Why Mindfulness Is The Key To Taking Leadership From Theory Into Practice
Cultivating adaptable, vulnerable and inspiring leaders is a top priority for companies across every industry. This effort has not only proven to increase productivity, retention and morale, but also prepare companies and teams to face change with tranquility and focus.
While investments in traditional leadership training and professional development are a great resource, mindfulness studies and awareness practices might be the key to moving them from theory into practice.
One of the benefits of working at a large corporation is getting access to a plethora of training and corporate education programs made available to employees with lateral learning interest and curiosity for professional advancement. Online curriculums offer anything from writing JavaScript, to dealing with emergencies and evacuations.
Specially in recent years, the startup revolution has led established organizations to invest in refreshing their workforce to learn, among others, new ways to develop and launch products (i.e. agile) manage and lead teams (i.e. OKRs) and essentially self-actualize to compete with nimbler competitors and more progressive work cultures.
This year, I was selected to participate in a leadership training program for high-performing managers. A six month journey would take a cohort of students throughout the country to learn and practice key management lessons, and hear tips from accomplished director-level associates with strong leadership careers. The curriculum would focus equally on personal development practices such as radical candor and servant leadership, as well as tactical skills such as decision making under stress, and managing conflict.
A few weeks into the program, while reviewing my notes from the first sessions, I was surprised to find out that the content in this notebook had an uncanny resemblance to another of my personal interests: mindfulness meditation. Almost every leader we talked to shared that their most impactful lessons centered on deeply personal changes, such as cultivating empathy for others, dismissing their ego, practicing vulnerability and layering compassion to an otherwise self-judging journey towards professional success. All of these are central reflections that occupy mindfulness studies. Why then, was this topic categorically dismissed as too esoteric for the workplace?
Seeing that there was essentially no-difference between these two tracks of development, I prepared some thoughts relating my meditation journey with the realm leadership training. Below are some highlights from this attempt.
Three layers of mindfulness practice
Mystical/ Spiritual
Mindfulness meditation roots back millennia to the heart of eastern traditions, philosophies and spiritual belief-systems. A practice considered essential to achieving awakening and experiencing the true nature of reality, mindfulness lays its structure on deeply spiritual and mystic intent. Shamans, monks, priests and mystics from every major religion have reported experiencing transcendental bliss while in deep meditation, prayer or trance – often leading to a new-found perspective of the universe, and a loss of ones sense of ego or self.
While this is a worthwhile path for some, it seems removed from the intent of inspiring teams to do great work, or having more efficient meetings. Establishing a long term meditation practice, interning on intensive meditation retreats (such as Vipassana) or participating in shamanic rituals (accompanied by entheogens such as Ayahuasca or Phycobilin) will certainly affect your leadership style, but if that is your goal you need not engage in such transformative commitments. There’s other, less spiritually-driven practices to begin with.
Secular Self-Improvement
Since the 1960’s, dissatisfaction with the mechanistic, spiritually eroded lifestyle of the post-war era led to an opening of mindfulness to the West. Gurus like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, struck a chord with a generation seeking new perspectives by demystifying meditation and making it accessible to the general public. Authors such as Kerouac and idols such as The Beatles perpetuated the integration of mindfulness into pop-culture. Furthermore, important religious leaders such as the Dalai Lama opened and encouraged the doors of scientific exploration, leading to secular praise of the effects of meditation on the body and the mind.
This is where the rubber hits the road regarding mindfulness connection to the workplace. If leadership is the practice of applying higher attributes of self (such as compassion, awareness, empathy and clear-mindedness) into action to inspire others and drive change – then mindfulness is the essential practice to cultivate those attributes. Let’s unpack this further.
Daniel Goleman, a long time meditator and prolific author, stresses that “without self-awareness - no matter how smart you are, you’re not going to get very far”. Brené Brown, author of the viral TED talk “The Power of Vulnerability” asserts that to succeed we must “let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen”. Deepak Chopra, neuro-endocrinological doctor and author, argues that “By changing your habits of thinking and behavior; you can change the experience of your body”.
What happens however, if behaviors such as introspection, vulnerability and body awareness don’t come naturally to you? It would be naïve to assume that these emotionally taxing skills can be picked up just by reading a book, or sitting through a 3 hour workshop. While practicing at the workplace is a good tactic, mindfulness can provide a dedicated, safe environment to practice and develop these traits.
For example, attending a yoga class, signing up to a Tai Chi or ecstatic dance session, might awaken new connections between your body and mind, softening your movement and providing renewed full body awareness. Without knowing, next time you give a public presentation – you might feel more present, calm and in control of your movements.
Establishing a daily 5-10 minute meditation practice may provide sufficient time to look back to the interactions and situations that occurred during the day, and evaluate them through a lens of loving kindness and compassion. Next time you have a critical conversation with a colleague, an inner impulse may lead you to leave your ego aside and put yourself in the shoes of the other person – resulting in a better outcomes for all.
This is to say that, if you are interested in incorporating behaviors of vulnerable leadership at work, you may be safer cultivating those through personal mindfulness practices first, so they come more naturally when needed to be resourced in a professional environment.
Mindfulness Hacks
If the above paths seem too involved, and you need proof of the short terms effects of mindfulness in the workplace to consider signing up for an intro class at your local meditation center – no worries, I got you.
At the beginning of my career as a high-paced emerging professional in the consulting world, I struggled to find time to eat a full meal, let alone take ten minutes to sit idle in a room while email notifications kept stacking on top on my inbox. The sheer idea of meditation seemed foreign and inaccessible. Gladly, at the time, a mentor who’d been around the block for a few decades, gifted me a valuable trick: “Every time you are walking into a high-stakes meeting, when you touch the knob of the door, take three deep breaths”
Out of respect, but not fully convinced, I started applying this simple hack before my most stress-inducing meetings (share-outs, pitches, performance reviews etc.) To my amazement, the impact was immediately noticeable and significant. I felt more calm, clear-minded and focused on the present moment. This was enough to ignite my journey towards mindfulness in the workplace.
Matter of fact, I learned of some research done at Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital that further supports the positive impact deep breathing has on our body’s ability to deal with stress. Simple hacks to summon mindfulness into the day (such as stepping outside to breathe, counting to 10, or simply closing your eyes for a few minutes) can have exponential and transformative effects on leadership style and work performance – and they might be just the spark you needed to sign up for that first yoga class.
The ask
Cultivating leadership is a necessary investment for any company aiming to attract and retain great talent. In today’s world, activating a sense of purpose, and supporting people’s careers to a create fair and empowering work environment, arguably is not only a benefit, but also a responsibility. Some lessons, however, demand behavioral and perspective changes that are often easier in theory. Mindfulness can be the key that unlocks the ability to lift these lessons from the paper, and put them into embodied practice.
I encourage the business community to further embrace and explore the interactions between mindfulness and leadership, and join me in a conversation about how to break the barrier of esoteric disbelief and make this practice available and accessible to people in every corner of the organizational world.