Facilitating student self-awareness in leadership development programs

In this chapter, the authors explore emotional discomfort and the use of live polling to enable business leaders on executive education leadership programmes to move beyond their emotional comfort zones, to facilitate self-awareness and enhance reflective practice. Openly acknowledging and discussing one’s leadership weaknesses produce emotions which are not always easily shared, especially among business leaders. Yet, identifying emotions and acknowledging discomfort is key for reflective practice and a common failure in many leadership development programmes (LDP). The authors reflect on their experience in designing and delivering a custom LDP commissioned by a UK-based corporate client. The authors draw on the pedagogy of discomfort, emotions in leadership development, and the use of audience response system (ARS) technology to enable and facilitate the development of learner self-awareness.