Mindful Leadership
Mindful Leadership for Personal and Organisational Resilience
Managers that embrace mindful leadership for personal and organisational resilience will cultivate a more productive and positive workplace. In a recent blog, we looked at the benefits of mindfulness for employees. In this article, we explore the advantages of leadership strategies that encourage effective mindful approaches.
What is mindful leadership?
Mindfulness is a technique that brings people’s awareness into the present moment. This can give you greater clarity on an issue, view or opinion. It’s useful in the workplace because it can help employees to observe their reactions to a problem. They can then take steps to modify their behaviour, if necessary. Regular mindfulness practice is directly linked with reduced stress levels, and an increased sense of wellbeing, positivity and improved health.
Mindful leadership combines the mindfulness element of increased awareness with attentive and conscious reflection. It differs from the traditional model of authoritative leadership styles. A mindful leader doesn’t simply oversee employees, projects and tasks. Instead, this is a more humane and balanced leadership style, taking into consideration the impact of decisions on every team member.
The aim of a mindful leader should be to encourage open communication and collaboration. This approach will result in greater compassion and mutual respect for colleagues. Establishing a strong emotional connection between employees can help to create buy-in to a common business goal. It also gives employees a sense of purpose and belonging. But most importantly, it will make your teams more resilient at work and in their personal lives.
How to be a mindful leader
Below are a few ways you can take a more mindful leadership style:
Be present
Being present should be the number one priority for a mindful leader. This will make you fully aware of any negative frictions and positive attributes of a situation. As a result, creativity and problem-solving will flow more smoothly and naturally. Mindful leaders are attentive and fully engaged with their teams and surroundings.
Show compassion and empathy
A mindful leader makes time to observe their team. They show compassion for colleagues’ challenges and empathise with their struggles, using supportive language. This approach needs to be authentic, rather than a box-ticking exercise. Show your team members that you genuinely care about their current plight.Active listening
This is the art of listening not only to a team member’s words but the intent and emotion behind them. Active listening can enhance a leader’s communication skills. This is a powerful tool that will make you more focused and attentive, including how to observe a speaker’s tone of voice and body language.Use your intuition
Being mindful of your own ‘gut feelings’ about a situation or project is an important part of the problem-solving process. If there is doubt or something does not feel right after assessing from a rational perspective, trust your intuition and give yourself space to think. By becoming more self-aware, you will make better decisions.Reflect on impact
Being able to reflect on your leadership approach and the impact of your decisions is the key to being a mindful leader. Expressing a mindful attitude towards your employees is important because this shows them that you value them and their input. When people feel valued, they are more motivated to take on the task at hand.Be flexible
Flexibility and being able to adapt quickly to changing conditions is an important part of mindful leadership. Going back to the essence of mindfulness, by being present in the moment, you will recognise when things have changed. This can help you respond better to challenges facing your team and changing project scopes.
Mindfulness as a leadership style
Leaders that embrace mindful styles cultivate a healthier workplace, enhancing employee engagement and problem-solving abilities. Over time, this approach can have a positive influence on an entire organisation and change a company’s culture. Mindful leadership builds both personal and organisational resilience by making employees feel valued and empowered. This improves employee performance to drive growth through productivity.
At Invictus HR, we encourage our clients to take a more mindful approach when managing their employees, as this can lead to better employee retention. In some of our face-to-face team sessions, we use a deck of mindfulness cards. Participants select a card to prompt discussion, and every team member leads a discussion on their chosen topic. For more information, read our blog - How Mindfulness and Positive Thinking Can Help Employees.
We can help you develop your leaders through mentoring and training. Our experienced HR Consultants and HR Advisers can facilitate sessions on a broad range of topics including leadership styles and mindfulness. We also offer a retained HR service and ad hoc HR project support.
For mindful leadership strategies or HR advice on another matter, please get in touch.
Sources:
https://www.calm.com/blog/mindful-leadership
https://www.corporatewellnessmagazine.com/article/the-benefits-of-mindfulness-for-employees