To discuss the importance of metacognition in my leadership journey, I need to review what metacognition means. “Metacognition is a skill that allows individuals to monitor and regulate their own thinking, learning, and problem-solving processes.” (Ponurska, 2023) The more self-aware an individual is, the better a leader they will be. However, the road to self-awareness can be a process and it takes practice.
In LDR 500: Leadership Intensive Seminar: Integrating Mind, Body, Spirit, one of the weeks talked about self-awareness, which is a quality of metacognition. This class helped me to self-identify my strengths and weaknesses along with the self-assessment when we did the Clifton Strengths. I discovered that I am more of a servant leader who is very empathetic, loving, and helpful to others. I put others before myself a majority of the time which is a weakness. I find it extremely hard to put myself first and practice self-care like I should. I am sure this is one reason that I get run down often, especially at the end of the week.
One thing I have noticed more lately is that the less me-time I get, the more I tend to procrastinate. To remedy this issue, I have tried to give myself at least one evening off a week to focus on myself and just relax. I have been choosing Monday evenings right now since my big assignments for school are due on Sundays.
I have been told that I have good insight due to my vast personal life experiences. This makes good sense since I do often find that I can relate to a lot of people and various situations based on my own life experiences. This strength allows me to ask the right questions when needed, but I also know when it is time to back off and give someone their space or time to be with themselves.
References
Ponurska, M. (2023). Unleash the Power of Metacognition Today! https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unleash-power-metacognition-today-magdalena-ponurska/