Mindful Leadership
When Steve Jobs passed, funeral attendees received a small box. Inside was Autobiography of a Yogi, a book focused on yoga, meditation and the practice of mindfulness.
More and more business leaders are turning to mindfulness techniques in the workplace to increase decision making capabilities, build resiliency and improve intuition. Universities are also offering courses on this subject, including our local university, UCSD.
Mindfulness starts with self-awareness.
When you think about the virtues of good leaders, mindfulness may not stand out at first. That is because this solitary practice is about connecting to a deep understanding of yourself first, before you can translate it to interacting with others.
When leaders take the time to connect with themselves, research by Harvard indicates they fine tune one of the most important aspects of leadership – self-awareness. Self-awareness has been found to be one of the biggest drives in the development of highly successful leaders.
Self-awareness helps leaders hone their ability to identify their true thoughts and feelings at any given moment. This allows them to clarify and process the ever-changing world around them while staying focused on the task at hand. With a calm mind, they are better able to tap into their intuition, their “gut instinct”. The practice of mindfulness allows one to take notice of what is happening in the mind-body during stressful times. The first step is to recognize the internal cues and sensations that your body is telling you right now. Take a moment to acknowledge how you physically feel right now as well as your next emotional flood. Over time this practice can help you feel more in touch with these aspects of existence which in turn helps elicit responses that serve everyone best.
Being mindful makes you a better leader.
Mindfulness is an important activity for those who seek to lead powerfully and effectively. By examining internal experiences, such as the way you begin to feel when a colleague takes a contrarian position to yours in a critical meeting, leaders can begin to understand why they are behaving in the manner they have. Just as important, this examination can help embrace the possibility of change, such as pausing to breathe and reflect before responding. These changes could be an important key for leaders to show up intentionally.
Effective leadership focuses on the followers. Very little in this world is one-size-fits-all. Each person that leaders manage have a different personality, capacity, and needs. Leadership needs to be mindful enough to offer variations that suit individuals to ensure talents are leveraged properly.
Leading change by practicing mindfulness.
By walking the talk, deliberately choosing to be present, mindful leadership can in fact change organizations for the better one person at a time. Changing can be as simple as taking a deep breath and a pause for reflection. By controlling our breath we can change our thoughts. And by changing our thoughts, we can change our feelings. And by changing our feelings, we can change our actions. It all starts with the breath, an important tool in the journey of mindfulness.
If you are interested in reading more on mindful leadership in the workplace, Positive Psychology takes a deep dive into this topic.
Written by:
CHRIS DEAN
Chris is a seasoned IT professional, business leader, and student of life working to equip leaders with the knowledge and techniques of operational and managerial excellence. His personal interests tend to revolve around music and travel.