone, inclusion, trust, and the quality of human systems, whether we acknowledge them or not.

And AI sits in the background of all of this. As more cognitive work is automated, the human work of leadership becomes more visible. AI does not remove the human from leadership; judgement, care, and responsibility become more important. 

Reflection helped me turn a vague sense that something was not right into clarity about what had been happening inside me.

And clarity creates choice.

I could meet that fearful part of myself with compassion. I could see how alertness to

Leanne and Jim Wicks of Cultivating Leadership

not enough had once been helpful - it had kept me hungry for opportunities that helped me get where I am today. I did not need to get rid of it or judge it.

But I also did not need to let it drive.

So I used a simple image. I invited that fearful part into the car, but into the back seat, not the driver’s seat.

And I invited forward another part of me. The part that acts from love. The part that remembers my commitment, to help create workplaces where people experience dignity, where systems support human lives, and where leaders, including me, are allowed to keep growing.

In organisations right now, leaders are under real pressure. Change, AI, uncertainty, workload, visibility. In that context, reflection can feel indulgent or inefficient.

But it is the opposite.

Without leadership growth, we ask human systems to carry what we will not look at ourselves. And no system can stay healthy for long under that weight.

Today, reflection returned me to love and my commitment.

That is why leadership growth matters. Not just for leaders, but for the humans and systems they shape every day.