I am all for investing in in-depth leadership development. This is one of my main passions in life. In fact, I’d almost rather take a course that helps me grow as a leader than take a vacation.

But there are times when formal leadership development might not be a top priority.

That doesn't mean you have to give up developing. Using a "life as coach" approach, you can still grow by using your day to day experiences as a springboard. Sound intriguing? Read more for simple practices to keep growing even in the most challenging times.

First of all, what do I mean by “life as coach”? This is not the same as a “life coach,” i.e. someone who supports you to have the life you desire. Rather, it’s a personal commitment on your part to use your daily experience to stimulate your leadership development.

Ram Dass reportedly asked, “How many of us have signed up for the school of life and then spent our lives complaining about the curriculum?” That got me thinking that it’s our life that’s setting the agenda, not us. What we can do is accept the curriculum, work with it, and use it to grow toward our goals.

This is actually the same process that every good coach uses: Support for reflection, learning and course correction. But you don’t always need to have a coach or a leadership development program to do that.

So what are some simple practices you can put in place to make sure you continue growing as a leader?

Get clear about what you want and why. For some people that takes the form of achievable goals, for others it’s a vision of a desired future. Whatever works best for you, it’s important to have an aim or an aspiration to grow toward.
When you’re clear on the “what,” then you can reflect on what will it bring you. That can help connect with your deepest motivation. For example, let’s say you want to improve your comfort level with delivering critical feedback. Why is that important to you? Because you want it to be constructive and you know it won't be received that way if you're uneasy. It matters that you communicate an honest message in a way that can be heard. In the long run, you’re committed to ensuring that your people perform well AND are motivated to do their jobs. Now you have a clear aim and a compelling set of reasons why it matters.
Pay attention to examples of previous success in doing the thing you want to do. Most of us have successful examples already within our repertoire that we can learn from. But we often overlook them and instead focus on our “failures." That robs us of valuable learning opportunities that we've already accomplished! No need to take a class or get a coach. It’s already within us!
But it’s not enough to bring the success to mind. You also need to analyze what made the success happen. “When I’ve been able to deliver challenging feedback with comfort, it’s because I wrote out my talking points in advance.” Or something like that. Then you know what to do to replicate your success. Even with your successes, it’s also helpful to ask, “What can I do even better next time?”
Consult with a person whose perspective you trust. Ask them to challenge your assumptions. Maybe it wasn’t only the talking points you’d written in advance. Maybe you also got a good night sleep before the conversation and felt fresh and rested.

Okay, you say, those all sound like great ideas. But you don’t know my life! I don’t even have a moment to think, never mind analyze.

That’s true, I don’t know your life. But I do know some pretty busy people and here’s how they do it:

Recognize the value of a regular pause for reflection and learning. Many of us measure our productivity by how busy we are. Consider reframing how you measure productivity to give yourself permission to pause.

Start a journaling practice. I’ve been a regular journaler since I was young. I swear it’s saved me vast sums of money I’d have spent on therapy or coaching. There’s lots out there on how to establish a journaling practice so I won’t go into more details here. But it’s a great way to create space for reflection.

Block off times in your calendar for reflection. One client is working hard to scale back her busy time and increase her reflection time. She’s found it helpful to reserve blocks of time each week for reflection and creative thinking. She told me, “I have to be deliberate about not stacking things on top of each other. Creative energy can’t flow if you set boundaries that are too tight.”

Arrange your morning routine to include time for reflection. Here’s a blog post on some of the ways people do that.

Finally, delegate more to free you up for reflection and leadership development. It will pay off in your growth and you’ll be helping someone else grow, too.

I’m guessing you already know this is something worth putting into practice. Why put it off any longer? This past year has served up untold opportunities to use our lives as coach. It’s time to take full advantage of the learning potential.

Leave a note in the comments: What are your go-to leadership development practices?

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