![Leadership skills] Chances are, the world leaders you most admire keep or used to keep a daily journal.[/caption] One Harvard Business School study found that setting aside just 15 minutes at the end of the workday to reflect and write in your journal can help you improve your performance measurably. Compared to employees who did not spend the last 15 minutes of their workday writing and reflecting in a personal journal, employees who did performed better by 22.5% on a test about a particular customer account. Action and Reflection Complement Each Other Action and reflection can have a positive symbiotic relationship. Reflecting each day on what has worked and what hasn’t can help you correct course before you go too far off track. Being an effective leader is in many ways like being accomplished in a sport. And the best athletes in the world regularly review their games, their stats, their backhand, or their form so they’ll be armed with a little more knowledge next time they practice or play. When you regularly reflect on your performance and take the time to record your thoughts, you prime yourself for better action the next day. It’s a positive cycle. Keeping a Journal Can Help You Manage Stress Many psychologists and executive coaches recommend keeping a journal because it can be a highly effective method for managing stress. Writing down what happened with honesty and candor helps you gain the proper perspective – if not now, then a few days or weeks hence. It also helps you build your self-awareness: where you excel, where you have difficulty, what energizes you, what drains you, and what derails your performance. Self-awareness and acceptance of both strengths and weaknesses help you develop emotional intelligence, which is widely considered to be a key factor in successful leadership. Ask Yourself Explorative Questions [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fofsa244f%2Fproduction%2Ffdcafd36b104858c0d626b207b2339fbf34001ac-1024x768.png%3Frect%3D0%2C64%2C1024%2C640%26w%3D480%26h%3D300&w=3840&q=75)
Self-Awareness & Character
John Mattone
How Keeping a Journal Can Boost Your Leadership Skills
John MattoneCategory
Self-Awareness & Character
Self-awareness, character, values, emotional intelligence, and the inner qualities that define great leaders.
43 articles
![Business Reputation] Reputations that take years to build can disintegrate in an instant.[/caption] In the world of athletics, Lance Armstrong had a stunning fall from grace after having been found to be using performance-enhancing substances. In 2012, a long and distinguished career fell apart practically overnight. These are just three instances where extreme leadership immaturity led to disgrace, but there are countless other examples that may not make national headlines. Success and respect today doesn't guarantee success and respect tomorrow. The immature leader is the leader who is more concerned with personal gain than with the well-being of the organization he leads. The values, beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and actions of the immature leader ultimately become roadblocks to the greatness they and their teams expect. In fact, you can sum up the difference between an immature leader and a great, mature leader with a single word: character. Sadly, over the past century, cultural values have shifted away from character-driven leadership and toward personality-driven leadership. Author Susan Cain describes this "culture of personality" phenomenon in her 2012 book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Won't Stop Talking. Go back before the turn of the 20th century and you'll find that strong moral character, thoughtfulness, fortitude, and hard work were highly prized. The advice manuals of the era emphasized character traits like citizenship, duty, honor, integrity, manners, and morals. By contrast, advice manuals in the 21st-century value charisma, media attention, and the ability to draw a crowd. This shift in values is apparent in today's corporate world. Rather than rewarding character, too many companies embrace a leadership culture based on personality and charisma, with less emphasis on honesty and integrity. But whatever the era, the great leaders are the ones who understand that honesty and truth are the strongest pillars upon which success, positivity, relationships, and teamwork are built. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fofsa244f%2Fproduction%2F9c304c25295a229e4a034ca985ea9154aa63b332-545x415.png%3Frect%3D0%2C38%2C545%2C341%26w%3D480%26h%3D300&w=3840&q=75)
![CEO Success] I'm glad we have CEOs like Eric Schmidt who are willing to talk about why coaching is an outstanding investment for the best and the brightest. If we are going to move this needle in a positive direction, more CEOs need to acknowledge their work with a coach and the benefits they experienced. Most, however, still require coaches to sign non-disclosure agreements to ensure their work together is kept strictly confidential to the outside world. As a CEO coach, I respect this decision, and I understand where it comes from. Yet, I strongly believe that the best of the best CEOs (like Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Genpact's Tiger Tyagarajan, Xerox's former CEO Ann Mulcahy, and FedEx Freight's former CEO Bill Logue) would cite their willingness to be vulnerable and engage in coaching as one of the singular decisions that allowed them to break through and achieve leadership greatness. The vulnerability decision is one that some leaders make early in their careers, while others only realize the value of vulnerability later. Some leaders never make the vulnerability decision. And this leads to my second powerful reason why CEOs need a coach. An effective executive coach will help the CEO realize the value in vulnerability and guide them effectively to make this decision, and to make it so that everyone benefits. That decision to be vulnerable is without question the toughest, yet most liberating decision an executive will ever make, whenever it happens in the career trajectory. It's about admitting that while you are good, you're not as good as you could be. Internalizing and coming to grips with this powerful realization, and then having the courage to share this with peers, employees, and board members is a breakthrough experience precisely because it frees you up to focus on two critical levers for improvement: strengthening your gifts and talents and addressing your leadership deficits. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fofsa244f%2Fproduction%2F7238cb27965b71ad94f22b0e6e71dfda57d4c743-1545x2000.png%3Frect%3D0%2C517%2C1545%2C966%26w%3D480%26h%3D300&w=3840&q=75)
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