5 Powerful Self-Reflection Questions for Veterinary Leaders
Self-reflection is important to help you grow and change, increase your self-awareness, and continually improve your leadership mindset and abilities. Here are 5 questions I recommend veterinary leaders ask themselves on a regular basis:
1. What does leadership want from me?
Sometimes I will ask a client, “What do you want from your leadership experience?”, but sometimes the “What do I want?” question feels too big, and we can be limited by our own thinking and beliefs with this question. Asking “What does leadership want from me?” instead pulls you forward into much richer territory, beyond what you already know, beyond your model of the world, into unlimited possibilities and opportunities. Once you have a sense of the answer to this question, you can then make what your leadership wants from you a place to come from and it becomes a way of showing up to your leadership that will help you continue to grow and evolve.
2. How is my team a reflection of me?
See: Your Team is a Reflection of You (simplyveterinarycoaching.com)
There are three levels at which this question is important:
- Your team reflects who you are being as a leader. Looking at your team, how cohesive they are, and what level of results they are producing, provides really interesting insights into what you need to work on as a leader.
- Your team is also a reflection of your thoughts, beliefs, and values. Your thoughts, beliefs, and values create a lens through which you see your team, how you interpret the actions and behaviours of your team, and what you believe about your team.
- Similarly, your habits and behaviours will be reflected in your team. For example, if you are not great at time keeping, become overwhelmed easily, or don’t prioritise self-care, you’re modelling this behaviour for your team and it’s highly likely you’ll inspire similar habits within them.
3. What’s in the way right now? And how is this obstacle actually the path?
Inspired by the quote from Marcus Aurelius, “What stands in the way becomes the way”, this question helps you identify what obstacles (either external or internal) might be limiting your leadership, and how moving through them will make you stronger, wiser, and ultimately take your leadership to the next level.
“What you resist, will persist”, in other words there’s no way around the metaphorical boulder in the road; the only way is through, and by being courageous, flexible, and resilient, you can breakthrough the boulder and continue the path ahead. This question shifts your mindset from one of “I have a problem” to “This is an opportunity”.
4. Am I creating leaders, or followers?
See: Leadership is not about you, yet it’s all about you. (simplyveterinarycoaching.com)
Modern leadership is about creating the leaders of the future, not more followers. Followers can rely far too much on their leader for the smallest of decisions leading veterinary leaders to become overwhelmed, being more reactive than proactive, and firefighting instead of being strategic and intentional. Treating your employees as leaders boosts their initiative, creative thinking, decision making, and confidence, meaning you get to free up mental and emotional currency and spend it elsewhere on higher priority leadership responsibilities, and yourself.
5. If how I do anything is how I do everything, what new positive habits do I need to create in my life to better serve my team?
How you do anything is how you do everything is a reminder that all our behaviour is belief driven, and our beliefs and attitudes impact every action we take in life.
In leadership this is important on many levels, especially when it comes to recruitment and retention. For example, what you do or don’t do throughout an interview process is giving the vet or nurse a deep insight into what their employment experience would be like under your leadership. Did you say you would get back to an applicant within 2 days, but actually left it a week? If that person came to work for you, they may question how responsive you will be as a leader.
You are your leadership, and your leadership is you. In other words, your habits follow you wherever you go. So, are there habits, behaviours or thought patterns you indulge in outside of work that you wish you didn’t? How does that show up in your leadership? And how does this impact your team and their employment experience?
Asking yourself these questions on a regular basis will allow you to get a glimpse of your blind spots. We all have them, and we have a responsibility as leaders to keep looking for them. Blind spots are simply sign posts for further growth, and once revealed they allow you to adjust your thinking and behaviours to create new positive habits that better serve you, and your team.
