Page 12 - Agency Project

Inquiry into Leadership

Learning, Meta-awareness

& Reflective Practitioners

We can further understand the meaning of inquiry as leadership learning if we
reflect on meta-awareness. An important aspect of leadership learning is the
ability to question the meaning of what people do. When you read or hear
something and then ask yourself “What was that all about?” or “Why didn’t I
understand that?” you have engaged in an act of meta-awareness and self-talk.

Meta-awareness is the process of becoming an observer of your own
thinking and behaviour. You use it every time you think about what you
will do next, how well you just did something, or when you reflect on what
others are thinking. Of course we can ‘turn off’ our meta-awareness; if we didn’t,
we would be very slow in making decisions and sometimes not take any action at
all. Unfortunately, some people turn their meta-awareness off and leave it off!

Consider the following three levels of meta-awareness.

At the first level we simply respond, or act without thinking too much.
1 As experienced teachers, much of our skilled behaviour has become so
ingrained that we are good (or not-so-good) at it without even thinking
about what we are doing. Our behaviour at this level is simply the
habit of being who we are in the world – our spontaneous, unrehearsed
selves. Unfortunately, we may NOT all have the same level of ability as
other school leaders.

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