ABSTRACT
This chapter describes why reflection is so important to your leadership learning and development. It also describes how to reflect, and to get you started with some reflections. Reflection is the process of stepping back from an experience to think about its meaning to yourself. Research has found that students can be reluctant to do reflection as part of their leadership development although they understand why reflection is important and useful. According to the researchers who conducted a study, After Event Reviews (AERs) have three parts: self-explanation, data verification, and feedback. AARs are a cyclical method for extracting lessons from any team event and applying them to other events. Critical reflection is purposefully challenging ourselves to better understand how or why we have perceived, thought, felt, or acted the way we did during a challenging experience.
