Creative Reflective Practice

As a committed practitioner how much time do you spend reflecting on your practice – exploring either specific aspects of your approach and its impact on your clients, or broader questions about your professional development and growth? Of the time you spend reflecting what proportion of this focuses on your strengths and successes compared to the space devoted to problems in your work and issues of concern? 
  
Reflective practice is an essential part of the growth of all professionals throughout their careers – from initial training, through their continuing professional development, and even when they have achieved virtuosity in their particular area of expertise. 
  
I am a leadership coach and coach supervisor, mentor and educator of many years standing. Reflective practice is a central and regular feature of my approach and a vital means by which I unpack what’s worked and what could be improved upon for the future. Given I’m also an artist, much of my reflective practice turns out to be art-based. Allowing an image to emerge about a particular topic I wish to explore gives me a different way of seeing compared to a more cognitive, cerebral standpoint where my forehead is metaphorically resting on my fist in that archetypal pose of Rodin’s “The Thinker”. I find adopting a creative approach unlocks the emotional elements involved which, after all, underpin our thinking and behaviour, leading to new insights and ultimately learning. 
  
Here's an example from my creative reflective journal: 

There are many insights arising for me in the image I’ve created (a collage on this occasion). I find images, especially the ones I create myself, keep on giving in that respect and I frequently return to them to see what they might offer now. Here’s a few of my thoughts about this particular image, which started from curiosity about engaging in reflective practice: 
 
The numerous coloured circles indicate the myriad ways we might engage in reflective practice.  From a different angle I notice that they might also represent the challenges that might be involved such as: 
  
- finding the time and avoiding distractions, especially tech-related ones  
  
- maintaining a regular habit in the face of other professional and personal commitments 
  
- ensuring I’m open and honest about my strengths and limitations (treating the latter with a degree of self-compassion) – and that I’m really willing to make the necessary changes. 
  
Reflecting further I begin to see ways of overcoming those challenges, for example: 
  
- integrating reflective activity into my daily routine 
  
- remembering there are always benefits to be gained from investing the time 
  
- acknowledging how powerful an art-based approach is for me - especially in switching off my thinking brain while I'm in the process of creating 
  
The drawing in the circle towards the middle is the cartooning me. I notice that I’m not in the centre of the image which gives me pause for thought. And I’m only touching one circle which might suggest I’ve focused for too long on one mode of reflection. Viewing the whole image as a kind of board game maybe this suggests I might be at the start of discovering new ways to reflect and perhaps from an unexpected angle (?) 
  
A significant feature of the art I produce, whether for my work activities or in my private life comprises cartoons. I find encouraging clients to cartoon and creating my own cartoons for reflective practice helps cut to the core of the topic being explored and can point to the absurdities within and beyond organisational life, as in the example:  

 
How might my collage of circles be of use in your own reflective activity – about your own approach to reflective practice, your work or beyond? Choose a topic you would like to focus on. What might the image suggest to you about that topic?  
  
Consider the interests and passions which are an integral part of your life beyond work. What might you bring creatively into your reflective practice with the positive intention of stepping outside your comfort zones to experience a different way of seeing in order to generate new insights and learning? 

  

If you want to explore reflective practice more deeply, check out the book I’ve co-authored on the subject. “Your Essential Guide to Effective Reflective Practice - Improving Practice through Self-reflection and Writing” written with Christian van Nieuwerburgh was published by Sage a few months ago. The book lays out a new framework for ensuring reflective practice is effective in improving outcomes for the people we work with as well as our own personal and professional development. It also focuses on how to use the framework to underpin writing up reflections for qualification or credentialing purposes and includes a host of ways to engage in reflective practice using creative methods. 

David Love is a qualified leadership coach with over 20 years’ experience of working with senior and middle managers in public services (e.g. the NHS). He is also a trained and experienced coach supervisor, mentor and educator. Reflective practice is at the heart of David’s approach to his work with clients and regular, planned reflective practice is a central feature of a commitment to his own lifelong learning. As a qualified art-based practitioner he has established a habit of creative reflective practice to explore his work and relationships with clients. David also encourages clients to create images and cartoons to enable them to explore the challenges and successes they experience in their work. 
  
David is an author and describes himself as a “management cartoonist”. He is the resident cartoonist for the Association for Coaching’s “Coaching Perspectives” magazine. 
  
Find David on LinkedIn

Written March 2025

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