Leadership self-reflection cards
Twenty-four cards of questions to reflect on before, during and after a team activity, one card at a time.What is in the deck
Learning during an activity is mostly a matter of stopping to ask yourself the right question at the right moment. Each of these 24 cards pairs a quotation with three questions to reflect on. Take them in order, or shuffle the deck and see what comes up.
The deck divides into three stages of eight.
Before
Before the activity starts: what you are walking into, and what you want out of it.
- My challenge, my team, my accountability, and my preparation
- My objective, my expectations, my investment, and my strategy and plan
During
While the activity is running: a pause to check how it is actually going.
- My attitude, my attention, my outcomes, and my learning
- My collaboration, my execution, my hindsight, and my value
After
Afterwards: turning what happened into something you will do differently at work.
- My insights, my application, my change, and my performance
- My teamwork, my execution, my style, and my relationships
Why one card at a time
Most self-reflection in a learning session happens at a few fixed points, usually at the end of a round or at the close of the day. That is better than nothing, but it asks people to reconstruct what they were thinking rather than notice it as it happens.
Presenting one card at a time is deliberate. A single question, answered in the moment, produces a more honest answer than a list of 10 handed out at the end, and it lets participants go beyond the set reflection periods whenever something is worth examining.
Using the cards in a session
Hand out a 'before' card while people are settling, pause the activity partway through for a 'during' card, and close with an 'after' card. Individuals can also work through the deck on their own, which is a good use of the time immediately after a difficult meeting.
The deck is read only, nothing is recorded, and nothing is sent anywhere, so participants can be candid with themselves. Self-reflection is one of the most valuable parts of any group learning session, and it is usually the first thing cut when time runs short.