Reflection Is a Leadership Skill

Reflection Is a Leadership Skill

If you never look back, you’ll never lead forward.

Long car rides are probably where I first became a listener.

There were a lot of hours in the car with Papa.

Miles of road. Long stretches of nothing. Singing that wandered in and (very) out of tune. Conversations that drifted from serious to silly and back again. Silence that wasn’t awkward—just real.

At the time, it felt ordinary. Familiar. Rarely boring, because “bored” is not really a part of my recipe.

But reflection has a way of turning ordinary moments into teachers.

Only much later did I realize what was actually happening in those hours beside him.

I was learning counseling by proximity.

Papa talked—a lot. He processed out loud. He told stories. He asked questions and then waited for the answers. He often rushed conclusions, but he let people be complicated anyway. He shared enough to be very real, but not so much that it betrayed trust.

And I listened.

Not because I knew I was practicing a leadership skill—but because listening was the posture of the passenger seat. You couldn’t steer. You couldn’t fix. You could only pay attention.

What I absorbed in those miles wasn’t technique. It was instinct.

Discernment.

Nuance.

Confidentiality.

The weight of holding someone else’s story without rushing to solve it.

Leadership didn’t have a name yet. Counseling didn’t have language. Culture wasn’t a framework (but it existed).

But the foundation was being laid anyway.

Reflection is what turned memory into skill.

Without reflection, those long drives would remain sentimental stories—sweet, but static. With reflection, they became a blueprint. I can trace my leadership reflexes backward and see where they were formed: why I pause before reacting, why I listen longer than most, why I resist neat answers when people are messy.

Reflection doesn’t change the past. It reveals it.

And that’s important for leaders—because most of what shapes us happens before we’re paying attention.

We often think leadership skills are learned in classrooms, conferences, or crises. Sometimes they are. But often, they’re learned quietly, through proximity, repetition, and observation. Through watching someone handle people well—or poorly. Through being present in moments that didn’t feel formative until we look back.

If you never look back, you’ll never lead forward.

You’ll repeat patterns you don’t even comprehend. You’ll dismiss strengths you didn’t know you had. You’ll miss the quiet training that shaped your instincts.

Reflection is the act of naming what was already there.

It’s how you discover that your patience came from waiting.

That your calm came from safety.

That your leadership voice was formed long before you were ever given authority.

This is why reflection isn’t indulgent. It’s strategic.

It allows leaders to lead with self-awareness instead of self-assumption. It turns lived experience into intentional practice. It helps you recognize which instincts to trust—and which to examine more closely.

Those long car rides didn’t feel like leadership development.

But reflection helps me realize exactly what they were.

And once reflection helps you name something, those “something’s” become something you can steward—leaders don’t just stumble into lessons by accident.

If this stirred something familiar for you, pause with it. The story you’ve been overlooking might already be shaping the leader you’re becoming.

🎧 Listen to the podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/42uMKB4LCJA4YssU6c3dQF?si=AhmLyUwXS5Ovd2c1OvPuDA