From Good Intentions to Real Development
Self-reflection is considered key to good leadership. But it is not enough on its own. In his latest article, Malte Dammann, junior consultant at metaBeratung, explains why real development only begins when insights are translated into concrete behavior.
Date: 11. May 2026
Author: Malte Dammann
Categories: Female Leadership, Leadership, Personality, Insights, metaArticle
Why Self-Reflection Is the First Step (But Only the First)
A leader we worked with recently described a scene that many people will recognise. Monday morning, an email in the inbox, sharper in tone than necessary. The first impulse: reply immediately, clarify, hold the line. Instead, she closed the email, went to get a coffee, and waited two hours. The reply that came later was different from the one she would have sent at nine. Not softer, but sharper in substance. And the relationship with the other person was not damaged.
Moments like this are unspectacular, and that is precisely what makes them interesting. They show where leadership is actually decided in everyday work: not in big strategy meetings, but in the gap between a stimulus and one’s own reaction.
What Leadership Really Requires
When people discuss leadership competencies, they tend to produce long lists: decisiveness, communication, strategic thinking, resilience. These lists are not wrong, but they obscure something more fundamental. Under pressure, leadership always falls back on the person. What works well when things are calm tends to collapse into old patterns under strain. People who usually approach conflict calmly become sharp. People who usually listen start arguing themselves into a corner. People who usually decide start postponing.
The research on this is clear. Self-awareness, the ability to handle one’s own emotions, and the capacity to regulate one’s behaviour are not soft add-ons. They determine whether the other competencies can come into play at all.
Self-Reflection, Reconsidered
This is the point where self-reflection is usually brought up, and usually a little too quickly. Reflection sounds like pausing, like a quiet half hour on a Sunday evening. That may feel pleasant, but it rarely changes anything.
Reflection that actually works is less comfortable. It means seeking out feedback you do not really want to hear. It means sitting with the gap between your own intentions and the way you actually come across to others, without explaining it away. And it means doing this not once, but as practice. In our work, we see again and again that leaders experience themselves differently in critical situations than they are perceived. What is meant as decisive comes across as closed off. What is meant as focused feels distant. This difference is not embarrassing, it is normal. But you can only start working with it once you know it is there.
The Gap Between Stimulus and Reaction
The real leverage lies where reflection reaches into the moment itself. In the psychological literature, this is described as decentering: the ability to step back and observe your own reaction before following it. That is exactly what the leader in the opening example did. She did not suppress the emotion, she noticed it and decided not to act on it straight away.
This capacity can be trained. But it does not develop through thinking about yourself. It develops through the repeated experience that the gap exists and that you can use it.
From Understanding to Doing
This is where many development processes get stuck. A leader has understood that they react too quickly under pressure. They have solid feedback on it, they have reflected on it, they can name it. And still, very little changes in everyday work. The reason is simple and well documented: understanding is a precondition for change but not change itself. We see this in our own work as well. A good Hogan debrief delivers deep insights, but too often that is where it ends. The conversation is good, the report goes into a drawer, and daily work catches up.
What needs to follow are concrete experiments. Small changes in behaviour that are tried, checked, and adjusted. A different way of reacting in meetings. A new way of preparing for difficult conversations. A deliberate pause before sending a critical email. It helps to capture observations and insights, either in writing or in conversation. Research shows that writing and talking give reflection structure and protect it from drifting into mere rumination. It also helps to have someone to discuss this with, because we rarely catch ourselves doing it.
Self-reflection is the right first step. It opens up the space in which development becomes possible. What it does not replace is the action that needs to come after.
References
Dix, D., Norton, K., & Griffith, G. M. (2022). Leaders on a mindfulness-based program: Experience, impact, and effect on leadership role. Human Arenas, 5(4), 783–801. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-021-00183-5
Nesbit, P. L. (2012). The role of self-reflection, emotional management of feedback, and self-regulation processes in self-directed leadership development. Human Resource Development Review, 11(2), 203–226. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484312439196
Tenschert, J., Furtner, M., & Peters, M. (2025). The effects of self-leadership and mindfulness training on leadership development: A systematic review. Management Review Quarterly, 75(4), 2811–2862. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-024-00448-7
