Have you ever heard of being proactive? What does this word proactive even mean?

I have found that some people say to be proactive and they are referring to planning ahead. But that is not what being proactive means.

Author and speaker Stephen R. Covey teaches people how to be proactive in his book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” In this book, one of the 7 habits he teaches is being proactive. What he teaches is that being proactive means the opposite of being reactive.

Being reactive means to act without thinking when responding to a stimulus in your life. This can mean always reacting in anger when things don’t go your way. It can mean responding to people without thinking through your response. Have you ever regretted what you said to someone after reacting to something they said or did? Chances are you that you were being reactive and not thinking about your response.

In contrast, being proactive means thinking before you respond to a stimulus in your life. Stephen Covey calls this living in the gap between stimulus and response. He teaches that there is a gap between a stimulus in your life and your response to that stimulus. In this gap you have time to consider your response before reacting to a stimulus. In other words, something happens that you would normally react to, but instead of just reacting, you consider your options and then choose how you respond to that stimulus.

For example, I remember a time when a co-worker suggested that some software code I had written was not done right and needed to be changed. My reaction was that he was wrong and that my code was correct. We got into a heated discussion where I tried to prove that the design of my code was right and that he was wrong. After a long, heated discussion, I finally understood the point he was making, and I realised I needed to rewrite the code I had written.

What if I had been proactive instead? If I had been proactive, I would not have gotten angry and immediately sought to prove my code was right. Instead, I could have been proactive and listened to my co-worker to understand why he thought my code was wrong. This would have avoided the heated discussion and saved time. It would also have helped me to better understand my co-worker’s perspective and it would have shown him that respected his own ideas and approaches to software development.

Being proactive is a key leadership skill. It can help you to be more effective in leading other people and in leading yourself.

For example, when leading a team, if someone makes a mistake, the reactive response would be to reprimand that person and immediately correct the mistake yourself. A more proactive approach would be to meet with that person to learn why the mistake was made, and to then coach that person to help him correct the mistake himself. In this more proactive approach, you help the person to learn, and chances are he won’t make that same mistake again.

Being proactive helps me in my job as a computer programmer. When I am working on maintaining or enhancing a piece of software, I sometimes discover a bug in the software. The reactive response would be to ignore the bug because it means more work for me. The proactive response is to explore why the bug happens and to document the bug in my company’s issue tracking system. This will then lead to the bug being fixed and it will lead to better quality software.

Summary

So what does it mean to be proactive? Being proactive is the opposite of being reactive. It means thinking before you respond to a stimulus in your life. It means choosing the right responses to those stimuli, not just the immediate response that first comes to mind.

Being proactive is a key leadership skill. Leaders are proactive in their interactions with other people, and they are proactive in their work and in their daily lives. They choose the right responses when challenged to make a key decision that affects the lives of other people, not always the decision that seems immediate or obvious.

As Stephen Covey teaches in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, being proactive is one of 7 key habits in being more effective in life. I encourage you to read his book to learn more about the habit of being proactive and to learn about the other 6 habits he teaches.

I also encourage you to be more proactive in your life. When something happens in life, think carefully and choose the right response before you react, not just the first response that comes to mind. This will make you more effective and it will make you a better leader.