A Fresh Take on Leadership Development

The Labour Force Survey for 2013/2014 shows that of the 23.5 million days lost due to work-related ill health, stress, depression or anxiety and musculoskeletal disorders accounted for 8.3 million of these.  

It isn’t perhaps surprising then that, whilst still not mainstream in terms of understanding its impact, some leading organisations, including Google and Apple have begun to teach mindfulness as a way of improving personal and professional effectiveness that in turn is recognised as impacting on organisational performance. 

Wherever you look today, people are working in high pressure, accelerating environments with 24/7 communication ability, being bombarded with increasing amounts of information and the need to do more with less. 

In response to this, those in leadership positions are called upon to be highly productive and visionary, innovative, quick-thinking but still genuine and well-balanced. 

Through leadership programmes we can teach individuals to develop problem solving skills, give feedback, manage change and create great teams.  But this approach tends to focus on inputs and output and does little if anything, to develop the right state of mind or state of being that makes the difference between a good and a terrific leader ... one who is for example, open minded, self-aware, empathic, alert, curious. 

To address this scenario, a number of high profile companies are giving increasing attention to developing mindfulness in leaders … awareness of the present moment, flexibility, and an open state of attention.  Although research continues, mindfulness is linked positively to organisational performance, with mindful leaders said to be higher functioning and performing, able to focus their attention. 

What exactly is mindfulness? 

Described by Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Medical School as "paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally," mindfulness creates a real curiosity to discover something new, a willingness and openness to notice things about a situation, whether they are positive or negative and acceptance rather than resistance of change either in your environment or within yourself. 

In a nutshell, being mindfulness involves:  

Taking this approach, we learn to function more logically in complex and dynamic environments, to stay present and take more effective action.   

Sounds straightforward, but it can be challenging to do, particularly in stressful situations when we don’t necessarily want to tune into our uncomfortable thoughts and feelings but by not doing so, we are preventing ourselves from using potentially  helpful information that can enable us to identify how best to respond to a situation.   

What benefits does mindfulness bring about? 

Continuing research over time has led to an understanding that amongst other qualities, effective leaders need to maintain their health and presence of mind by developing self-awareness, self-knowledge and centeredness, along with a strategy to manage the never-ceasing input, information and stimuli. 

The more that mindfulness is practiced, the greater the benefits but even a few minutes each day leads to: 

It is the case that research into the link between mindfulness and organisational performance still continues, but what is known is that whereas traditional leadership development programmes focus on models and competencies, mindfulness enhances our ability to deal with complex and difficult situations and builds emotional resilience.  By adopting mindfulness we assume that people are full of potential and create an environment that maintains well-being and changes hearts and minds.