Sep

28

How leaders make the most of their experiences

Filed Under Leadership Practices 

 

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Photo by makani5

 

“Leaders like everyone else, are the sum of all their experiences, but, unlike others, they amount to more than the sum, because they make more of their experiences.” – Warren Bennis, Why Leaders Can’t Lead

Leaders are continual learners and effective leaders ensure they make the most of their life experiences. It’s important then you understand how to extract the maximum value from what you learn from your experiences as you journey through life. Here are some of what I have learnt about the importance of learning from what life throws at you…

 

1. Accomplished leaders learn best from experiences: The Leading Blog has a post, “What Is Your Plan For Personal Growth?"’ discussing the importance of having a plan to grow, as discussed in the book “Crucibles of Leadership” by Robert Thomas. Thomas writes that crucibles “are like trials or tests that corner individuals and force them to answer questions about who they are and what is really important to them.” The best learning comes from these types of personal experiences that have been reflected upon and understood.

“Accomplished leaders say that experience is their best teacher. They learned their most meaningful and important leadership lessons — lessons that they’ve integrated into their own leadership style—through crucibles. These were critical events and experiences, times of testing and trial, failure more often than grand success, that grabbed them by the lapels and demanded to know ‘What do you stand for?’ and ‘What are you going to do?’ A situation arose that did not respect age, gender, generation, nationality, talent, or charisma; all it asked was that the person step up and be someone or do something they’d never been or done before.”

2. Learning from Experience is not an automatic process: Learning from experience is important for effective leadership. However, learning from experience, does not just happen. It’s surprising how few people take the time to reflect on and learn from their experiences. Learning is not an automatic process and people do not automatically learn from their experiences.

Unless we take the time to engage in reflection, we will end up repeating our mistakes, unable to extract learning from our experiences.

Whenever we take a break and review, analyze and evaluate our experience of new information, with the goal of increasing our understanding, we are busy reflecting. It’s through this process of reflection, that our life experiences are transformed into learning and deeper self-understanding.

3. We learn from life’s experiences through the process of reflection: Reflection is triggered by events in our life’s and especially crucibles. Reflection is the process of mulling personal experiences over and over in our mind. During this process we’re asking ourselves a number of probing questions, examining our experience from different perspectives and making connections with previous experiences.

As we reflect on the events and circumstances in our lives, we seek to understand our behaviours, looking for what caused us to react and behave the way we did. The goal of this introspection is to gain a deeper self-awareness and understanding. We learn best from life’s experience when we have a chance to think about our behaviours and it’s underlying causes. Through the process of reflection, we become an observer of own own thinking and actions.

"We should be careful to get out of an experience all the wisdom that is in it - not like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore." - Mark Twain

The process of reflection is initiated by thinking and questioning our feelings, behaviours and actions. This allows us to gain an understanding of why we’re getting the results we are and what we need to do differently, to improve and create better results.

It’s a common belief that we we all learn from experience, this is partially true, learning from experience is not an automatic process. We don’t learn just because we have an experience. We learn best from evaluated experience. Learning occurs through the deliberate process of reflection. After all you’ll always be more convinced by what you have personally discovered than by what others have found.

4. Schedule time for reflection: We learn when we take the time required to reflect on our experiences. We make on of the biggest mistakes if we think that learning from life’s experience is going to happen automatically. You don’t own your experience until you understand them.

5. Slow down: We deceive ourselves if we think that by doing things faster that we will be more productive. Slow down and take time to think and reflect on your experiences.

6. Take responsibility: By taking responsibility for what’s happening in our lives we move from being the victim to the owner and author of our lives. We must take responsibility for the results we are getting in our lives. Blame nobody. As soon as we blame we become the victim and justify our actions. Start by asking yourself, “What choices or decisions could I have made differently?”, “How have I interpreted these events?” and “Has my interpretation on these events contributed to this situation?”

“Experience is not what happens to you but it is what you make of what happens to you.” - Aldous Huxley

Reflect on the following:

  • Are you slowing down enough to think about your daily experiences?
  • Have you set aside time to think and reflect on your experiences?
  • Do you make it a habit to learn from your experiences?
  • What surprised, angered or made you happy this week? Why?

 

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Comments

One Response to “How leaders make the most of their experiences”

  1. Andre Koen on October 9th, 2008 23:14

    Your contribution in the field of Leadership practices is awesome.

    Leadership is slow, but steady process, which requires many qualities like, courage and good communication skills.

    Leadership is to protect the interest of people you’re leading.

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