Mindfulness facilitates psychological flexibility, improving resilience, decision-making, task performance and emotional intelligence. A mindful leader is much less likely to respond defensively to challenge, be curious and be open to change. Mindfulness extends the gap between stimulus and reaction - enabling proactive and ethical decision-making. Mindfulness encourages openness to new information and a willingness to view situations from multiple perspectives without prejudice.
How often do you notice that physical sense of irritation as you see your over-keen member of staff head towards your office door? Do you ever already know the answer to the question before it's even left the mouth of your intern? Our patterns of leadership are learnt and habitual, mostly unconscious and occasionally flawed. By taking a mindful approach as we move through our day we turn off automatic and build leadership skills that might just improve the happiness and productivity of our whole team.
What is mindfulness? Very simply it's being present. It's being engaged in an embodied way with the world and people around you. It's noticing the effect of your interactions on your physiology.
Top tips for leaders:
1) Explore what mindfulness is: start with the mindful body scan. Find ways to turn down automatic pilot.
2) Take a mindful walk/journey into work - start the day with the intention of being mindful and at the same time activating parasympathetic activity (maximising activity in the pre-frontal cortex).
3) Explore the link between thought and emotion and the unconscious physical response that occurs. Is the response before the thought? If it is focus on the physical sensation - how can you change that response?
4) Try some mindful stretching - notice where tension and stress accumulate over the day. Stretch and breathe into these areas. Our emotional centre reads the tension in the muscles as preparation for a fight and there is an energy cost to holding that tension. Relax, let it go.
5) Walk and talk - embrace walking meetings, Start them with a quick mindful check-in. What three things can you see? Two things can you hear? One thing you can smell?
6) Listen mindfully - listen without the answer already formed, listen to the nonverbal cues, and be deliberately empathetic.
7) Set the tone - the autonomic nervous system of those around you is set by the cadence of your breathing, the expression on your face, the posture you hold during communication. Deliberately engage with others with a language of the nervous system that instigates calm. Calm allows for creativity, focus and productivity.
As the great Victor Frankl says; "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom". The space only exists for those that walk through the day mindfully, that make a decision to take time to choose how to respond.
A mindful leader, not only protects their own health and well-being but. creates a workplace culture in which everyone can thrive.
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