To Be an Effective Leader Keep a Leadership Journal

Do you want to be a formidable leader? Then keep a leadership journal.

A part of Marc Bombenon coaching work and most efficacious tools that power up the coaching process is - Leadership Journal. The exercise of leadership is identical to the sports game, you love to play - when you analyze your moves in the playing field you learn - what worked, what didn’t, and fine-tune along the way. Similarly, journaling can improve our stress levels, our health, and feelings of well-being.

Benefits

Enlarge your self-awareness - one of the fundamental quality of leadership journal. It drives your emotional intelligence by giving awareness of your strengths, your energizers, what challenges you, what derail you. Emotional intelligence can also be called as a key driver of leadership success.

Effective Stress Management - another key quality of a leadership journal. Your day-to-day work stresses affect the overall well-being of yours, but journaling about them can be useful to effectively process them, discharge the negative emotions, and eventually enable learning. The combination of our physical and emotional well-being is a key driver of energy that we bring to the workplace. The strongest emotion and inspiration we have, the greater is the impact of our work. To uphold a good immune system and brain for positive emotion, journals play a significantly important role.

Tips for successful journaling practice:

What’s present me now?

You perhaps find this an esoteric question to initiate, but it’s a good to get into present know what’s going on at this moment inside you?

Initiate with a few deep breaths, close your eyes, and bring awareness to your body. Stretch and release any tension you’re feeling. Know your inner self. Observe emotions that are present. Often, we rush through our day without checking in with ourselves.

What’s going well? What’s creating that?

Recognizing what you find in a stressful moment that makes you step back. Finding this, you can acknowledge yourself and others for the positive that’s happening. Also, it benefits in learning - what’s positive and what's can help you to achieve goals.

What's challenging? What's creating that?

Focusing on what needs to be improved for learning and growth rather than what went well. We often initiate by blaming - others, ourselves, or circumstances, when we find some challenges. Acceptable - a perfect human nature! Though, you can start by looking deeper within yourself. Know beliefs, attitudes, or actions you contribute, when some challenging you found? This enthusiastic process of holding responsibilities is a key driver to feel empowered as a lead instead of a victim of circumstance. In addition, it allows you to try out various other ways of effective leadership in management.

What needs my attention?

For scanning your environment, both professional and personal - this is a great technique. Your attention quality is your greatest valuable asset. To form a powerful mindful and choosing the right way to invest it, this helps you a lot.

What’s meaningful?

Finding the meaning of your day-to-day activities keeps you fueled. Helping you the most in learning about values that are imperative to you and lead from values. Also, it inspires and engaging you with others around you.

Another question in this same vein is "what am I grateful for"?

This keeps you focused on things that`s working perfectly around you, helping you to reduce stress, and improve overall well-being. Furthermore, a gratitude journal proves beneficial in improving your immune system and upsurges resilience.

What strengths do I notice in myself?

Makes you aware of strengths, helping them to put into action. Journaling about the values you exercised helps in building - confidence, trust, and resilience.

What strengths and contributions do I notice in others?

For appreciating yours and others contributions, this can be helpful. Through this, you can powerfully acknowledge and appreciate things. Also, it helps in building productive and trusting work relationships.

What am I learning? Scan your writing.

Capture any experience that feels most important.

What is an action I am committing to?

To move your learning forward into action, this is beneficial.