5. Thinking About Thinking (Metacognition)
Leaders are aware of their own thoughts, strategies, feelings, and
actions and their effects on others. Leaders “talk” to themselves as they
evaluate their plans, monitor their progress, and reflect on their actions,
needs, and aspirations.
6. Striving for Accuracy
Leaders are truth seekers. They desire exactness, fidelity, and crafts-
manship. Leaders do not accept mediocrity.
7. Questioning and Posing Problems
Leaders have intellectual curiosity, a need to discover and to test
ideas. They regard problems as opportunities to grow and learn.
8. Applying Past Knowledge to New Situations
Leaders draw on their rich experiences, access prior knowledge, and
transfer knowledge beyond the situation in which it is learned. They learn
from their “mistakes.”
9. Thinking and Communicating with Clarity and Precision
Leaders articulate their ideas clearly in both written and oral form.
They check for understanding and monitor their own clarity of terms and
expressions.
10. Gathering Data Through All Senses
Leaders have highly tuned observational skills. They continually
collect information by listening, watching, moving, touching, tasting,
smelling.
11. Creating, Imagining, Innovating
Leaders try to conceive problems differently, examining alternatives
from many angles. They project themselves into diverse roles, use analo-
gies, take risks, and push the boundaries of their own limits.
388 Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind