Journaling Can Boost Your Leadership Skills

Eric J. McNulty is the director of research at the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative and writes frequently about leadership and resilience. Our lives are awash in digital. Each electronic pulse pushes us to respond instantly. Reply. Like. Share. There is seemingly no beginning and no end to the onslaught. But the beauty of the human brain isn’t its ability to render snap judgment and instantly weigh in on a topic electronically. Quite the opposite. Its greatest capacity is a higher level of thought: to process disparate bits of information, find patterns, and create meaningful dialog and action over time. All of this serves to boost our leadership skills. This ability flows from our natural hardwiring. To benefit from it, you only need to slow down and let your inner genius emerge. To be sure, easing the pace of life is not so simple when bosses, subordinates, and family members assume you’ll be available online 24/7. It’s time to slow down and reset expectations. But how? A practice I have found useful, as have many of my executive education students and coaching clients, is centuries old: keeping a journal. Setting aside as little as 10 minutes a day to record your thoughts stimulates reflection critical to making sense of the fast-moving world around you, which is, in turn, essential to effective leadership. As a leader, you are challenged to perceive patterns from which opportunities and threats emerge. This, in part, makes you worthy of following. (As in actually following you in real life, not just your online persona.) A practice I have found useful, as have many of my executive education students and coaching clients, is centuries old: keeping a journal. Despite our current proclivity for keyboards and powerful computer processors, journaling is an activity best suited for pen on […]

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