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The Importance of Reflective Leadership in Business

• 05 Sep 2023

Effective leadership is essential to business success. As an organizational leader , you not only guide decision-making but create your company’s culture, retain its talent, and move it toward bigger, better things.

Your leadership style —the behavioral patterns consistent across your decision-making—influences your impact on your organization and team. One of the most beneficial styles to adopt is reflective leadership.

If you want to learn more about reflective leadership’s role in business, here’s an overview of its components, why it’s effective, and how to become a reflective leader.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Reflective Leadership?

Reflective leadership involves self-awareness, introspection, and continuous learning and growth to make better decisions, enhance leadership skills , and improve team performance .

“Reflective leadership requires the continuous practice of reflection over time,” says Harvard Business School Professor Nien-hê Hsieh in the online course Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “This allows you to regularly examine and re-evaluate your decisions and responsibilities to practice, broaden, and deepen your skills, and to apply this knowledge when analyzing present situations.”

Reflective leadership also enables you to help your team grow.

“Reflective leadership is about helping others on your team or in your organization,” Hsieh says. “It’s about helping them develop their own skills in awareness, judgment, and action.”

In Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , Hsieh delves into the reflective leadership model , a framework for conceptualizing your responsibilities as an ethical leader.

The model has four components:

• Awareness: Recognize your legal, economic, and ethical responsibilities to stakeholders.
• Judgment: Consider biases and shared concepts that influence your decision-making.
• Action: Act on your decisions in an accountable, consistent way.
• Reflection: Reflect on all three components throughout the process to learn from past experiences.

“The reflective leadership model involves not only reflection on business decisions but also continuous reflection on your own personal beliefs, goals, and commitments,” Hsieh says in the course. “These aspects of self are often significant influences on your decisions and internal guides when navigating difficult situations.”

The Importance of Reflective Leadership

Before diving into the importance of reflective leadership, it’s critical to note the pitfalls of being an inadequate leader.

According to recruitment services company Zippia , 79 percent of employees leave their companies because they don’t feel appreciated by leaders, and upwards of 69 percent believe they’d work harder if recognized. In addition, only 33 percent report feeling engaged in the workplace.

Companies also lack focus on leadership development. Zippia reports that 77 percent struggle to find and develop leaders, and only five percent implement leadership development at all levels.

Since reflective leadership focuses on continuously improving and developing, it’s one of the more effective leadership styles. By regularly reflecting on your beliefs and values and incorporating them into your actions, you can make ethical decisions and enable your company to be more purpose-driven .

“Along with responsibility, leadership brings opportunities,” Hsieh explains in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “These include opportunities to make ethical decisions where someone else wouldn’t, to influence others to do the right thing, and to make a positive impact on the world.”

Reflective leadership also helps you build authentic, supportive relationships with team members and create a workplace of ethics and accountability .

If you want to adopt a reflective leadership style, here are the competencies to develop.

How to Become a Reflective Leader

Be self-reflective.

Self-reflection is at reflective leadership’s core. According to Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , you can practice self-reflection by:

• Reviewing, analyzing, and evaluating your decisions—in the moment and over time.
• Continuously deepening your awareness and self-knowledge.
• Developing a general framework for judgment.
• Improving your capacity for action and leadership.

Leading with self-reflection won’t just help you learn from past experiences but also encourage and enable your team members to adopt reflective mentalities.

Identify Your Commitments

Knowing your commitments is also essential to effective leadership.

“It’s important to identify and define your own commitments,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , “both to set a baseline for what you will and won’t do and to evaluate and clarify your thoughts, opinions, and feelings when making decisions.”

To create that baseline, Hsieh recommends asking the following questions:

• What’s core to my identity?
• What lines or boundaries won’t I cross?
• What kind of life do I want to live?
• What kind of leader do I want to be?

By identifying your commitments, you can better guide yourself and your team.

Consider Your Accountability

Becoming a reflective leader also requires accountability to successfully execute on your values and implement them into action plans.

This refers to the reflective leadership model’s “action” step—putting your decisions into practice in a way that’s accountable and consistent with your responsibilities.

“When leading reflectively, straightforward action planning may not be enough,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “An accountable leader will go beyond just answering ‘How will we do it?’ to ask ‘How can I do it accountably?’”

Reflective Leadership Training for Businesses

By incorporating your values into your leadership style, you can learn from your experiences on a deeper level and develop into a better leader.

One way to gain the skills and frameworks to succeed long term is by taking an online course, such as Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . Through a dynamic, interactive learning experience, the course provides the opportunity to apply the reflective leadership model to real-world business ethics challenges.

Are you ready to become a reflective leader? Apply to Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability —one of our online leadership and management courses —and download our free e-book on effective leadership.

About the Author

15.5 Reflections: Documenting the Journey

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Examine the value of journaling and reflection
• Experiment with reflection as a daily habit

Consider the journey of learning about entrepreneurship and of becoming an entrepreneur. What new knowledge have you gained about the world of entrepreneurship? What have you learned about your own interests in becoming an entrepreneur? Discovering your interest in specific areas helps to inform the possible entrepreneurial opportunities you might want to pursue and informs you of specific processes and actions where you might excel within an entrepreneurial endeavor. Consider how you can add value to an entrepreneurial team as a team member, or in the capacity of a mentor, consultant, or champion, as you reflect on your own interests, goals, passions and desires.

The Power of Journaling

Reflection supports personal growth through identifying actions that worked well and actions that didn’t work out as well as hoped. A formal reflection journal for capturing daily thoughts, experiences, lessons learned, and other material, can lead to insights and identify patterns in thinking and in behaviors that may be helpful to recognize—both for personal growth and for growth as an entrepreneur.

In daily life, people seldom have the time or training to be mindful of their actions—to be aware of how they interact with others, or how they act in the variety of situations that fill their days. A daily practice of reflection can improve your ability to be mindful throughout the day and to grow through your documented reflections. Being mindful is the action of being in the moment, being aware of surroundings and fully engaged in awareness of the people around us, hearing their communications and understanding the complexity of their messages. Mindfulness moves us out of our reaction to situations from our own personal perspective into a more objective awareness —a bit like viewing your life as though you were watching it as a spectator on the sidelines. This change in perspective moves us away from reacting to situations and toward a clearer, unbiased, and focused understanding of the situation with awareness of the situation’s nuances. As we develop the practice of mindfulness, we become skilled at being aware of our own emotions and patterns, which can make us aware of more options about how we want to respond: Rather than acting in a habitual or reactive manner, we can consider responses before we react. Reflection is the first step in developing this skill.

Take a few minutes to reflect on your life up to this point. Can you identify milestones, significant decision points, and understand why you made these decisions? Forming a daily habit of writing down your thoughts about the day, challenges you faced and how you responded to each, tracking what went well and what didn’t go well is the process of reflection. Over time, you will begin to see patterns in your behaviors. Identifying these patterns or habits provides key insights into how you think, process information, make decisions, and react to decisions. Once you notice these patterns, you have the power to analyze them and decide which are helpful and which are not. The patterns that are not helpful should be removed and replaced with better patterns. You can write down the new patterns that you want to develop as a goal in your daily reflection journal. You can then identify if you’re moving closer to following the new pattern and achieving this goal.

This type of journaling activity might seem like busy work, or you might think that you don’t have time for reflection. If this is how you feel, try following this advice for a couple of weeks and then reconsider, or conduct your own research to find articles that discredit reflection. There is a vast body of research that supports reflection as an important part of self-growth and self-realization. Some documented benefits in these studies include learning from mistakes, discovering new insights and ideas, and increases in reported happiness and satisfaction with life and relationships, increased mindfulness, and increased self-understanding resulting in feeling more power to choose how one interacts with the world—feeling empowered rather than the victim of a situation. 13 , 14 , 15

The Impact of Reflection

George Washington University researchers Scheherazade Rehman and James R. Bailey interviewed over 400 executive leaders to understand which of their experiences had the most positive impact on their leadership abilities and pathways. The researchers used data analysis software to process and categorize the highly varied responses, then management professors validated the results. Three themes emerged: surprise, frustration, and failure. 16 Again, these were the experiences that positively affected the executives.

The reflections of surprise typically occurred after a major deviation from expectations. The reflections of failure often involved making mistakes that could have been avoided, such as being involved in “organizational politics,” instead of focusing on a project’s success. The reflections of frustration often involved mismatched priorities or miscommunication within the executives’ organizations. 17

Through the process of reflection, the leaders uncovered deep-seeded issues that became learning experiences for them. The most impactful experiences were negative ones, frequently ones that the executives characterized as mistakes—sometimes their own, sometimes others’. As Rehman and Bailey wrote, “Mistakes provide raw evidence of what we should not do in the future. Mistakes allow us to learn by ‘negative example’, otherwise known as ‘errorful learning.’” 18

For this learning to take place, however, the executives—and anyone seeking to improve—need to understand and process what they’ve experienced. Reflection is a critical process to gain that understanding.

Documenting Your Journey

As part of your reflection activity, another benefit is to document your journey. If you have identified an opportunity or have started to build your venture, now is the perfect time to keep a journal and document your journey. Each day you face new challenges and exciting ideas that stretch your own learning and growth. Tracking the daily events provides you with a roadmap to use for your next venture, or as a guide to build your knowledge base in moving into a mentor or consultant role. Have you ever asked yourself, why didn’t I write that down? We assume that important and insightful ideas will stick in our minds and that we will readily remember them. But in reality we often forget these key insights and ideas. Through journaling, we can record and reflect on our daily activities and key insights.

Rehman and Bailey indicate that a journal should not simply be a collection of facts or a timeline of events. They recommend that whenever you feel a strong emotion at work—such as surprise, frustration, or failure—you should take a moment to add it to your journal. (Keeping the journal in a convenient place or format, such as on your phone or computer, will help.) Document what occurred, how you felt, and, if possible, why you felt that way. Set aside time to review your notes, and add to them as needed. Similar to many study techniques, such a detailed and active retrospective process will help you find more insights into cause and effect. Your reflection will have focus, outcomes, and the best possibility of success.

Link to Learning

This TED Talk on creatives by Adam Grant presents some of the concepts of this chapter, framed around Dr. Grant’s research as a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, on creatives. His book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World , shares more of his findings.

Are there biases and habits that hold you back from being a creative, as defined in this chapter and by Dr. Grant? If so, what methods can you use to break through these biases and habits?

• 13 Cable Neuhaus. “The Multimedia Journal: More Than Just a Notebook.” Saturday Evening Post , 289 (6), 16. December 5, 2017.
• 14 Deborah L. Starczewski. “Encouraging Students to Think Beyond the Course Material: The Benefits of Using Reflective Journals”. Teaching Professor , 30 (8), 5. October 2016.
• 15 J. L. Nelson. Express Yourself. Scholastic Parent & Child , 19 (1), 52–54. 2011.
• 16 James R. Bailey and Scheherazade Rehman. “Don’t Underestimate the Power of Self-Reflection.” Harvard Business Review . March 2022.
• 17 James R. Bailey and Scheherazade Rehman. “Don’t Underestimate the Power of Self-Reflection.” Harvard Business Review . March 2022.
• 18 James R. Bailey and Scheherazade Rehman. “Don’t Underestimate the Power of Self-Reflection.” Harvard Business Review . March 2022.

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Reflection as a practice in Entrepreneurship Education

Reflective thinking could help our students learn more by connecting their experiences with theory and incorporate their learning into future tasks. why and how can we integrate reflective thinking into our educational activities.

By Sigrid Westad Brandshaug , PhD Student, NTNU and Håvard Engen , Assistant Professor, NTNU

Header photo: Elin Iversen / NTNU

Related exercises

Why encourage students to reflect  , reflection – a skill for learning and development .

Reflection is in our context of entrepreneurship education one of five key elements together with act, interact, challenge and embrace. It can be seen as the bridge back and forth between theory and practice and from prior experiences to future challenges. In entrepreneurship education with its use of experience-based learning, reflection is a vital part of the learning process – by reflecting on our experiences we enable and internalize learning.  

Reflection is also what helps us “close the gap” when we are dealing with a confusing or problematic situation. External disturbances and perception of uncertainty, which often is present in entrepreneurial processes, are according to Dewey (1933) major cues for reflection. In these situations, reflection is the key to help us make meaning of our experiences, help us to clarify our intentions and move forward to further experiences.  Reflection deals with our subjective and therefore personal relevant experiences. In an educational setting this implies that the students are exposed to real-life challenges in which they are engaged and motivated to invest time and effort solving. These experiences have the potential to encourage the students urge to reflect.  

Through reflective processes we reconstruct this experience; we make sense of it and create our very personal understanding of an experience. Reflection therefore is a relational activity that helps us with recreating the world. Reflection and experience are closely intertwined, as any insight into our own thinking, feeling and acting also involves certain changes with respect to how we experience a (future) situation. Knipfer, Kump, Wessel, & Cress (2013)

The benefit of group reflection 

Reflection as a collaborative activity has major benefits. Firstly, it triggers us to make tacit knowledge explicit and facilitates individual reflection by challenging one’s own understanding and interpretations of an experience. Secondly, it fosters sharing of individual experience and promotes joint sense-making on shared work practice. Hence, collaborative reflection both acts as a catalyst for individual reflection and enables sharing of knowledge and construction of new knowledge on a group level (Knipfer et al., 2013)

…But what is reflection, really?  

Reflection is often referred to as a conscious cognitive process of thinking over a situation, person, problem or question. Boud, Keogh, and Walker (2013) also include the affective activities in their definition, by saying:  ‘Reflection in the context of learning is a generic term for those intellectual and affective activities in which individuals engage to explore their experiences in order to lead to new understandings and appreciations’  (p.19).

Towards a common understanding   For most of us, reflection is an activity we do on an everyday basis without labelling it “reflection”. However, in an educational context, many students find reflection a troubling and difficult concept to grasp. (Meyer & Land, 2005) Therefore, many students question how to reflect and what the difference is between a reflection and a description of an experience. The diversity among the students when it comes to for instance family background, learning style and chosen discipline in higher education can influence the pre-understanding of the concept. Still, a common understanding of reflection among those involved is often taken for granted. Since this is not the case, we believe that the concept should be explored explicitly to enhance clarity and unity on two levels: within the teaching team and within the student groups.

How?  

Since reflection may be a troublesome concept and may be given less value than the actual problem-solving activities, the support, scaffolding, and facilitation we provide as educators are crucial. Below, we have described four aspects of reflection worth to consider when introducing reflection as a learning activity:  

1. What to reflect  on ? 

The learning objectives of the program, course or workshop will help you to find the themes that is central for reflection. What are the main goals for student learning? Reflection can help the students to  look back   at experiences either individually or in a group . In this case, the themes to reflect upon may be related to the activity the students just went through, for instance by focusing on the content, the problem-solving process, the entrepreneurial process or the cooperation if the activity is a group task. Reflection can also be used to  investigate possibilities and challenges   ahead , through asking question related to a) a problem they are working on (e.g. “What alternatives can you find that may help to solve the problem?”).

2. The art of asking open-ended questions  

The ‘secret’ of facilitating reflection is to ask open-ended questions, in which you do not know the answer. Simply because there is not one right answer, but many possible ways to perceive the situation or object of reflection. This may sound easy, but surprisingly many of us fall into the trap of asking questions from a role of being an ‘expert’, searching for right and wrong answers. If we want to stimulate reflection, we have to put the expert role aside and our curiosity in front (Schein, 2013). Therefore, we must try our best to formulate questions that may have multiple answers and that will engage the students in exploring  their  experiences based on their own curiosity and motivation to learn, and not to satisfy us as educators. Some tips are: Start the questions with ‘What’ or ‘How’ (or ‘when’ and ‘who’ if relevant).  Try to avoid asking ‘why’, at least in the beginning, because this often makes us narrow down our thinking in trying to find one answer or a ‘good explanation’, but what we want is our students to open up and look at an experience and explore it from different perspectives.  

3. A safe environment to reflect  

In contrast to sharing factual knowledge, sharing our reflections is something personal, that can make us feel vulnerable. Some people are comfortable with introspection and sharing these thoughts, but for others this is very challenging. Therefore, it is crucial to create a safe environment that enable the students to “think aloud”. This may take time, but for a start, it is important to emphasize that there are no right and wrong answers, and that you as an educator see reflection as a means to learn something new about yourself and the content of the course. We will learn much more if we support each other! One way to do this in practice is to start with individual reflections, then ask the students to share what they are comfortable with in a small group, preferably with people they know. Eventually you can ask some questions in plenary that potentially open up those who wants to share with the whole class. Remember to be curios, humble and grateful for those who chose to share.

4. Practice makes perfect!   

There are opportunities for learning through reflection from all our experiences – trivial or complex. We would encourage you as educators to find allocated time for reflection after, or possibly also before and during, all learning activities where the students have been exposed to problem solving activities individually or as a group. If reflection is done at a regular basis as part of the learning activities, this will help the students to develop reflection itself as an integrated skill. Therefore, we argue that 10 minutes at the end of a learning activity is much better than one day at the end of the semester. As all other skills, reflection is a skill that can be learned and further developed, – and practice makes perfect!   However, time is always a limited resource be it during learning activities or in working life.  Although time for learning and development through reflection may sound like a good investment, students may lack motivation to reflect if they have not experienced that the time invested will pay back later. This may be particularly challenging in action-oriented courses if the students experience reflection as a sudden break in their workflow. Hence, the educators need to think through when to introduce reflection activities. Anyhow, reflection must be integrated in the time schedule of the course within the time of the course to ensure it is given the needed priority timewise. The students will probably not initiate this by themselves! Reflection can be done both “in and on action”, but to put an explicit focus on it from the start, giving time to reflect through structured exercises is recommended. Below you will find two examples of structures for reflection on action.

Learning the method, not only learning from the method  

No matter how much we prioritise the possibilities for our students to learn through experience and reflection, the skill level they can achieve is somehow limited due to limited time and the “not totally real life”-context they operate within. However, if we can give them both a deep understanding of skills, knowledge and general competence and rewarding experiences with deliberately reflecting on both previous experiences and scenarios to come, they can keep learning and developing skills and mindset in a lifelong perspective as professionals. Entrepreneurs often operate in a market where uncertainty and rapid change are trademarks. Through reflection to be able to use previous experiences to develop the team performance as well as the actual product or service provided from the company, are important both at the individual-, team- and organisational level to enable learning and success.

Boud, D., Keogh, R., & Walker, D. (2013). Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning : Routledge Ltd.

Dewey, J. (1933). How we think : a restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process . Boston: D.C. Heath and Company.

Knipfer, K., Kump, B., Wessel, D., & Cress, U. (2013). Reflection as a catalyst for organisational learning. Studies in continuing education, 35 (1), 30-48. doi:10.1080/0158037x.2012.683780

Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher education, 49 (3), 373-388. doi:10.1007/s10734-004-6779-5

Schein, E. H. (2013). Humble inquiry : the gentle art of asking inst- ead of telling . San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Business Ethics: Reflective Essay

The concept of ethics is very essential in the development of operational strategies in any business organization. Various decision-making procedures right from the time of recruitment of employees, defining the goals and objectives of the organization, designing the appropriate organizational structure, developing the organizational strategies, and integration of the strategies in the business operations all require ethical consideration.

This course on business ethics has endowed us with the ability to make ethical judgments when handling issues that often arise at different workplaces.

It touched on different issues that are encountered at workplace like discrimination based gender, harassment at work, alcohol and drug testing on the new employees in an organization, business and individual privacy, and the impacts that the operations of the organization has on the environment. However, ethics in business remains to have various controversies (Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, 2009, p.5).

Module 1 of the course had some of the most striking concepts encountered in the contemporary business world. The module comprised ethical consideration relating to privacy in business. Privacy has been regarded as a legal right of an individual for a long time (Frye, 2001, p.32). The current market is competitive and business organizations are striving to acquire or maintain a higher market position.

This is often achieved through the kind of relationship that the business organizations develop with the stakeholders especially the clients of the organization. A good privacy statement by a given business organization will strengthen the kind of trust that the clients have in the organization thereby retaining such clients (Zahorsky, 2011, para.7). Utilitarianism, one of the ethical principles, is illustrated in this module.

The principle asserts that an ethical act is that which yields the greatest amount of good for the majority in a given setting (Kay, 1997, para.1). The concept of utilitarianism is often difficult to comprehend in the normal context as the kind of the “goodness” it requires may not be defined explicitly. The other party may regard what seems good to one party as bad. However, in this context, it was very clear that establishing a private policy that protects the information on consumers was of benefit both to the organization and to the clients.

A good privacy statement will explain to the clients why the information concerning them is needed by the organization, how the information will be used in the organization, the individuals who will be allowed access to such information, and how the information will be protected from unauthorized users (Zahorsky, 2011, para.8).

It also needs to provide the clients with an option to decline to provide such information. Instantly, the need of modern technology is evident in ensuring privacy in business. Technology has been seen to improve privacy although a lot of care needs to be taken to bar the irresponsible users from mismanaging the systems.

The second module focused on ethical considerations on cases of discrimination witnessed at workplaces. This was also interesting as it focused on how ethics can help avoid cases of discrimination witnessed at workplace.

The third module presented what I viewed as some of the challenges that may be experienced when applying ethics in business operations. This module also focused on the kinds of discrimination at workplace and the best approach to avoid them. It emerges that certain situations will call for discrimination. A typical organization in a competitive market would always want to have good reputation among a wide category of individuals.

A good approach would be to ensure that different individuals are included in the workforce by considering different categories: gender, age, race, disability, or language group. Situations often arise when a role is available that may not be performed by an employee randomly selected from these category. In deed, there are circumstances that require one to acknowledge the differences like gender, race, and even disability (Hunter, 1992, p.6).

For instance, in the event that the available job requires lifting of heavy loads like large parcels, it may not convenient to hire an employee with physical disability or a female employee. The organization will be forced to discriminate based on these factors. Other situations may call for discrimination based on the language group in order to improve on the delivery of services to the clients. This area generated many discussions and gave me much trouble as these could be seen as violation of the rights of these minority categories.

Ferrell, O., Fraedrich, J. and Ferrell, L. (2009). Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases. Seventh edition. South-Western: Cengage Learning.

Frye, C. (2001). Privacy-enhanced business: adapting to the online environment. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Hunter, R. (1992). Indirect discrimination the workplace. Sydney: Federation Press.

Kay, C. (1997). Notes on utilitarianism. Retrieved from http://sites.wofford.edu/kaycd/utilitarianism/

Zahorsky, D. (2011). Is your small business privacy friendly? Web.

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Reflections: Small Businesses

• Loretta J. Mester

The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve System or my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee.

Small businesses and entrepreneurship play important roles in the U.S. economy

An enviable aspect of the U.S. economy around the globe is our spirit of innovation, entrepreneurship, ease of business entry and exit, and labor market flexibility. These are key attributes of a dynamic economy, one that offers opportunities for people to live good and productive lives. Entrepreneurship – setting up and running one’s own business – has always been part of the narrative of the American dream, an avenue to creating and growing wealth, contributing to the community, and leaving a legacy for one’s family.

But beyond their benefits to individual business owners, small and new businesses play an important role in the health of the overall economy. The vast majority of firms in the U.S. are small businesses, with 500 or fewer employees. Three-quarters of U.S businesses have fewer than 10 employees. While it is true that large and mature businesses employ the most people, about 10 percent of private-sector jobs in the U.S. are at firms with fewer than 10 employees, a quarter of the jobs are at firms with fewer than 50 employees, and about half of the jobs are at firms with fewer than 500 employees. 1

The start-up rate of new businesses has trended down until very recently

New firms play a particularly important role in our dynamic economy. In fact, young firms disproportionately contribute to both overall job creation and job destruction in the U.S. 2  Dynamism has contributed to economic growth and well-being in the U.S. More dynamic economies allow resources to be reallocated from less-productive to more-productive businesses and provide workers with more opportunities for career advancement. This results in higher productivity growth and rising incomes.

Before the pandemic, a cause for concern about our economy was that the start-up rate of new businesses had been declining at least since 2000, and key innovative sectors like high-tech had seen a sharp slowing in the rate of start-ups. 3  While there was some recovery after the Great Recession of 2007-2009, the pace continued to be slow during the long expansion following that downturn. This slow pace of start-ups and more general decline in business and labor market dynamism likely contributed to the slowdown in productivity growth of the American economy. 4  Indeed, by some estimates, if the pace of job reallocation had remained the same as in the 1980s, total factor productivity growth in the U.S. would have been a third higher. 5  Some research also argues that the lower start-up rate has contributed to the so-called jobless recoveries seen in recent business cycles. 6

The onset of the pandemic hit many small businesses very hard. From February to April 2020, the number of active small business owners dropped by 3.3 million, a record 22 percent decline. 7  Compared to small firms overall, Black-owned businesses were about twice as likely to close and Hispanic-owned businesses were about one-and-a-half times as likely to close. Government support, including funding through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, helped to keep many small businesses afloat, even as they continued to face challenges. New business registrations over this time fell more rapidly than those during the 2008 financial crisis and in the aftermath of 9/11.

But surprisingly, starting in May 2020, there has been a significant increase in new business registrations. Applications for Employer Identification Numbers (EIN) at the IRS, a good predictor of start-up activity, rose to record numbers in the summer of 2020, and were up about 20 percent in 2020 compared to 2019, with CARES Act funding being a significant driver of a strong pickup in business registrations in predominantly Black neighborhoods. 8  The increase in business formation has resulted in the share of private-sector employment accounted for by the smallest firms now being a bit higher than it was pre-pandemic. 9  Some of these new businesses were likely established out of necessity by people who had lost their jobs during the pandemic or by people who felt challenged in their workplace. Others were likely formed by people who saw and took advantage of an opportunity. In fact, even before the pandemic, when entrepreneurs were asked what motivated them to start a new business, they offered a variety of reasons. For example, the Black women entrepreneurs interviewed by the Kansas City Fed often cited positive factors like passion for the industry, the emergence of a business opportunity, and the ability to serve the community, but some also mentioned negative factors like not feeling valued at their workplace or a general dissatisfaction with their current employer. 10  It is not clear at this point how many of these new businesses will prosper, nor how many jobs they will create, since much of the surge in applications is for firms that do not employ any workers other than the owner. 11  At the same time, it is good to remember that many successful companies were started during recessions, including Microsoft, Trader Joe’s, and Walt Disney Co. 12

Access to credit is a key ingredient for starting and growing a successful small business, but gender, racial, and regional disparities exist in the availability of credit

Small businesses play a key role in promoting a healthy, dynamic, and innovative economy that benefits individuals and communities, and access to financial capital is a key ingredient for starting and growing a successful business. However, there are racial, gender, and regional disparities in the availability of credit. The Federal Reserve Banks’ Small Business Credit Survey documents some of this disparity. Launched in 2010 by the New York Fed, the survey provides information on small business credit performance, financing needs and choices, and borrowing experiences. The Cleveland Fed now leads this survey effort, which has been a collaboration among all 12 Reserve Banks since 2016. 13

Between September and November 2021, more than 17,000 businesses participated in the survey. 14  The findings indicate that small businesses with employees fared better in 2021 than in 2020 but the revenues and employment levels of many small businesses have not recovered to their pre-pandemic levels. The survey also indicates that some troubling trends have continued. Businesses owned by people of color were particularly hard hit by the pandemic, and they were less likely to have their funding needs satisfied by the pandemic relief programs. This continued long-standing difficulties that such businesses have had in accessing financial capital to support and grow their businesses, and other well-documented barriers to entrepreneurship faced by minority-owned firms. 15

The 2016 Fed survey indicated that compared to small firms with white ownership, those with Black ownership were about half as likely to have obtained financing from a bank in the past five years, relying more on online lenders. 16  Analysis of the 2018 survey data suggests that even controlling for firms’ creditworthiness, Black-owned firms were less likely than white-owned firms to be approved for financing, especially at banks. 17  Financial shortfalls during the pandemic were more common among Black-owned firms than white-owned firms. 18  A recent study, co-authored by a Cleveland Fed researcher, used data from new questions on credit access that were added to the Census Bureau’s 2021 Annual Business Survey. This study finds that minority-owned businesses were as likely to have applied for credit in 2020 as white-owned businesses, but less likely to have received all the credit they sought. 19  Cleveland Fed researchers have also found that during the pandemic, compared to small businesses owned by men, those owned by women faced more operational and financial challenges and were less likely to receive financing. 20  These disparities partly reflect other gender differences; in particular, the women-owned businesses tend to be newer and smaller; they are more often led by people of color and more often they do not have workers other than the owner. But even among firms with strong credit scores, women-owned firms were more likely to be denied credit than men-owned firms. Small businesses in low-income areas, including rural communities, have also faced greater challenges in attracting financing, partly due to the lack of banking services in these areas. 21  One study found that, adjusted for inflation, the value of small loans to rural businesses declined by more than half between 2004 and 2017. 22

This disparate treatment has several consequences. Because minority-owned firms have historically had less access to credit, they have tended to start their businesses with less initial capital, more personal debt, and on a smaller scale, making it harder to grow and become profitable. 23  This hurts the individual business owners because owning a business is an avenue to greater wealth. Indeed, one study found that the wealth gap between Black and white business owners is about a quarter of what it is for households overall. 24  The disparity also makes it harder for communities with larger minority populations to gain the economic development benefits from entrepreneurship.

During the pandemic, the lack of a banking relationship made it harder for some small businesses to get their financing needs met through the PPP. 25  When the program first launched, applications for PPP financing could only be submitted through lenders that had previously been approved as SBA lenders, and these institutions were mainly banks. Black-owned small businesses are more likely to use community development financial institutions, credit unions, and nonbank online lenders, and many of these institutions were not certified as SBA lenders. Similarly, women-owned businesses and those located in rural areas often turn to alternative sources of financing rather than banks.

Small businesses at which the owner is the only paid employee, which make up about 81 percent of U.S. businesses, many of them owned by women, also had a particularly hard time taking advantage of pandemic programs. 26  Many reported that they were unaware of the range of programs and uncertain about the eligibility requirements. In light of this, the Federal Reserve Banks hosted webinars with small businesses and intermediaries to raise collective understanding of the programs and to better understand the challenges associated with accessing them. Community-based organizations, including Neighborhood Allies in Pittsburgh, PA, and MidTown Cleveland, in Cleveland, OH, engaged in outreach with small businesses, helping them navigate the relief programs. 27  Community outreach proved to have an important impact, informing changes to the second round of PPP funding that made it more available through nonbank lenders and to small businesses without payroll costs. 28

It might seem like it shouldn’t matter where a small business obtains its financing, but respondents to the Fed’s survey who use online lenders for funding continue to report that these lenders have provided less satisfactory service. According to the 2022 report on the Fed survey, 77 percent of small business respondents reported having challenges with an online lender, while 49 percent reported having challenges with a small bank. Compared to their experiences with banks, a smaller share of respondents reported long wait times for credit decisions from online lenders as an issue, but a considerably larger share reported problems with high interest rates and unfavorable loan repayment terms. 29

Making credit more accessible

While the PPP was an important source of funding for distressed small businesses during the pandemic, we have learned that funding is not enough. Firms also need to know what types of funding are available, what the eligibility requirements are, and how to go about applying for it. In other words, the funding needs to be accessible. This takes coordination among government entities, community development organizations, lenders, and the small businesses themselves. And this coordination is happening. Government programs now being established to encourage small business development are incorporating education and technical assistance for the firms seeking funding. For example, as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the federal government has provided a combined $10 billion to states to fund the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI). The program is intended to increase access to credit for small businesses by offering financing and technical assistance to firms seeking government funding. The state of Ohio also recently launched two new loan programs to support small business formation. The Women’s Business Enterprise loan program is intended to support the growth of existing women-owned businesses by providing loans at or below the market rate of interest, and the  Ohio Micro-Enterprise Loan Program  is intended to encourage the growth of new and existing businesses by providing micro-loans at zero percent interest.

Based on the small business credit survey results, lenders have an opportunity to reexamine their business practices, change those that are found to be sources of disparities, and improve their transparency so that potential customers can make more informed choices about credit products for their businesses. A study co-authored by a Cleveland Fed researcher found that the information provided on online lenders’ websites differs across lenders and lacks detail, making it difficult for borrowers to compare terms. 30  Industry trade groups are now working to increase the standardization of disclosures to help potential customers compare products across online lenders and banks; several states have passed legislation to require standardized disclosures; and last November, bills were introduced in the U.S. House and Senate to apply the Truth in Lending Act to small business financing.

Policymakers are also working to strengthen policies meant to address inequities in credit access. The Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) are currently working together to strengthen and modernize the regulations that implement the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The act was passed in 1977 to help address concerns about disinvestment in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and the impact of illegal practices such as redlining. The CRA reaffirmed that insured depository institutions must serve the communities in which they are chartered to do business and evidence shows that the CRA has provided tangible benefits to low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. 31  With the many changes in banking since the 1970s, federal banking regulators are considering how best to assess CRA compliance and provide clarity on what activities are eligible for CRA credit. A notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) is expected to be released soon. 32

The Cleveland Fed will continue to do its part, by providing data through the Small Business Credit Survey and distributing our analyses of credit conditions in our region and in the nation. We will continue to engage with small businesses and community development organizations to inform ourselves about the challenges small businesses and start-ups are facing, and also to provide information on how to access the sources of available funding. Our biennial Policy Summit brings together researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to address the issues important to community development, including equitable access to credit and entrepreneurship. I invite anyone interested in learning more about our efforts to visit our web pages at  https://www.clevelandfed.org/community-development .

• Data from Supplemental Tables F and G of the National Business Employment Dynamics Data , U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that as of 2021Q1, about 76 percent of U.S. firms had fewer than 10 employees, about 95 percent had fewer than 50 employees, and over 99 percent had fewer than 500 employees. Firms with fewer than 10 employees accounted for about 13 million jobs, or 11 percent of private-sector jobs; firms with fewer than 50 employees accounted for 33 million jobs, or 28 percent of private-sector jobs; and firms with fewer than 500 employees accounted for 63 million jobs, or 52 percent of private-sector jobs. Return to 1
• See Haltiwanger, Jarmin, and Miranda (2013). Return to 2
• Haltiwanger (2015). Return to 3
• Haltiwanger (2015), p. 9. Return to 4
• Decker, et al. (2020). Return to 5
• Pugsley and Şahin (2019). Return to 6
• See Fairlie (2020). Researchers at the New York Fed point to a number of contributing factors, including these firms’ weaker financial cushions, weaker bank relationships, and funding gaps that existed prior to the pandemic, plus less access to federal relief funds. See Mills and Battisto (2020). Return to 7
• Fazio, et al. (2021) and Sablik (2021). Return to 8
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Business Employment Dynamics Data. Return to 9
• Gines (2018). Return to 10
• Dinlersoz, et al. (2021). Return to 11
• Sablik (2021). Return to 12
• The survey’s web page at www.fedsmallbusiness.org provides background on the survey, survey data, and analyses using the data. Return to 13
• The 2021 Small Business Credit Survey gathered responses from 17,750 small business owners, including 10,916 firms with 1 to 499 employees (“employer firms”) and 6,834 firms with no employees other than the owner. See Federal Reserve Banks (2022). Return to 14
• See Chatterji and Seamans (2012) and Bates (2011). Return to 15
• See De Zeeuw and Barkley (2019) and Federal Reserve Banks (2017). Return to 16
• The survey data indicate that compared to white-owned firms with similar profitability, credit risk, and other factors, Black-owned firms that applied for financing were 7 percent less likely to obtain credit overall, 20 percent less likely to have received financing from large banks, and 17 less likely to have received financing from small banks. See De Zeeuw and Barkley (2019), p. 16 and Figure 1. Return to 17
• Federal Reserve Banks (2021), pp. 26-28. Return to 18
• Meyer and Schweitzer (2022). Return to 19
• Wiersch and Misera (2021). Return to 20
• Mills, Battisto, and Lieberman (2019). Return to 21
• Belson (2020). Return to 22
• Fazio, et al. (2021). Return to 23
• See De Zeeuw and Barkley (2019). Return to 24
• Federal Reserve Banks (2021). Return to 25
• Pacetti and Thompson (2021). Return to 26
• Pacetti and Thompson (2021). Return to 27
• Pacetti and Thompson (2021). Return to 28
• Federal Reserve Banks (2022), p. 23. Return to 29
• Lipman and Wiersch (2019). Return to 30
• Mester (2018). Return to 31
• The Board of Governors issued its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) to strengthen, clarify, and tailor the CRA regulation, and other materials summarizing the ANPR on September 21, 2020. All three agencies submitted a March 2022 target in the OMB regulatory unified agenda for issuing an interagency NPR. See Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (September 21, 2020); Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (July 20, 2021); Office of Management and Budget (Fall 2021); and Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, CRA Proposed Rulemaking web page. Return to 32
• Bates, Timothy, “Minority Entrepreneurship,”  Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship  7 (October 2011), pp. 151-311. ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/0300000036 )
• Belson, Neil A., “Promoting Rural Entrepreneurship and Rural Economic Development,” Third Way, January 7, 2020. ( https://www.thirdway.org/report/promoting-rural-entrepreneurship-and-rural-economic-development )
• Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, “Federal Reserve Board Issues Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on an Approach to Modernize Regulations That Implement the Community Reinvestment Act,” September 21, 2020. ( https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/bcreg20200921a.htm )
• Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, “Interagency Statement on Community Reinvestment Act Joint Agency Action,” July 20, 2021. ( https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/bcreg20210720a.htm )
• Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, CRA Proposed Rulemaking web page. ( https://www.federalreserve.gov/consumerscommunities/community-reinvestment-act-proposed-rulemaking.htm )
• Chatterji, Aaron K., and Robert C. Seamans, “Entrepreneurial Finance, Credit Cards, and Race,”  Journal of Financial Economics  106, 2012, pp. 182-195. ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2012.04.007 )
• Decker, Ryan A., John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, and Javier Miranda, “Changing Business Dynamism and Productivity: Shocks versus Responsiveness,”  American Economic Review  110 (2020), pp. 3952-3990. ( https://doi.org/10.1257/aer20190680 )
• De Zeeuw, Mels, and Brett Barkley, “Mind the Gap: Minority-Owned Small Businesses’ Financing Experiences in 2018,” in  Consumer and Community Context  1(2) (November 2019), pp. 13-21. ( https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2019-november-consumer-community-context.htm )
• Dinlersoz, Emin, Timothy Dunne, John Haltiwanger, and Veronika Penciakova, “Business Formation: A Tale of Two Recessions,”  AEA Papers and Proceedings  111 (May 2021), pp. 253-257. ( https://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.20211055 )
• Fairlie, Robert W., “The Impact of Covid-19 on Small Business Owners: Evidence of Early-Stage Losses from the April 2020 Current Population Survey,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 27309, June 2020. ( https://www.nber.org/papers/w27309 )
• Fazio, Catherine E., Jorge Guzman, Yupeng Liu, and Scott Stern, “How is COVID Changing the Geography of Entrepreneurship? Evidence from the Startup Cartography Project,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 28787, May 2021. ( http://www.nber.org/papers/w28787 )
• Federal Reserve Banks Small Business Credit Survey web pages. ( www.fedsmallbusiness.org )
• Federal Reserve Banks, “Federal Reserve Small Business Credit Survey: 2022 Report on Employer Firms,” February 22, 2022. ( https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/medialibrary/FedSmallBusiness/files/2021/2022-sbcs-employer-firms-report )
• Federal Reserve Banks, “Small Business Credit Survey: 2021 Report on Firms Owned by People of Color,” April 15, 2021. ( https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/medialibrary/FedSmallBusiness/files/2021/sbcs-report-on-firms-owned-by-people-of-color )
• Federal Reserve Banks, “2016 Small Business Credit Survey: Report on Minority-Owned Firms,” November 9, 2017. ( https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/survey/2017/report-on-minority-owned-firms )
• Gines, Dell, “Black Women Business Startups,” Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, August 2018. ( https://www.kansascityfed.org/community/economic-and-small-business-development/black-women-business-startups/ )
• Haltiwanger, John, “Top Ten Signs of Declining Business Dynamism and Entrepreneurship in the U.S.,” paper written for the Kauffman Foundation New Entrepreneurial Growth Conference, August 2015. ( http://econweb.umd.edu/~haltiwan/haltiwanger_kauffman_conference_august_1_2015.pdf )
• Haltiwanger, John, Ron S. Jarmin, and Javier Miranda, “ Who Creates Jobs? Small Versus Large Versus Young ,”  Review of Economics and Statistics  95 (May 2013), pp. 347-361. ( https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article/95/2/347/58100/Who-Creates-Jobs-Small-versus-Large-versus-Young )
• Lipman, Barbara J., and Ann Marie Wiersch, “Searching for Small Business Credit Online: What Prospective Borrowers Encounter on Fintech Lender Websites,” in  Consumer and Community Context , 1(2) (November 2019), pp. 3-12. ( https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2019-november-consumer-community-context.htm )
• Mester, Loretta J. “Community Banking and the Community Reinvestment Act,” opening keynote address at the Community Banking in the 21 st  Century Research and Policy Conference, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, October 3, 2018. ( https://www.clevelandfed.org/en/newsroom-and-events/speeches/sp-20181003-community-banking-and-the-community-reinvestment-act.aspx )
• Meyer, Brent H., and Mark E. Schweitzer, “Access to Credit for Small and Minority-Owned Businesses,”  Economic Commentary , Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, March 22, 2022. ( https://www.clevelandfed.org/en/newsroom-and-events/publications/economic-commentary/2022-economic-commentaries/ec-202204-access-to-credit-for-small-and-minority-owned-businesses.aspx )
• Mills, Claire Kramer, and Jessica Battisto, “Double Jeopardy: COVID-19’s Concentrated Health and Wealth Effects in Black Communities,” Federal Reserve Bank of New York, August 2020. ( https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/smallbusiness/DoubleJeopardy_COVID19andBlackOwnedBusinesses )
• Mills, Claire Kramer, Jessica Battisto, and Scott Lieberman, “Growing Pains: Examining Small Business Access to Affordable Credit in Low-Income Areas,” in  Consumer and Community Context , 1(2) (November 2019), pp. 22-27. ( https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2019-november-consumer-community-context.htm )
• Office of Management and Budget,  Fall 2021 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions . ( https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=202110&RIN=7100-AF94 )
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Reflections on Multinational Enterprises in a Globally Interdependent World Economy

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• Yair Aharoni  

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The importance, diversity, and scope of the operations of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the global economy have grown exponentially. In 1960, the value of worldwide sales of foreign affiliates was about one-half of world exports. By 1982, the worldwide sales of foreign affiliates totaled US$2.7 trillion, roughly comparable to worldwide exports of goods and nonfactor services of US$2.4 trillion. By 2007, worldwide affiliate sales stood at US$31 trillion, which was almost twice as much as world exports of US$17 trillion (UNCTAD 2008, 10). Two-thirds of world trade involves MNEs and their affiliates as buyers or sellers, and one-third takes place among units of the same MNE corporate system. In 1982, the ratio of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) to worldwide gross fixed capital formation was just 1%. In 1999, it had risen to approximately 14% (UNCTAD 2000, 4), and in 2007 it stood at 16.2% (UNCTAD 2008, 10). World foreign direct investment (FDI) outward stock, expressed as a percentage of world gross domestic product in current prices, increased rapidly, from 4.8% in 1982 and 10.8% in 1990, to 28.6% in 2007 (UNCTAD 2008, 10). In fact, global FDI inflows reached a historic high of $1,979 billion in 2007 (UNCTAD 2009). Amid a global financial and economic crisis, inflows declined by 14% to $1,697 billion in 2008 (UNCTAD 2009). This decline continued into 2009, with added momentum: preliminary data suggest that in the first quarter of 2009, inflows fell a further 44% compared with their level in the same period of 2008. A slow recovery is expected in 2010, gathering speed in 2011. The crisis has also changed the investment landscape, with developing and transition economies’ share in global FDI flows surging to 43% in 2008 (UNCTAD 2009).

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Karl P. Sauvant ( Founding Executive Director, Lecturer in Law, Codirector of the Millennium Cities Initiative ) ( Founding Executive Director, Lecturer in Law, Codirector of the Millennium Cities Initiative )

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Aharoni, Y. (2010). Reflections on Multinational Enterprises in a Globally Interdependent World Economy. In: Sauvant, K.P., McAllister, G., Maschek, W.A. (eds) Foreign Direct Investments from Emerging Markets. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230112025_3

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My son died 17 years ago while playing in a pool. It changed me.

• In 2007 my son Zachary drowned after his arm got stuck in the drain of the pool. 
• I had done everything I thought was needed for water safety, from swim lessons to having an adult nearby. 
• We started a foundation to help other parents learn about water safety. 

On July 28, 2007, my family's life changed forever.

It was a scorching summer afternoon at our new home. We sat around our backyard pool and closely watched as our 6-year-old son, Zachary, showed off his swimming skills while I rocked our 2-month-old daughter, Sydney, in my arms. There was no sign of the tragedy that was about to unfold.

A peaceful afternoon was shattered by screams and chaos. Zachary's arm had become entrapped by the powerful suction of the drain in the pool . While I raced to shut the power off, my husband, Brian, dove in to rescue Zachary. Tragically, no one could override the several hundreds of pounds of suction from the drain.

As parents, we thought we did everything we could to protect our child from drowning . We enrolled him in swimming classes, explained the rules of the pool, and ensured he was always supervised by an adult. Until then, we were unaware of the potential dangers below the surface. It was that summer that our family and neighbors learned of the dangers of "drain entrapment" — a term that will forever haunt us.

We started a foundation to help other parents

In the midst of our grief , my husband and I decided that we wanted to spare other families from the pain and loss we experienced on that day and every day since.

Related stories

Our promise led to the creation of The ZAC Foundation in 2008 with a vision for generational change in how water safety is viewed by parents and their children. The ZAC Foundation believes addressing the nation's drowning crisis requires a whole community approach informed by, and reflective of, the realities specific to individual communities, including the makeup of the local population and cultural attitudes toward water safety . The Foundation has provided water safety programming through its award-winning ZAC Camps to more than 20,000 children ages 5 to 9 in at-risk communities nationwide.

The past 15 years have been an education in the pervasive nature of water threats. We are reminded daily that parents' best intentions are no match for unmitigated danger and lack of preparedness. It is not just a summertime issue; water safety is essential 365 days a year. According to the CDC, fatal drowning is so commonplace that it is the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4 and the second leading cause of unintentional injury death for children 5 to 14.

Children are quick and curious, and most drownings occur when a parent is not present. This includes children accessing backyard pools that aren't properly secured, unattended hot tubs, ponds, and even pet bowls of water. Babies can drown in as little as one inch of water, making it important to install barriers to bodies of water near the home, empty buckets of water when not in use, and lock the bathroom door to avoid access to the toilet and bathtub.

There is no 'off' season for water safety

As I write this in the midst of the perceived "offseason," I urge readers to ensure homes are secured year-round, not just in the heat of summer. A checklist of water safety tips helps prevent tragedy.

First, pool drains should comply with drain safety laws, which we helped enact after Zachary's death. An unsafe drain comes in many forms, including an extremely dangerous one that's missing a cover or one with a non-compliant cover. A safe drain has a raised, often dome-shaped cover with small openings that make it hard for hair, jewelry, and other loose items to get caught. When installed properly, compliant drain covers are the most effective way to protect children from entrapment.

Second, barriers to the pool — including a four-sided fence with a locking gate — should effectively restrict children's access. Alarms on gates and doors leading to the pool area give an extra layer of protection as they provide an audible alert in addition to visuals. Finally, a secured pool cover that can withstand the weight of a child is another safety option.

In addition to physical barriers around pools, it's vital to equip families with the skills necessary for a lifetime of water safety. Enrolling children in swim lessons helps instill confidence and teaches lifesaving skills. Life jackets and personal flotation devices in water sports such as rafting, boating, and fishing are essential for everyone, even for sound swimmers, who can lose consciousness in an accident. And finally, CPR lessons for the entire family have a remarkable payoff.

If we can save even one family from heartbreak, we will have honored Zachary's life and the window of joy he brought to our lives.

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