The Power of Self-Reflection at Work
Self-reflection often leads to numerous benefits for employees.
Employees who reflect on their thinking, actions, and character will gain insights into their decision-making processes and develop a deeper understanding of why the do what they do.
Developing self-awareness helps reduce emotional reactivity, increases self-efficacy, and improves performance.
Here are three approaches managers can use to facilitate employee self-reflection:
Encourage self-reflection during onboarding
Having a new hire reflect on their assets at the onset of a role can support their ability to work from a place of self-efficacy.
On behalf of the information-technology company Wipro, a team of researchers studied how new hire self-reflection could be an effective tool to reduce turnover at a company.
The self-reflection process called for new hires to spend "half an hour thinking about what made them unique, what their strengths were, and how they could be more authentic at work." Seven months later, researchers found that those who participated in early self-reflection had an increased likelihood of still working for the company, improved job satisfaction, and had higher performance levels.
Implement reflective cycles or stages
One can use several protocols to help employees develop a practice of self-reflection. Examples include The Integrated Reflection Cycle, What? So what? Now what? and The Gibbs Reflective Cycle.
Though these cycles vary slightly, each version begins with defining an experience (a challenge, success, etc). Then, the cycles move through a process of reflection and analysis of the experience. Each cycle ends with the employee developing an action plan for when the same type of experience reoccurs. The cycle of reflection is then repeated.
Use self-assessment tools to discover strengths
Self-assessment can be a starting place in the self-reflection process. A tool like Gallup's Clifton Strengths Assessment (formerly StrengthsFinder) can support the process by helping employees understand how their strengths make them "uniquely powerful." Thus, employees can reflect on how to leverage their specific strengths to be successful but also diiscover vulnerabilities of a strength when it is misused or mismanaged.