Mapping Your Leadership Journey

Mapping Your Leadership Journey

Mapping Your Leadership Journey Session 2:
The Lifelong Leadership Skill of Reflective Practice 

This module was created with videos from the webinar Mapping Your Leadership Development Journey, session 2 with the Rev Dr. Sarah Drummond given on September 25, 2023; and includes guiding questions created by YDS alumna the Rev Erica Wimber Avena. Through the use of this three part series you will be encouraged to develop the attitude, skills, and knowledge to move forward in your own life long leadership development journey.

Dr. Drummond’s Review of Session 1 and Background for Session 2   

Video Length: 4:05

  • What content areas are you hoping to learn more about, related to your area leadership? Journal or discuss your answer in as much detail as you can. 

Skill Development: Cultivating Lifelong Learning

Video Length: 7:06

Dr. Drummond outlines three areas in the practice of overcoming obstacles: immunity to change, cognitive dissonance, and null curriculum. 

  • Journal your own answers to what are your personal competing commitments, areas of cognitive dissonance, and ways you experience null curriculum – which prevent you from skill development. Then discuss your answer with a friend, peer, or colleague. 

Reflective Practice Defined

Video Length: 2:52

Is this circular model for reflective practice familiar to you in your setting? 

  • If so, how do you use it, and what are its pitfalls in your experience? 
  • If not, is this a model you can incorporate into your area of leadership? Discuss your answers with a colleague from your leadership setting.

Reflective Practice with Friends and Colleagues

Video Length: 3:04

Dr. Drummond centers the importance of having friends and colleagues with whom we regularly engage in reflective practice. She recommends a “colleague folder” in your email in which you place communication from colleagues, and that all of us send regular email to colleagues which will likewise go in their folders. 

  • In your journal, make a list of the friends and colleagues whom you trust to engage in reflective practice. If you do not have one, think about who might be good candidates for you to approach. 

Reflective Practice with Guides and Supervisors

Video Length: 6:25

Reflect on your own experience in counseling whether or not you are currently seeing a counselor or spiritual director. 

What matters have you been able to work through in such settings? In your journal, do a short personal inventory. How do counselors, spiritual directors, guides, or supervisors figure in your plan for your lifelong leadership journey?   

Reflective Practice with Colleague Groups

Video Length: 3:29

Dr. Drummond lays out models and best practices for colleague groups. 

  • If you are part of a colleague group, what are your agreements with that group? How are you able to hold one another accountable for good practices? 
  • If you are not part of a colleague group, where and how would you like to begin one? Journal your answer, and follow up as necessary. 

Resources to Dig Deeper

Dr. Drummund’s Recommended Bibliography:

Kegan, Robert; Lahey, Lisa, Immunity to Change. HBS Press, 2009

Lewis, Stephen; Williams, Matthew; and Baker, Dori. Another Way: Living and Leading Change On Purpose. Chalice Press, 2020

Mahan, Jeffrey; Troxell, Barbara; and Allen, Carol. Shared Wisdom: A Guide to Case Study Reflection in Ministry. Abingdon Press, 1993. 

Millis, Diane. Conversation: The Sacred Art: Practicing Presence in an Age of Distraction. Skylight Paths, 2013 

Tran, Catherine and Boyd, Sandra Hughes. Spiritual Discovery: A Method of Discernment in Small Groups and Congregations. Rowman Littlefield, 2015. 

Links to other YDS Webinars or Content

Go back to the first session here. Continue to the next section here.