Do you learn from your experiences? The most effective leaders learn from their experiences of the week. They are willing, able and ready to learn – they are not arrogant enough to assume they know it all.
Learning from experience is especially essential in developing critical skills – communication, negotiation, emotional intelligence. Every day is, frankly, a learning experience. Inevitably each interaction we have during the day enables us to learn something new – no matter how small.
Think about your day. Is there some little nugget you walked away with? Maybe you realized that you need to gather more data from others before you make a decision to get the support you need. Maybe you learned something about how someone else communicates that means you’ll approach them differently the next time there is a problem to address.
At the end of each day, simply jot down in a journal what you learned that day. It may simply be a bulleted list. Review what you’ve written at the end of each week and you’ll find that you only get better as a leader. Our everyday experiences are our best learning opportunities.
