To prepare leaders in the context of change requires more than learning new content and skills. Leadership development is a matter of integrating new skills and content with opportunities for self reflection and personal change. This kind of leadership development is accomplished by examining a variety of data sources about leadership practice. One such data source is your leadership story.
Narratives
Narratives are written accounts of your leadership experience that serve as tools for reflection. Your leadership stories can help you to surface the subtleties of leadership practice that may otherwise go unexamined. Such context-specific subtleties include
- actions & re-actions
- emotions
- theories
- assumptions, values, and beliefs
- organizational culture including rituals
Reflecting on your experiences is a valuable process of leadership development.
Narratives as Professional Development
Stories are effective learning tools because they can help you slow down enough to examine your assumptions, decisions, and actions that are sometimes difficult to capture on the spot. When you write (or tell) your leadership stories you are forced to reflect and consider alternative actions. Narratives reshape existing knowledge rather than simply transmit new knowledge. You already know a lot about leadership theories and skills, but sometimes organizational or personal constraints get in the way of acting on what you know.
Why is that? How does that happen? In what situations? How can I change that?
Answering these and other questions can support your leadership development.
Writing Your Leadership Narratives
To write a leadership story simply recall a specific time (or a pattern of experience) that sticks out in your mind as significant to you. Write what happened as if you were telling a story to a critical friend or to your leadership coach. Some basic guidelines for writing your narrative follow:
- Content: Write about a leadership incident worthy of reflective examination.
- Focus: Your experiences are the focus of the narratives not your theories or philosophies. Be sure to write about you.
- Language: Write in conversational, personal, familiar language avoiding jargon or scholarly writing.
- Length: 1-2 pages.
- Audience: Write for you. But if you'd like, you can make your leadership practice public by sharing your story with your leadership coach or another critical friend.
Reflecting on Your Leadership Narrative
To get the most out of your narrative it is best to take some time to consider what it all means. Below are some questions to consider when reflecting on your narrative:
· What is my story about? What big message can I take away from the story? What is the central problem/issue?
· What are my assumptions? How do my assumptions show up through my actions?
· In what ways do I/don’t I demonstrate my knowledge and skills?
· What are the facts of the story? What are the interpretations?
· Who am I in this situation?
· How would others see this situation? What is the perspective of others?
· What one change would make the biggest positive difference in this situation?
· What characteristics, abilities, resources, and support do I need to enhance my leadership performance in this situation?
· What is my next step?
Narratives are valuable sources of data on your leadership practice and can be powerful tools for reflection. Writing your leadership narrative can be awkward at first, but give it a try. Write about your leadership practice.
