As you’re wrapping up for the close of the year’s business with Christmas and 2024 just around the corner, you’re likely engaged in a flurry of activity, from tying up loose strings on projects, to end of year reporting, to tax returns, last-minute deadlines, and final appraisals and performance reviews with your team members.
But before you type up your final email and draft that out-of-office automatic reply, there yet remains a task which is just as critical as business-closing:
Self-reflection.
We often get so caught up in rushing to prepare our business operations, spend, reporting, and personal lives for the holidays that we don’t take adequate time as leaders and managers to step back, pause, and reflect on our professional journeys over the year—what went well, what didn’t work out so well, and the lessons learned. The insights we glean from these journeys enable us to improve our leadership skills and be more effective in our roles in the new year, instead of repeating the same mistakes.
Sometimes, making use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can help accelerate this learning process—because, let’s be honest, a great deal happens in one year and it can be difficult to take account and thoroughly analyze the many occurrences at work.
Try these five prompts to get your wheels turning:
- “I completed a project this year which saw [name the positive or negative outcome in detail]. The original goal was [name the desired outcome], so I exceeded/failed to achieve the target with my team. What lessons can I learn from this?”
- “Analyze this conversation between me and my employee. I want to understand the intent behind what they’re saying. Please also give me feedback on what I could do to improve my response.” (Do this for a series of conversation transcripts either from video meetings or from team chats via Slack, Teams, etc., copy and paste the transcript, and repeat until you notice a pattern in the feedback it gives you, particularly on how you can improve your responses.)
- “One of my team members gave me feedback, stating that they felt I was micromanaging them. What could be possible causes for this and how can I adjust my approach?”
- This year, I struggled to balance my wellbeing with demands from senior leadership, while having to lay off some of my staff. How can I balance my wellbeing next year should a similar scenario happen again? (The bot will respond with a series of options, including a “why” and a “how” so you can put its suggested wellbeing strategies into action. However, note that ChatGPT’s responses shift each time you input a prompt and may not be exactly the same on each occasion.)
- Here are my manager’s notes from my year-end performance review: [copy and paste manager’s notes/summary]. What strategies would you recommend to help me with my areas of improvement?
As a bonus exercise, so that you can repeat this activity next year, keep an online or hardcopy journal of self-reflection. Towards the end of each week or month, make a list of three highlights (or more) and three challenges. By keeping track of your small wins and big wins, while also noting times when things didn’t work out as planned, you’ll have a bank of data to feed to ChatGPT with which to analyze your professional progress. This will help you maintain a growth mindset and become a more resilient and effective leader.