Sir Steve is Chair of Forum Strategy’s National #TrustLeaders CEO Network, a former CEO of ten years standing leading one of the country’s largest academy trusts, and author of Reflections on Being The CEO. He co-leads the Being The CEO programme. In this month’s blog, he reflects on last week’s sixth annual National #TrustLeaders CEO Conference and the theme of thriving together: as trusts, as CEOs, as communities.
For those of you that know me well, you will be very familiar with some of the ‘mantras’ I use to emphasise a principle I want to establish or ‘hammer home’ as some of you would say. I used a couple of them at our conference last week. ‘BE!’ as part of ‘Being the CEO and ‘DO!’ CEO type things, for example. Another of my favourites, and one that I truly believe, is that ‘the quality of our organisation and the quality of our leadership will be directly proportional to the quality of our thinking about it.’ You may have heard me say it a few times.
I’m a big believer in the power of the mind and, in particular, the power of reflection. To me, reflection is a vital leadership activity that promotes growth and effectiveness. It allows us to pause, gain insights into our strengths and weaknesses, enabling us to refine our leadership styles and be intentional in how we approach our role. Reflection fosters self-awareness, enhancing emotional intelligence and empathy. It facilitates learning from both successes and failures, and from others paving the way for continuous improvement. Ultimately, reflection empowers us to evolve. And because of my strong belief in this, I’ve spent the last few days reflecting on our conference and what the key takeaways were for me.
