All Aboard The Mindfulness Train
Today mindfulness is the new leadership buzzword. In fact the idea of mindfulness in business is so trendy the Economist sees, “selling mindfulness as a business in its own right”. And that means courses, and training programmes all designed to add mindfulness to the executive toolbox.
But what does it mean, and is there really a place for mindfulness in business?
What Is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness comes from Eastern meditation traditions. To be mindful is to be fully aware of what’s happening now. It’s about noticing what’s going on in the world right now without any judgement and with full acceptance.
Sound easy? Put your device down for one minute and try it. And it’s about that difficult for us all.
What’s It Got To Do With Business?
The world is fast paced. Not all the time but a lot of the time. Meetings, decisions and staff to take care of all take time. Maybe your direct reports do a good job but some are hard to deal with. And then there’s the day job. During all of that leaders need to lead. To embody our company values; to treat people fairly, to make the right choices; and to make the best decisions for our organization.
At the best of times it’s a juggling act. And most of the time it feels like it takes all we’ve got just to keep the balls in the air.
But what if that pace didn’t cause stress? What if in the midst of all that it were possible to feel calm and focused? What if we could hear everything that needs to be heard, to make decisions that felt considered and not rushed?
What would that do for our effectiveness? And, because our direct reports follow our lead, what would it do for the way our staff interacted with each other?
Enter Mindfulness
The answer to those questions is the reason mindfulness has become popular. Because mindfulness is more than stress reduction, and it’s more than having time to make good decisions. Mindfulness in leadership offers us something else as leaders. And it’s this: the chance to be an authentic leader.
A Leadership Mindset
Because what mindfulness can do if practiced long enough is help us grow a leadership mindset. And what that does is help us to be more honest, more thoughtful and more courageous. And that makes us a more effective leader.
That doesn’t happen in a course or a workshop. It comes with effort and practice over time. In the business world it can come by applying a leadership mindset to the tough business challenges we face: everything from strategy development, to change management, to team development.
And a leadership mindset matters because despite everything you may have heard and read, leadership isn’t a skill, it’s a combination of skills deployed with insight and self awareness. And that begins with mindfulness.
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