Early in my leadership journey, I was told by a mentor that leadership is a continuous dialogue between action and reflection. That phrase has stuck with me throughout my career. The pace of leading can often by so driven by goal attainment and focusing on the next goal or project. We are driven to accomplish the next goal or complete the next set of tasks. We never slow down enough to reflect…reflect on our processes, decisions, or leadership behaviors. 

This year, my superintendent, Dr. Amy Anderson introduced me to a new process called after action review. When there is a major event, we spend time as a team reflecting on the event and evaluating our response and leadership actions. This usually results in us making a significant process change. Powerful stuff! 

I wanted to support campus leader in being more reflective, so I spent some time researching specific questions that can guide quality leadership reflection. The cards below include some of those questions.