3 Key Practices That Helped Me Discover My Strengths as a Leader

From Behavioral Interview Prep to Promotion Packets and Journaling: Insights That Unlocked My Leadership Potential

It’s difficult to write and talk about yourself. It’s even harder to identify your strengths and clearly communicate them to your leaders to advocate for your promotion.

I was surprised that tools designed to help you prepare to get a new job or position can also be powerful self-reflection exercises. When I did them for the first time, I realized they shouldn't be one-time tasks, but rather revisited regularly to track your progress and uncover your strengths.

Prepare Cases For Behavioral Interview

As a student, I had never heard of behavioral interviews. Early in my career, it didn’t make sense for interviewers to ask about work experience. I had never worked in a commercial environment before. Instead, I was asked about my side projects and university work, and I was assessed on my technical knowledge.

With more experience, interview questions tend to shift from technical to behavioral. It’s hard to prove real experience just by knowing the right keywords or definitions. The story of what you did and how you approached and resolved issues is far more believable and valuable.

When I started preparing for interviews as an experienced developer, my first real encounter with behavioral interviews was through Cracking the Coding Interview. Since the book targets developers, the advice was straightforward: write down examples from your most recent projects. Think about challenges and failures, what you enjoyed most, moments of leadership, how you resolved conflicts, and what you might do differently next time.

This list helped me self-reflect and surface meaningful stories from my career. I wish I had kept a journal or written after-action reviews more often. It would’ve made it easier to recall my thoughts and lessons after each project.

This exercise helped me uncover my strengths. I realized I often took on mentoring roles, and really enjoyed them. I also found that I feel more fulfilled when working on projects with difficult technical challenges.

These realizations might not seem groundbreaking, but they helped me understand what I need to thrive: an environment where I can lead and take on tough problems.

For managerial positions, using a question-and-response template like the STAR-F format worked even better for me. Instead of focusing solely on projects, you're asked leadership questions such as, “How did you help someone manage their career?” You’re expected to respond using a structure that outlines the Situation, Task, Action, and Result. As a bonus, the F stands for Framework. You can share a method or approach you’d use next time you face a similar challenge.

This behavioral interview template was much more challenging, but it focused on soft skills, leadership, and knowledge of tools for handling difficult conversations, measuring team performance, creating documentation, and setting goals. It helped me identify situations where I performed well and reflect on how I might approach past challenges differently using the knowledge I’ve gained since then.

Create a Brag Document or Promotion Packet

A brag document, or promotion packet, is a tool to list your accomplishments and build a case for your promotion. When I started growing my leadership skills and decided that I wanted to be promoted to a leadership role, I had to write one to demonstrate that I could lead. To get promoted, you need to show that you already possess the skills required for the next level, and have a track record of applying them. I had those skills, but I’d never taken the time to document them.

I used the template for the promotion packet from Will Larson’s Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the Management Track book, also available on his blog.

This exercise helped me understand what my motivations were for stepping into leadership. It also pushed me to gather quantifiable evidence of my impact on projects, something that’s essential for a strong resume. If you want to learn more, The Tech Resume Inside Out by Gergely Orosz is a great resource.

Writing this for myself also made me realize how important it is to help team members track their own accomplishments. I now regularly encourage my team to maintain their own brag documents.

Start Journaling

Since I started journaling, I’ve had a few breakthroughs. I began to notice the unhelpful behaviors that were holding me back and became more aware of my fears. This awareness helped me regulate my emotions. We often like to believe we fully understand ourselves and that tools like therapy, coaching, or even simple journaling aren't necessary. But the truth is, writing your thoughts down on paper is a powerful exercise. It gives you perspective, builds empathy, and helps you challenge whether your thoughts are actually true.

It’s also a valuable tool for making tough decisions. I revisit older entries and write out the pros and cons of the choices I’m facing. Later, I go back to those notes to see if I still feel the same way about the decision I made.

Just like behavioral interview prep or creating a promotion packet, journaling has helped me discover my strengths. I noticed patterns in my notes that led me to believe that things I struggled with before are now my strengths. Fears I used to carry around had been explored and worked through so many times that they no longer had power over me.

Summary

The tools I’ve described in this article have had a strong impact on my career. That’s why I now share them with others—I believe they’re a great starting point for self-reflection, which is an essential skill for any leader. They also make things like preparing for promotions much more straightforward.

I journal occasionally, usually when something meaningful happens, whether I'm feeling proud of a success or dealing with a setback. When I document a win in my journal, I also try to add it to my promotion packet or resume if it represents a significant achievement.

All the data gathered in the journal is also incredibly useful for preparing for behavioral interviews. I also try to review my notes often and update them if something interesting happens.

If you’re not sure where to start, I encourage you to pick up a question-based template or simply open a blank note and write down what’s on your mind. That small step can begin a meaningful journey of self-reflection and skill growth.