The Place of Self-Reflection

All self-descriptions suggested the importance placed by interviewees on reflection. This was demonstrated in various ways, including identification of their strengths and

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weaknesses, and the place of reflection in leadership. Table 5.2 (below) gives examples from each interviewee of their self-description, and key elements mentioned by them.

Table 5.2: self-descriptions

Name Key elements Example

Deborah

Action-led, analytical, decisive

“I’m not an extrovert, but if I feel very strongly about something, I will do it and say it, yeah”.

Lesley Self-confident, challenging, enjoys being challenged by others

“I never had a problem with self-esteem, put it like that, because of the way I was brought up. I was brought up to think, ‘You can do as well as anybody else what you want to do, but you’re no better than anybody else’… I was always being sent to Sister’s office [as a student] for challenging or suggesting different ways of doing things”.

Natalie Highly self-reliant, sometimes closed

“I came out with 100%... in one area [of psychometric profiling]… And I thought, ‘Well, yeah, that’s fair enough’, and they thought it was a real negative. Now, it was actually 100% for self-reliant”.

Pauline

Open, honest, transparent, empathic

“You know, what you see is what you get. This is me, you know. I can be direct, I’m never rude, but I am direct, because I’m a northerner, black is black, white is white, you know”. Louise Shy, lacking confidence, relishes challenges

On presenting at a conference: “Absolutely didn’t want to do it, because I’m not that – really not that sort of

personality. As a student, having to do those, sort of, presentations in front of your own peers was the worst thing ever. Ever, ever, ever (laughing)!”

Heather

Fears failure, needs to be liked, challenging, highly reflective

“I have a real fear of failure, and it governs, I think, everything that I do. I don’t like to fail at anything, and if I feel I’m not being effective, or I’ve made a decision that hasn’t been a good one, I – yeah, I struggle with that, internally”.

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and responsibility it was in me that I needed something else”.

Karen

Reflective,

thoughtful, values integrity and consistency

“I’m the sort, I need time to think about things, and whenever we’re in a group meeting or something like that, there will be people that are firing opinions about this, this and this, and I’ll be mulling and mulling and mulling”. Susan Needs challenges and stimulation, resilient, politically savvy, dislikes conflict

“I don’t think I was particularly challenging, I – not from a personal point of view, because I’m always been

someone – I don’t like conflict, I like to resolve conflict. So I, you know, I would never say that I had a degree, I would never, you know, sort of, anything like that, but I would do it quietly”.

From the descriptions in table 5.2, there is no single character ‘type’ emerging from the interviewees’ self-characterisation. Rather, they described how they have utilised their various strengths and weaknesses – or indeed, fought against them – in their career journeys and in the enactment of a leadership role. Louise, for example, identified herself as lacking in self-confidence, and highly reflective. But knowing this about herself, she has been able to make career decisions:

“One thing I have realised is I like setting myself challenges, as much as I think,

‘Why am I doing this?’ But I do. I keep going and – going with the challenges, and I

suppose I don’t sort of give up on them completely. I’d probably just think a bit

more about it”.

Interviewees identified self-reflection as a key element of leadership. Deborah described times when she had to change plans:

“It’s about finding that right path, and it’s about also acknowledging when you set

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it isn’t going to deliver or get you where you want to be, it’s about being honest and

saying, ‘Whoa, I don’t think we’re quite getting it right, here, let’s stop, have a re-

think, and take an alternative route”.

Karen, meanwhile, considered ways in which her reflective nature had impacted on her leadership style. She described how she has come to terms with her own character, relating this to her behaviour in group meetings:

“I’m the sort, I need time to think about things… And then, at the end of the

meeting I’ll say, ‘You know what?’ Or the following day, it’ll be, ‘You know

yesterday, when we were talking about so and so?’ And out it’ll come. And I

always used to think, ‘Well, I want to be one of them, that can, you know’ – but I’ve

realised that I don’t really want to be one of them, I’m quite happy sort of thinking

about what I do and… Yeah, and that there is a place for people like that, within

that. There still needs to be somebody that can sit back and think”.