improved self-awareness
• improved emotional regulation.
One study concluded, ‘When engaged in cognitively demanding challenges, meditation is an effective means to “de-automate” behavior. We are less likely to respond with an impulsive/habitual response.'3 Another judged, ‘Mindful meditation will make you less mentally rigid and habit prone therefore more open to change.'4 In yet another study, the researchers found, ‘In a dynamic workplace setting, mindfulness may be a better predictor of workplace performance and job turnover than traditional measures of “engagement”.'5
The equation is simple: Highly engaged organisations are more profitable and effective. The key to improving your organisation's engagement is your leadership behaviour. And mindfulness – the practical application of self-awareness – is the most effective method for recognising and improving your behaviour.
In this book you will discover simple and advanced approaches to mindfulness practice and how to apply it skilfully and consistently, specifically in a leadership context. But like anything truly worthwhile, mindfulness is not a quick fix. The research shows that even small amounts of practice help, but to reach your full potential will take more than a few minutes. It will take a deep understanding of the nuances of mindfulness practice and exactly how it applies to leadership. It is a profoundly rewarding journey though – it will challenge you to your core, in the very best way. It can set you free from the behavioural patterns that are getting in your way, some of which you may not even be aware of yet.
This book will equip you with a proven methodology for holding yourself accountable. It teaches you how to skilfully become real and honest with yourself in a way that holds nothing back. It gives you a clear understanding of how to expose your blind spots and overcome your fears and self-defeating habits.
But more importantly, throughout the process you'll learn how to treat yourself with kindness and compassion so that your new understanding is liberating and joyful, rather than simply painful. And when you learn to manage yourself with strength and kindness, you'll be empowered to use the same qualities when leading others. You'll be able to firmly hold people accountable for values and commitments in a way that builds and develops them, rather than tearing them down. You'll cultivate the skill you need to handle difficult situations with a paradoxical – and incredibly effective – combination of total honesty and genuine care. In short, you will realise your full potential as a leader.
If you want a quick fix, a simple technique to make discomfort disappear and the leadership journey easy, you will find little of value in this book. If, however, you are interested in what da Vinci refers to as the greatest mastery of all, then this book will help you achieve your full potential.
I invite you to enter this journey home to yourself, to your deepest longing for aliveness, authenticity, happiness, meaning – and leadership greatness.
Chapter 1
Be here now
The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one is [competent] if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.
I once heard the great Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh say, ‘When we are well, our wellness spills onto others. And when we are unwell, that too spills onto others. Be well.' The behaviour of leaders has an enormous impact on those they lead, and the more senior they are the greater the impact. Leadership is both a privilege and a burden. It is incumbent on leaders to be well and to lead from a centre of wellness and non-reactivity. Leaders set the tone for the whole team or organisation: when they are calm, confident, open and relaxed, the team is more likely to feel the same. Likewise, when they are stressed, fearful and closed, it breeds the same emotions among team members.
In later chapters we will cover the integrated mindful practices that support specific leadership development challenges. But before we get into the subtleties of this transformational practice, we'll start with some basics so we can build from the ground up.
I usually start mindfulness foundation training by asking leaders an open-ended question: ‘What state are you in when you are at your best as a leader?' The answers are remarkably consistent: Physically, they are relaxed, rather than tense. Mentally, they are clear and calm, as opposed to being plagued by racing, frantic thoughts of regret, doubt and worry. Emotionally, they feel openhearted and courageous, as opposed to closed, hardened or fearful. Of course, this state is vital not only for great leadership but in all areas of our lives. Interestingly, most leaders agree that this state is in fact what we yearn for the most. It's the promise behind all our goals and longings.
So how can we deliberately cultivate healthy physical, emotional and mental states and become the captain of our own ship in this respect? How can we manage our internal world regardless of what is happening in our external world? Being dependent on external conditions for our inner wellbeing creates a constant underlying angst because we have little, if any, control over our external world. We can influence it, but we can't control it.
Mindful leadership means deliberately cultivating a state of wellness and being a beacon of goodness, responsiveness and clarity, even in the toughest circumstances.
Absentmindedness: the opposite of mindfulness
The first step toward managing anything is to be aware of what it is we're trying to manage. Try tidying up a room in the dark: it's obvious we cannot manage what we cannot see clearly and objectively. In the case of mindful leadership, we're trying to manage our state: our body, mind and heart, and by extension our words, actions, behaviours and habits. Using the previous analogy, what keeps the room ‘dark' is absentmindedness.
Most of us spend a substantial amount of time lost in thoughts about the future and the past. The science is clear that this habit is damaging for our health and wellbeing – particularly ongoing negative thinking (‘I should have said … ', ‘Why did I forget that?', ‘I hope my investments are going to be okay'). As one study concluded, ‘[A] human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.'6
Absentmindedness, defined as being inattentive or distracted or zoning out, undermines our awareness and keeps us ‘in the dark'. Put simply, we cannot be self-aware or truly aware of others when we are distracted by our thinking (mentally preparing our answer while someone is speaking to us, for example, or rehashing meetings or interactions in our mind). Over the years of teaching mindfulness to thousands of leaders I have invited them to put what they have learned to the test in their own context. Invariably they have found that awareness and absentmindedness are mutually exclusive, but their greatest shock is realising how much of their lives is spent in an absentminded state.
During an interview, neuropsychologist and bestselling author Dr Rick Hanson told me that being consistently lost in thought is one of the most damaging things we can do for our mental and emotional wellbeing and our brain health. Most of our thinking typically defaults to negative patterns – in part based on our collective biological history.
As Rick explained, the brain's negativity bias evolved because our ancestors lived when lethal dangers were real and ever present. In a world where the ‘carrots' were sex, shelter and food and the ‘sticks' were snakes, lions and injuries (which generally meant death), it paid to focus on the
Wenk-Sormaz, H. (2005). Meditation can reduce habitual responding.
Greenberg, J., Reiner, K., & Meiran, N. (2012). ‘Mind the Trap': Mindfulness practice reduces cognitive rigidity.
Dane, E., & Brummel, B. J. (2014). Examining workplace mindfulness and its relations to job performance and turnover intention.
Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010, November 12). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.
