25 questions to help you thrive at work

“We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.”

― John Dewey, philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

How you show up at work is a complex and fascinating thing. It’s never just about the skills you bring, or the targets you hit. Beneath the surface, how you show up is coloured by experiences and conditioning from early life through to past jobs. It’s about emotions and how you manage them — and your relationship with yourself. It’s about how well you communicate and handle conflict. And it’s about your approach to collaboration, creativity, and growth.

In this article, we’re sharing a framework to help you reflect across all these areas, so you can work and lead with more confidence, clarity, and purpose. It’s for established leaders, emerging contributors, and everyone in between. No matter your role or level, reflecting on the energy you bring to work, and the behaviors you adopt, is always worthwhile. We’re talking about the fundamental human skills, attitudes, and actions that shape your impact in the workplace, not just on your team, or on a particular project, but on the organizational culture as a whole.

The energy each individual brings to work rubs off on those around them, affecting their mood, their behaviours, and what kind of day they have. Just think about how different it feels working with someone whose negativity never seems to stop, compared with someone who radiates a positive can-do attitude whenever you’re in their presence.

The way you manage your internal state, how you approach interactions with others, and the behaviors you commit to determine whether or not a workplace feels psychologically safe, for you and those around you. And that felt sense of safety (or, indeed, its absence) shapes pretty much everything that happens within a business.

That’s why regularly stepping back to assess your workplace experience is crucial. But how do you know exactly which aspects of your life at work to examine? Having a framework is helpful for taking a broad and balanced view, and gives you something you can return to year-on-year for a sense of what’s changed.

Below, you’ll find our five-part reflection framework, adapted from PSI founder Gina Battye’s book, The Authentic Organization. It’s based on over a decade of research and practical experience in the human dynamics of workplace culture and performance.

The framework is grouped into five sections, each a useful lens for thinking about how you might show up more authentically and amplify your impact.

Self — this covers things like emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and self-regulation
Social — this looks at how effectively you communicate and listen
Collaboration — this explores how you work within a team
Curiosity — this deals with your approach to learning and improvement
Creativity — this helps you reflect on your approach to problem-solving

Time to reflect

Below, you’ll find an introduction to each of the lenses, along with five questions you can ask yourself. You can return to these questions annually, or any time you want a clear-eyed check-in on how you could be working more effectively with your colleagues.

1. Self

This lens is about empowering you to thrive in the workplace by cultivating intrapersonal awareness — the ability to recognize, understand, and reflect on your own thoughts, emotions, motivations, and internal processes. This is the foundation of emotional intelligence, and lays the groundwork for bringing your Authentic Self to work.

The Self lens helps you:

Become more self-aware about what affects your performance and behavior at work
Regain control over things that affect your performance
Move towards your personal and professional goals with renewed confidence and authenticity

Questions to reflect on

How well do I handle my emotions when they come up?
How clear am I about what triggers negative emotions, thoughts, and behaviors at work, and how well do I control how I react to those triggers?
Am I fully aware of my expectations of myself and others, and how does that affect my work relationships and decisions?
Do I take complete ownership of my actions and how they affect my coworkers?
Do I clearly communicate my personal boundaries at work and reinforce them when needed?

2. Social

This lens is about mastering the intricate art of workplace communication. Interestingly, according to Axios, 80% of leaders think their communications are clear, yet only 53% of employees agree. Whatever your role within the business, effective communication is critical for getting buy-in, building stronger relationships, and fuelling effective collaboration.

The Social lens helps you:

Communicate your message clearly, in the way you intend it to be received
Ensure you receive messages from other people in the way they were intended
Get more out of communication with colleagues

Questions to reflect on

Am I able to tell my boss and team-mates how I feel, what I need, and what I’m worried about?
Can I effectively get my point across so people understand what I really mean?
Do I really listen to people without judging them? Do I focus on hearing them instead of thinking about what I’ll say next?
Do I ask questions to make sure I understand what people are actually saying?
When there’s confusion or miscommunication with coworkers, do I deal with it right away?

3. Collaboration

If you work in a team, no matter what your level or role, how you show up will affect the dynamics. But this lens is particularly useful for those in management and leadership positions; it’s about cultivating an environment where people can achieve outstanding results together.

The Collaboration lens helps you and your team:

Work on the right things, in service of shared goals
Create a space where everyone feels safe to contribute, fully and authentically
Drive a culture of continual progress and ambition

Questions to reflect on

Do I regularly check to make sure my work is helping my team accomplish its goals?
Does my team have a clear way to handle conflicts? Am I comfortable using it when problems come up?
Do I clearly tell my team members what I expect from them so we can work better together?
Do I actively join in meetings and projects by answering questions, sharing my thoughts, and offering ideas and solutions?
Do I regularly update my team-mates on how projects are going and how we’re progressing towards our goals?

4. Curiosity

This lens is about building a culture of curiosity within your organization — something every individual impacts through the choices they make day-to-day. It centres around reflective practice (like the one you’re engaged in right now), feedback, and the pursuit of learning and development.

The Curiosity lens helps you and your team:

Question current approaches and challenge the status quo
Improve what you do and how you work together
Ignite a culture of innovation

Questions to reflect on

Does my team regularly dedicate time to reflect on our work and collaborative processes?
Do I actively give and receive helpful feedback with my team-mates?
Do I take the lead in sharing what I know and what I’ve learned with my team-mates?
Do I openly talk about problems, errors, and mistakes, helping create a team culture where we learn and improve from them?
Do I actively work on improving myself both personally and professionally, always looking for ways to grow?

5. Creativity

This lens is about problem-solving and creative thinking — key drivers of innovation, engagement and profitability. It’s about gaining fresh perspectives, and thriving in ambiguous and uncertain situations (increasingly the norm in our rapidly-changing world).

The Creativity lens helps you:

Solve problems more effectively
Nurture a culture of experimentation
Embrace co-creation, where you build on collective intelligence and ideas

Questions to reflect on

Does my team regularly set aside time to solve problems together?
Do I actively share my ideas, skills, knowledge, and experience during brainstorming sessions to help the team solve problems better?
Do I consistently look for ways to solve challenges and problems that come up in my team? Do I actively help with finding solutions?
When I have an idea that could solve a team problem, do I take action to make it happen?
Am I open to building on other people’s ideas and letting them build on mine?

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Go deeper

To understand the thinking behind this framework (and for more practical activities and in-depth guidance on how to develop yourself and your team across all five lenses), we recommend reading Gina’s book — The Authentic Organization: How to Create a Psychologically Safe Workplace.

“This book is insightful, practical, fun and easy to read!”

— Andreas Richter, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, University of Cambridge