Journal Your Leadership

This week, we released a new podcast episode which is part 2 of me discussing my new book, The Leadership Recipe. All of my books are from my personal leadership experiences. The first one, Essential Leadership Lessons from the Thin Blue Line, is based on the successes and failures I experienced as a leader and in The Leadership Recipe, I take it one step further and offer what I feel is the ultimate leadership development strategy for growing new leaders – a recipe for success if you will and a guide on how to properly mentor young leaders in the key "ingredient" areas.

Each of these books would not have been achievable, or even writable, if I had not started journaling my leadership all those years ago. Early on, I found that writing what I was experiencing and learning about leadership helped me internalize that information. If I was reading a book about leading others, I would take notes from that particular book.

Later on, I started using it for self-reflection on my own experiences, successes, failures, and missteps as a leader. This was primarily in an effort to leave a chronicle of knowledge to my sons or whomever would find them one day. It was also, in part, a responsibility that I felt I had and that I encourage every leader or soon-to-be leader out there to assume – transferring knowledge from one generation of leaders to another.

Journaling your leadership is helpful in 3 key ways:

• 1) It creates a written record of what you thought was important at the time. It helps you to personally grow, because you can go back through those journals at a future point in time and reflect on how you have grown personally and maybe how you still have some things to achieve.
• 2) Journaling helps you in the present by disciplining yourself to write it down. It’s a proven fact that the simple act of writing something down imprints on the brain a memory of that event by forcing it to process information in a more detailed manner.
• 3) It also helps you to become a better reader and retainer of the knowledge of others. When you commit to being more intentional in your journaling, you will find yourself grabbing it for everything - especially when you read. I never considered myself a great reader and really had to work at it through college and graduate school, but learning to write notes and/or thoughts about what I was reading helped me retain that information and use it more effectively.

If you have given us the honor of being one of our students in a multi-day class, you know that we give a blank journal to every student. We do this because I firmly believe that workbooks create lazy learners, so the journal is there for you to write down what you think is important from class. Also, the journal becomes something you will take with you and that you are encouraged to continue beyond the classroom. Having taught for over two decades, both in criminal justice classes and leadership development, I know what happens to workbooks – they go on a shelf, never to be looked at again.

So don’t wait until you take one of our classes - go out today and find a blank journal that works for you. Start today by simply writing the date, day of the week, and where you are. Jot a few sentences about what occurred that day. Truly, it can be as simple as a quote you heard, something you read, or even a thought you have for a future project that you’ve been planning at work or at home. 

Try journaling your leadership and commit to doing it for at least 21 days straight. Experts say that it takes 21 days to imprint a new habit, so give it a try! Use it as part of your getting-ahead-of-your-day strategy each morning or take a few minutes at the end of the work day to reflect. Hold yourself to the highest standard you can for those 21 days and see what happens. In fact, let me know what your experience with daily journaling of your leadership has been after those 21 days by shooting me an email. We would love to hear from you!

Happy journaling!

- Dean