1: Reflection and Learning

In leadership theory and research, we see a terrifically wide range of models, conceptual frameworks and empirical work that spills out into every human setting imaginable and into associated theories of strategy, change, decision-making and draws on the full range of social and behavioural sciences. In this book, I take a very pragmatic view on what a leader is, ignoring the raging debates concerning traits, styles, competences and persuasion to consider leadership and leaders as almost anyone who can envisage a different kind of future state and who can then articulate this vision persuasively to encourage others to follow and support, they themselves leading as the project progresses, or fails. Leaders can be heroic but mostly leadership is quite modest and involves seeing things differently, helping and supporting others, encouraging others, facilitating progress on any scale and in any situation (Chidley & Baldrey-Currens, 2016). Leaders are far from flawless and can improve through learning. It is this learning process that we will focus on here, seeking to illuminate through what I hope is an interesting integration of theory and practice, explaining the theory and testing it through the practitioner perspectives presented. The focal context is to examine the leader in decision-making situations in order to observe the role of reflection.