When we speak of leadership and reflection in the context of the Focus Group, the type of reflection might be a little different to mindfulness or day-dreaming – though they are important.
Remember that we want to reward risk taking, creativity and even perhaps a little bit of non-conformity! I probably don’t need to say that the day-to-day work can be hectic with little time for reflection – there always seem to be so many things to be done, all of which are urgent.
Yet I believe that time taken out to reflect is one of the most important elements of good enough community leadership.
Remember also that we want to include people who might have different views, norms, values etc. and I am sure that you will agree that that one of our more important tasks is to meld all the diverse skills and views in our team into a coherent whole so that the energy available from the whole (yes you’ve guessed it) is greater than the sum of the individual parts.
Given that reward of risk taking and the coherence of different views/talents etc. are both priorities, I believe that a very important purpose of reflection is to monitor what is happening to me when I am faced with the challenge of someone on the team wanting to take a risk or when someone expresses a view that is at variance with what I believe myself.
If I do not know what is happening inside (i.e. how I am feeling), I will probably default to the familiar or the ordinary, and on the one hand might miss out on something exciting, or, indeed, plunge into something with little forethought as to the consequences.
The next post will examine the implications of my awareness of what is being reflected back to me in such situations.