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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
The easy way to become a more mindful leader Want to become a more mindful leader? With Mindful Leadership For Dummies, you'll find accessible and authoritative guidance for cultivating focus, clarity, and creativity from within your colleagues. Packed full of useful tips, this friendly how-to guide will help you incorporate mindfulness in your leadership style to manage and reap the benefits of a more attentive working life--all while nurturing compassion in the service of others. You'll discover how mindfulness can help improve decision-making and communication skills, manage modern workday challenges, and so much more. Mindful leadership is currently a high-trending topic in the self-help/business world, making headlines in such prominent publications as Forbes, Time magazine and The Guardian, and even earning a dedicated blog on Huffington Post. And all for good reason--the benefits of practicing mindfulness in the workplace are far-reaching, and as we begin to uncover more research that supports its effectiveness, it's no wonder business leaders are jumping aboard this positive bandwagon. * Includes tips on incorporating mindfulness into your leadership style * Shows you how mindfulness can help develop and deepen your leadership qualities * Explains how mindfulness enhances productivity and minimizes the effects of stress in the workplace * Outlines how adding mindfulness to your leadership approach will enable you to make positive choices that support your well-being If you're a businessperson looking to add mindfulness to your leadership tool belt, Mindful Leadership For Dummies has everything you need to get started today.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
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Mindful Leadership For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, www.wiley.com
This edition first published 2016
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Mindful Leadership For Dummies®
To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Mindful Leadership For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
Table of Contents
Cover
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1: Breaking the Mould
Chapter 1: Exploring Mindful Leadership
Establishing the Facts about Mindfulness and Leadership
Exploring the Benefits of Mindful Leadership
Deconstructing Mindfulness
Exploring the Evolution of Mindfulness
Chapter 2: Discovering Why Mindfulness Matters to Leaders
Leadership Challenges of the Modern Workplace
Identifying Sources of Pressure
Mindful Ways to Improve Your Leadership
Mindfully Reducing Leadership Stress
Understanding that Mindfulness Is Not a Panacea for All Ills
Chapter 3: Harnessing the Neuroscience of Mindful Leadership
Grasping the Potential and Limitations of the Executive Brain
Recognising Your Hidden Drivers
Establishing How Mindfulness Works
Part 2: Learning from Mindful Leaders
Chapter 4: Case Study 1: Andrew Stone, Baron Stone of Blackheath
The Impact of Mindfulness on Andrew’s Work
Andrew’s Mindfulness Experience and Practice
Andrew’s Hints and Tips
Leadership Insights
Chapter 5: Case Study 2: Tim Neild, Royal Navy Commander
The Impact of Mindfulness on Tim’s Work
Mindfulness Experience and Practice
Tim’s Hints and Tips for Leaders
Leadership Insights
Chapter 6: Case Study 3: Marion Furr, Director of MBPA
The Impact of Mindfulness on Marion’s Work
Marion’s Mindfulness Experience and Practice
Marion’s Top Tips for Leaders
Leadership Insights
Part 3: Developing Mindfulness
Chapter 7: Setting the Stage for Transformation
Understanding Self-Authoring
Developing the Tools for Self-Authoring
Taking Your First Step Towards Mindful Leadership
Chapter 8: Week 1: Focusing Your Attention
Mindfulness or Mindlessness: Discovering the Difference
Tuning in to the Present Moment
Focusing Your Attention
Week 1 WorkplaceMT Practice Exercises
Chapter 9: Week 2: Observing the Mind-Body Connection
Exploring the Impact of Work on Your Body
Exploring Mind-Body Science
Tuning in to Your Body
Scanning Your Body
Managing Expectations
Week 2 WorkplaceMT Practice Exercises
Chapter 10: Week 3: Minding the Gap
Working Smarter, Not Harder
Minding the Gap
Noticing Patterns of Thought
Applying Kindness to Your Work
Adopting an Approach Mode of Mind
Taking Stock of Your Progress
Stretching without Striving
Mindfulness of Breath and Body
The Three-Step Breathing Space
Week 3 WorkplaceMT Practice Exercises
Chapter 11: Week 4: Recognising That Thoughts Are Not Facts
Observing the Guessing Game
Reducing Mental Pain
Identifying Sounds and Thoughts
Living with Frustration
Mastering the Three-Step Breathing Space
Week 4 WorkplaceMT Practice Exercises
Chapter 12: Week 5: Turning Towards Difficulties
Facing Up to Difficulties
Picking Your Battles Wisely
Using the Breathing Space to Deal with Daily Challenges
Week 5 WorkplaceMT Practice Exercises
Chapter 13: Week 6: Developing Intention
Accepting Your True Self
Knowing When It’s Time to Do Things Differently
Balancing Your Life and Work
Managing Yourself for Resilience
Cultivating Kindness
Setting an Intent to Make Mindfulness Part of Each Day
Week 6 WorkplaceMT Practice Exercises
Part 4: Applying Mindful Leadership
Chapter 14: Enhancing Your Personal Presence and Influence
Establishing Your Personal Brand
Harnessing the Power of Influence
Becoming a 3-D Negotiator
Chapter 15: Leading in a Digital Age
Defining Digital Leadership
Exploring the Impact of Leading in a Digital Age
Coping with the Demands of Digital Leadership
Working More Effectively in a Digital Age
Chapter 16: Leading in Times of Change
Understanding Change from Your Brain’s Perspective
Leading When Change Is the Norm
Exploring Models of Change Leadership
Practicing Mindful Strategies for Leading Change
Part 5: Becoming a Mindful Organisation
Chapter 17: Introducing Mindfulness to Your Organisation
Starting with the Outcome in Mind
Developing Mindful Individuals in Your Organisation
Making Your Organisation More Mindful
Getting Down to Practicalities
Practical Considerations
Chapter 18: Integrating Mindfulness into Everyday Work Practices
Managing Yourself Better
Mindful Meetings
Mindful Decision-Making
Mindful Project Management
Part 6: The Part of Tens
Chapter 19: Ten Mindful Ways to Make Better Decisions
Becoming Aware of Heuristics
Avoiding Overconfidence
Remembering That You Are a Social Animal
Avoiding Linking Things That Aren’t Connected
Becoming Conscious of Your Unconscious
Making Fearless Decisions
Improving Your Working Memory Capacity
Avoiding Sunk Cost Bias
Approaching Decisions with an Open Mind
Managing Your Emotions by Tuning in to Your Body
Chapter 20: Ten Mindful Ways to Reduce the Risk of Burnout
Identifying the Symptoms of Burnout
Recognising the Causes of Burnout
Avoiding Work Mismatching
Making Work More Rewarding
Increasing Your Self-Efficacy
Identifying the Essentials You Need from Your Work
Encouraging Creativity
Taking Good Care of Yourself
Getting Support
Taking Time Out to Appreciate the Good
Chapter 21: Ten Ways to Improve Your Attention with Mindfulness
Noticing When Your Mind Wanders
Focusing on Breath
Focusing on Your Body
Focusing on Sounds
Using Your Body as an Early Warning System
Avoiding Falling into the Zone of Delusion
Minding the Gap
Enjoying Mindful Coffee and Chocolate
Engaging in Mindful Walking
Doing the Three-Step Body Check
Chapter 22: (More Than) Ten Sources of Info on Mindful Leadership
The Academy of Brain-Based Leadership
Institute for Mindful Leadership
Time to Think
The Mindful Globe
Mindfulnet.org
A Head for Work
Dr Rick Hanson
Daniel Goleman
Mindful Work
Mindfulness in Organizations
Resonant Leadership
Neuroscience for Leadership
The Mindful Brain
Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World
About the Author
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Introduction
About This Book
Whatever your reason or level of engagement, you’ll find something in this book for you. It’s designed to be practical and accessible, full of real-life examples that you can start applying straightaway. For some, this book will prove the catalyst for major change; for others, the messages in this book may be less resonant.
This book provides you with the information and guidance you need to make up your own mind and decide how mindfulness can help you become a better leader. We encourage you to read with an open mind and a sense of exploration. In the spirit of mindfulness, suspend judgment as you read and experiment with some of the concepts and techniques described in these pages, and then take from it what works best for you.
Foolish Assumptions
When writing this book, we have made a number of assumptions about you, the reader:
You’ve picked up this book because you’re committed to becoming a more mindful leader.
You have experience working in a professional role.
You’re ready to change the way you work for the better.
You’re just curious, or even sceptical, about mindfulness.
You’ve read about mindfulness in the business pages of your newspaper or an article in your trade journal and you want to know whether the hype is justified.
Icons Used in This Book
Like other For Dummies books, this one has icons in the margins to guide you through the information and help you zero in on what you want to know. The following paragraphs describe the icons and what they mean.
Information flagged with this icon is useful and worth keeping in mind when working with your experience of low mood and depression.
The text next to this icon offers quick and effective ideas to support your leaning about mindfulness.
This icon flags text that you need to take heed of.
This icon points out interesting bits of information that goes beyond need-to-know. You can skip paragraphs marked with this icon if you’re pressed for time, but reading them will further enhance your understanding.
When you see this icon, you can download an MP3 to guide you as you practice a formal mindfulness exercise.
Beyond the Book
In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, this book also comes with a free access-anywhere Cheat Sheet that provides top tips on becoming a mindful leader, the most recent research into mindful leadership and developing a leadership approach that works best for you. To get this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Mindful Leadership For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
We also offer further resources that go with this book.
Visit the Resources page of
www.aheadforwork.com
for leadership, productivity and mindfulness resources. You can also use this website to get in touch with Juliet about the programmes offered.
Go to
www.workplacemt.com
to find out more about WorkplaceMT mindfulness training, its research base, teachers and teacher training.
Check out The Mindfulness Exchange Ltd. (TME;
www.mindfulness-exchange.com
). Marina is the owner of TME, which is a spin-off from Oxford University’s Oxford Mindfulness Centre (OMC) that provides mindfulness training for the workplace. You can use this website to contact Marina.
To find out more about mindfulness and its research basis and to browse books and resources, check out
www.mindfulnet.org
, the mindfulness information website.
We’ve recorded MP3s to guide you when you practice the formal mindfulness exercises as detailed in Chapters 8 through 13. Download them from www.dummies.com/go/mindfulleadershipfd.
Where to Go from Here
This book is designed so that you can dip in and out as you please. You’re invited to make good use of the table of contents (or the index) and jump straight into the part or chapter that grabs your attention. You’re in charge, and it’s up to you.
If you’re new to mindful leadership, or not sure where to start, begin with Part 1, and you’ll have a better idea of how to proceed. If you’re ready to start your mindfulness development, start at Chapter 7, and then work through Chapters 8 to 13 in order.
We wish you all the best in your quest to be a more mindful leader and hope you find lots of valuable ideas and information within these pages. Above all, see this book as an exploration with nothing to lose but everything to gain.
Part 1
Breaking the Mould
IN THIS PART …
Explore what mindful leadership is and how it can work for you.
Examine the leadership challenges of the modern workplace.
Discover the potential and limitations of your brain and become aware of your unconscious drivers.
Chapter 1
Exploring Mindful Leadership
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding mindfulness and leadership
Exploring the evolution of mindfulness
Discovering the benefits of mindful leadership
Mindful leadership is about flexibility of thought and actions, breaking out of autopilot and habitual behaviours and being the best you can be in any given moment. Mindfulness certainly isn’t a silver bullet or a quick fix; it takes time and practice. But every great journey starts with one step, and this book will be your companion and guide every step of the way.
Establishing the Facts about Mindfulness and Leadership
In this section, we start with the basics and establish a shared understanding of what mindfulness is and how it can enhance your leadership capability.
Understanding mindfulness
Mindfulness is all about your ability to focus attention on the situation at hand with the intention to observe the judgments you make and choose how to respond appropriately. Developing this ability helps you to step away from automatic habitual responses to observe present-moment reality with an open mind and to make smarter decisions.
Everyone has the capacity to be mindful, but like anything worthwhile, it takes time, effort and practice. In the section ‘Deconstructing Mindfulness’ you’ll find a more succinct definition of mindfulness and how to develop it for yourself.
Redefining leadership
The definition of leadership varies subtly from theory to theory. At its most basic, leadership is a process of social influence where a person (the leader) secures the help and support of others to accomplish a shared task.
In recent years, leadership theory has started to focus on the leader as one human being, leading other human beings. Recent discoveries in neuroscience and psychology have transformed our knowledge of how the human brain learns, reacts to different stimulus, and interprets what’s happening.
On a daily basis, as a leader, you’re involved in changing people’s brains – literally! Everyday ordinary and extraordinary life events are the catalysts for thoughts, decisions and learning, which in turn change the structure of the brain physically. Understanding your brain, and how and why others do what they do, helps you use your brain more effectively. Applying neuroscience to your actions and behaviours as a leader helps make you a more effective, adaptive and resilient leader. You can find out more about this in Chapter 3.
Mindfulness is now recognised as a foundational skill for effective leadership. Peter Drucker once said that we can’t manage others unless we learn to manage ourselves first. Mindfulness increases self-awareness, which enables you to manage yourself better. Mindful leadership combines the practice of mindfulness with practical management and leadership techniques, enabling leaders to engage a wider range of their capacities to the challenges at hand. Check out Chapters 15, 16 and 17 for the practical application of mindfulness to everyday work challenges.
Exploring the Benefits of Mindful Leadership
Having considered the meaning of both mindfulness and leadership (see previous section), you may be asking yourself, ‘What’s in it for me?’ The following sections drill deeper into the role of leadership today, the evolution and modern-day uses of mindfulness, and practical ways to apply mindfulness to your work as a leader.
Refreshing your knowledge of leadership
Ideas about what makes a good leader have changed and evolved dramatically over the years. In the 1920s and 1930s, trait theories argued that leaders were born. From the 1940s to the 1960s, behavioural theories argued that you can be taught leadership – it’s just a matter of adopting the right behaviours when attempting to lead.
In more recent times, contingency theories (such as situational leadership) argue that no one leadership style is correct and that as a leader you need to adopt the correct leadership style for the situation. Transformational theories view leaders as agents of change. As a transformational leader, you can transform the workplace via teamwork or team development, or by acting as an agent of change or a strategic visionary.
One of the most recent approaches to leadership is authentic leadership. It’s an approach that encourages honest relationships with followers, whose input is valued. Authentic leaders tend to be positive people with truthful self-concepts who seek clarity and promote openness. By building trust and generating enthusiastic support from their followers, authentic leaders are able to improve both individual and team performance. Authentic leadership is a growing area of study in academic research on leadership, and mindfulness is a core element. Read more about authentic leadership in Chapter 14.
Investigating human nature
If you want to be a good leader, you need to have some understanding of what makes people tick. At a deep level, most humans have a natural desire to be led, fuelled by a primeval desire to survive, have a purpose in life, and achieve. Abraham Maslow described this in his hierarchy of needs (see Figure 1-1).
© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
FIGURE 1-1: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Located at the foundation of Maslow’s triangle are basic needs – needs for survival. Like most animals, humans will do anything and everything to survive and sustain life. Challenging situations may result in a feeling of threat. Threats to pride, integrity and future success may lead to seeking guidance, support and leadership from others to minimise threats. In a work context, if your ability to complete a task is threatened, it can have a negative impact on your future success and progress, which is why people are naturally predisposed to need leaders.
Good leaders help individuals to gain a meaningful sense of purpose by helping them align their thoughts and clarify the reasons behind their work. Humans need understanding to fully engage, and good leadership meets this need.
According to Maslow, after basic needs (survival) and psychological needs (purpose) are met, humans strive for self-fulfilment. In a work context, leaders can greatly enhance individuals’ potential for success and achievement. Good leaders help individuals work towards their full potential and maximise their performance.
Deconstructing Mindfulness
As a human being, you perform at your best when you’re authentic to yourself and lead in a way that resonates with your values. Of course, doing so is often easier said than done. It takes time and effort and an acceptance of personal responsibility for your actions. Unravelling and revealing your true self involves self-awareness and reflection, which is where mindfulness comes in.
Defining mindfulness
When you strip away the hype and well-worn catchphrases, mindfulness is simply the cultivation of metacognition and maintenance of an optimum mind state (see Figure 1-2).
Metacognition
can be described as the ability to observe what’s going on in your mind. When developing mindfulness, you cultivate an open monitoring state where you’re aware of your thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations in any given moment of time.
An
optimum mind state
can be described as a feeling of ease, when you feel safe and secure, and your body and mind is functioning in its optimum state. In other words, an optimum mind state occurs when you’re free from anxiety, anger and fear and are feeling secure, happy and comfortable with your surroundings. This state allows you to be the best you can and reach your full potential.
© A Head for Work Ltd
FIGURE 1-2: Mindfulness and mindful leadership.
The following sections explore these terms and what they mean in more detail.
Maintaining metacognition and an optimum mind state
Cultivating metacognition enables you to become more aware of your automatic tendencies and responses. This awareness allows you to make decisions and act appropriately based on present-moment reality instead of being hijacked by strong emotions and impulses triggered by past experiences and predictions of the future, which often lead to inappropriate actions and reactions.
Maintaining an optimum mind state is important. When you experience a negative emotional mind state, such as anger and fear, even to a small degree, your brain responds automatically. Your brain senses something is wrong and responds quickly to safeguard you.
For example, if you were standing in the middle of a road with a lorry hurtling towards you, you wouldn’t want to have to take a moment to decide what to do, would you? In this situation, it’s wholly appropriate that your brain should take control, quickly and efficiently evaluating the threat and the options and deciding on the right course of action. If this happened to you for real, you would almost certainly automatically jump out of the way without any conscious thought to avoid death or injury. In this instance, engaging in conscious thought would slow you down, but engaging autopilot allows you to live to tell the tale.
This lightning-fast, efficient, unconscious response has helped humans to survive and evolve into arguably the most successful species on the planet. But it does have its downfalls.
Exploring the Evolution of Mindfulness
Figure 1-3 shows a timeline of the evolution of mindfulness.
© A Head for Work Ltd.
FIGURE 1-3: Mindfulness evolution timeline.
Mindfulness, as cultivated in the WorkplaceMT exercises you find in Chapters 8 through 13, originated from ancient practices, which were a component of Buddhism. In the late 1890s to early 1900s, mindfulness practices were simplified and westernised in an attempt to safeguard their future survival in a time of colonialism.
This more secular version of mindfulness was popularised by the pioneering work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, who developed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in 1979. MBSR blended Jon’s scientific training with his Buddhist and yoga training. His work sparked the interest of the scientific community who started researching the impact of mindfulness. In the 1980s, about one scientific research paper on mindfulness was published each year.
In the 1990s, John Teasdale Zindel Segal and Mark Williams blended MBSR with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to form Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) as a treatment for recurrent depression. In the 1990s, about ten research papers on mindfulness were published each year.
In 2004, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommended MBCT as a treatment of choice for recurrent depression. This accelerated scientific interest in mindfulness further, and by 2013 about 500 papers on mindfulness were published each year.
Identifying the foundations of mindfulness in the workplace
Exactly who first applied mindfulness to the challenge of the modern-day workplace is unclear. In recent years, a number of prominent leaders have come forward and admitted that they’ve been practicing mindfulness for a number of years, and they’ve claimed that it’s been invaluable in their work as a leader.
In 2007, Google started to integrate mindfulness into its development programmes for staff. The success of Google’s Search Inside Yourself programme may have been one of the catalysts for mindfulness gaining increasing traction in the workplace.
In 2011, Professor Mark Williams (co-creator of MBCT) and Dr Danny Penman published Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World (Piatkus) as a self-help guide. This best-selling book marked a turning point for mindfulness at work. Although written for the population as a whole, it was the first book on mindfulness that was aimed at teaching a well population to be mindful.
Recent research into the use of shortened mindfulness exercises like the ones used in WorkplaceMT mindfulness training indicates similar benefits to the longer, widely researched practices developed as part of MBSR and MBCT, respectively. More research is needed, but initial research data looks promising.
Starting your own mindful leadership journey
Every journey really does start with a first step. You’ve taken that first step by looking into mindful leadership. The next steps are up to you. You may want to find out more about mindfulness and its practical applications before committing to learning it yourself. Chapters 2 through 6 will help you to do this. You may want to learn mindfulness through self-study as detailed in Chapters 8 through 13, or via an app (see Chapter 22 for some suggestions) or attending formal training. If you are considering introducing mindfulness to your organisation, Chapter 17 is for you. Whatever it is, do is something. Your mindful journey starts right here, right now!
Chapter 2
Discovering Why Mindfulness Matters to Leaders
IN THIS CHAPTER
Examining the leadership challenges of the modern workplace
Identifying sources of workplace pressure
Discovering mindful ways to improve your leadership
Media interest in mindfulness has exploded in the last few years. In parallel, the research base that connects mindfulness with decreased anxiety, depression and stress and increased resilience has become relatively well known. As the popularity of mindfulness has increased, interest has grown in the potential of mindfulness to transform the way people work. As interest and uptake of training has increased, researchers have started to explore its impact on workplace productivity, creativity and employee well-being. Research suggests that mindfulness aids focus, concentration and decision-making and improves relationships.
This chapter explores the role of mindfulness in modern leadership. It offers you some practical tips to help you improve your leadership by applying a little mindfulness.
Leadership Challenges of the Modern Workplace
To discover why mindfulness matters, you need to consider the leadership environment you’re currently operating within. Are you working in a VUCA world? Is change now the norm, rather than the exception? Its also wise to consider the sources of workplace pressure that can lead to stress. Doing so can help you develop mindful ways to increase resilience and maintain well-being.
Leading in a VUCA world
The concept of a ‘VUCA world’ first originated in the U.S. military. In recent years, it’s become a popular management acronym, used to describe the difficult business environment many people lead within. It stands for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Some use the VUCA world as a scapegoat to delegate all responsibility for leading their organisation out of crisis.
Mindful leaders are self-aware and take personal responsibility. They know that although they can’t necessarily control the VUCA nature of the modern workplace, they can take full responsibility for their actions and control their response to it.
The following sections explore the meaning behind the VUCA acronym in more detail.
Volatility
Volatile work challenges are unexpected, with an uncertain duration. The good news is the information is usually out there – you just need to find it. An example of a volatile work challenge may be share prices falling rapidly following a natural disaster.
Uncertainty
Uncertainty at work may result from you knowing that something bad is coming but not knowing exactly what form it will take, how bad it will be or how long it will last. An example of this is the UK Government’s attempts to reduce the deficit. The public sector knew that cost-cutting measures would result in major budget cuts, but they didn’t know exactly which services would be impacted and by how much their budgets would be reduced.
Complexity
Complexity can be caused by situations with interconnected parts or interdependencies and variables. Information is available, but the volume or nature of the information may be overwhelming or difficult to process. Global working is a good example of complexity: trying to deliver a good service to a business in many countries all with different cultures, currencies that fluctuate, and wildly differing legislation.
Ambiguity
Ambiguity involves those ‘unknown unknowns’ that are difficult to predict and have no precedents. An example of this may be moving into a newly emerging market with a new product range unlike anything you’ve manufactured in the past.
Leading when change is the norm
In the past, many leadership models were largely based on the principle that although organisations would experience times of change and transition, eventually they would settle into a stable ‘business as usual’ state. For most modern organisations, change is now the norm.
Of course, change is nothing new. In reality, change is the only constant in life. The difference is the pace of change. The pace of change has accelerated dramatically in recent times, fuelled, at least in part, by the digital age, shifting away from industrialisation towards an economy based on information shared digitally via computers. Access to and the control of information are key elements of business success. Indeed, for many companies, such as Google, the ownership and control of information is their business.
Humans hate uncertainty and are predisposed to feel uncomfortable in new situations. Mindful leaders recognise their inbuilt fear and resistance to change and how it manifests within them. They recognise their own patterns of avoidance and fear when confronted by unexpected change and have mastered techniques to stop them from sliding into negativity, fear and procrastination. You find more about the human negativity bias in Chapter 3.
Identifying Sources of Pressure
The ability to work under pressure is an important leadership attribute. Although you can’t micromanage the curve balls that life throws at you, you can manage how you deal with them.
The following sections differentiate pressure from stress, help you identify how excess pressure can lead to stress and explore specific aspects of leadership stress.
Defining pressure
Pressure, up to a certain point, can have a positive impact on your performance. It provides the motivation to get out of bed in the morning. It can make you more alert, motivated and engaged, encouraging you to become the best you can and to reach a level of work that constitutes your peak performance. For those in leadership positions, levels of pressure experienced can be great. When holding a position of responsibility, everything that you say and do has the potential to influence the lives of others. Each decision you make affects not only your organisation but the people around you.
Defining stress
When pressure becomes excessive or unmanageable, it leads to stress. Stress can damage your health, performance, and even your business. Arguably, stress has been the cause of more poor business decisions than poor judgment or inexperience.
Stress experienced for short spaces of time is normal and to be expected. In recent times, the combination of the economic downturn and unstable financial markets has increased workplace stress for many leaders. Every decision and action can become even more critical as the pressure grows to do more with less while maintaining the current level of performance.
Stress can affect all staff at all levels. In the United Kingdom, the Health and Safety Executive reported that in 2014, stress, anxiety and depression accounted for 39 per cent of workplace absence. In the United States, the current cost of workplace stress is estimated at $300 billion a year, 73 per cent experience the psychological symptoms of stress, with around 33 per cent living with extreme stress.
Stress can cause impaired judgment, a lack of foresight, detachment from reality, irresponsibility, and strong egoism. This impaired brain function can prevent leaders and decision-makers from making good decisions and cause them to neglect the interests and needs of the business and wider society in pursuit of personal egoistic benefit.
Identifying sources of pressure that can lead to stress
Knowledge is power. If you want to reduce your stress, start by identifying possible causes of excess pressure at work. In the United Kingdom, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) identify a number of factors, which, if not managed correctly, can lead to workplace stress.
Consider whether any of the following may be potential sources of workplace stress for you:
Demands:
A feeling of inability to cope with the demands placed on you by your job
Control:
A feeling of lack of control in the way you do your work
Support:
A feeling that you’re not receiving adequate information and support from your colleagues and superiors
Relationships:
A feeling that you’re being subjected to unacceptable behaviours from those you work with
Role:
A feeling that you don’t adequately understand your role and responsibilities
Change:
A feeling that you’re unable to contribute to or shape organisational changes that impact you
Although you may not always have control of situations you encounter at work, you do have control of how you respond to them. Consider what you can change and the things you can’t, see whether you can identify your thought patterns around them, and actively work to find alternatives that invoke less stress and help you function better as a leader.
Recognising power stress
A recent research study suggests that leaders experience less stress than their subordinates because they tend to have more control over situations, however, leadership can have its own unique stresses. One leader confided in Juliet that he only ever experienced stress at two points in any given 24 hours: night and day!
Leadership involves increased responsibility, working with ambiguities, pressure to achieve results by influencing others, and loneliness, each of which can take its toll. As a result, leaders may experience power stress, a term coined by Boyatzis and McKee. Power stress can result from the exercise of influence and sense of responsibility experienced in many leadership positions. If it isn’t identified and addressed adequately, it can lead to physical and emotional exhaustion.
The chronic stress that can accompany leadership has been connected to a wide range of diseases and dysfunctions. It can also lead to a state of dissonance, which can drain your enthusiasm and energy. Power stress experienced as a result of being in a leadership position isn’t really the problem; a lack of a sense of completion when you complete tasks and projects and insufficient recovery time are.
Although work pressure and stresses may not relent, you can take steps to change the way you choose to respond to them. Mindfulness is a key component of the renewal process.
Mindful Ways to Improve Your Leadership
The following sections discuss various ways you can improve your leadership mindfully.
Letting go of the stereotype
How do you become a more mindful leader, you ask? You may have already formed a mental image of how mindful people conduct themselves. Maybe thinking about this is conjuring up an image for you? Perhaps you think a mindful leader is a person with real presence, a person who is at ease with himself or herself, is open, wise, insightful, patient, kind and benevolent and has the strength of character to make ethical choices.
A mindful leader can of course be all these things, but this almost saintlike combination may feel unattainable or may foster a sense of inadequacy – neither of which is particularly helpful. The simple tips and techniques contained in this book will help you to develop metacognition (awareness of thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations), and maintaining an optimum state of mind, which are core components of mindfulness.
We encourage you to throw away any preconceived stereotypes of how a good leader should or shouldn’t be. Be authentic to yourself and your values. Strive to be the best you can in your own unique way. Good leaders come in many different guises – one size does not fit all.
Although academics may seek to capture and define the essence of mindful leadership, within this book the definition of a mindful leader is simply a leader who knows himself, takes personal responsibility for his actions, and makes a conscious effort to manage himself to be the best leader he can be.
By putting some effort into developing metacognition, treating yourself with kindness like a true friend, and trying to maintain an optimum state of mind, you’ll be better able to be the best you can in any given situation. Remember: as a human being, you will probably always be a ‘work in progress’. Cultivating mindfulness is a journey, not a destination. It can take a lifetime, but you can feel the benefits very quickly if you practice as you work through this book.
Recognising your stress levels
To reduce your stress levels, you need to first identify your current level of stress. There are numerous stress tests online that can help you to gauge your current level of stress. You can find a very simple stress indicator on the Resources page of my (Juliet’s) website – www.aheadforwork.com.
Mindful strategies for leading in a VUCA world
Working in a VUCA world may be inevitable, but suffering as a result optional. When faced with volatility, try to build in some slack to allow for unexpected volatile eruptions. Develop staff to be able to deal with a broad range of circumstances, and keep your workforce as flexible and nimble as possible.
When faced with uncertainty, collect, interpret and share information. Pool resources and support easy sharing and access to information. The more information you can gather, the less uncertainty for all concerned.
When working with complexity, you may need to reconsider your organisational structure. Do you have adequate specialists located in the right parts of the organisation to analyse, make sense of and inform action on the volume of incoming data? Allow time to stand back and evaluate which information is key and which isn’t worth the investment to make else of.
When working with ambiguity and the absence of any information, approach the challenge with an open mind and experiment. Test hypotheses, gather information, learn lessons, and eventually ambiguity will become certainty.
Mindfully Reducing Leadership Stress
Leadership can be a lonely, isolating job. It can also be exhilarating and rewarding. Although you can’t always predict or control the cards that life deals you, you can learn to control your response to them. A core component of mindfulness is learning to observe your own unique patterns of thought and behaviour. This allows you to take control and become a wiser, more considered leader.
Minding the gap
Awareness of your patterns of thoughts and behaviour are essential to being a good leader. Thoughts can trigger emotions and tension in the body, which lead to stress. Until recently, these were largely overlooked by leadership and executive education programmes. Over the past few years, leading business schools have added mindfulness training to leadership and MBA programmes.
Basic instruction in mindfulness helps you to develop awareness of the impact of your thoughts on your actions as a leader. In addition, it can improve focus, decision-making and relationships with peers and subordinates.
As you learn to reduce the flow of incoming information into the brain (more about this in Chapter 8), you may start to notice that a considerable gap exists between how you think things are, or how you wish they were, and how they actually are (see Figure 2-1). In order to be a mindful leader, it’s useful to consciously ‘mind the gap’. The thoughts we think are not necessarily facts, but our brain often responds as if they are.
© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
FIGURE 2-1: Mind the gap.
Mindful leaders learn to observe thoughts as simply mental processes that come and go without knee-jerk reactions.
To help you start to ‘mind the gap’, try the following:
See whether you can start to consciously ‘mind the gap’ in your daily life. Remember: you control your thoughts – your thoughts shouldn’t control you!
Practice treating thoughts simply as mental processes that come and go rather than facts.
See whether you can notice how thoughts can evoke strong emotions or sensations in the body.
When you notice your thoughts spiralling down and depressive or negative thinking creeping in, take three minutes to do the three-step breathing space (see
Chapter 10
) to help you retain your equilibrium and consider things from a more objective viewpoint.
Gaining a sense of completion
Gaining a sense of completion can be a good way to diffuse stress.
At work, one task or project can easily merge into another, giving you the feeling that you’re on a never-ending treadmill and are achieving nothing. The truth of the matter is that you’ve probably achieved a lot during the day; you have just failed to register a sense of completion.
To gain a better sense of completion, try the following:
Break down complex or lengthy tasks into subtasks. Consciously acknowledge completion of each subtask, activating your brain’s feel-good reward circuitry.
Pair up small tasks with larger projects or tasks. As you complete these small tasks, acknowledge how they’ve contributed to the advancement and achievement of your larger project or task.
Celebrate each and every small win.
At the end of each workday before you go home, pause to reflect on and consciously acknowledge all the things you’ve accomplished in the day.
Engaging your recovery and renewal circuitry
Power stress, like any stress encountered over extended periods of time, makes the body susceptible to serious illness, digestive complaints and disturbed sleep patterns. It can drain your energy and capability to function and innovate.
Recovery and renewal can come from several sources. Small acts of kindness to yourself, others or even random strangers can have a hugely beneficial impact on your brain chemistry. Brain scans have revealed that even imagining an act of kindness, using virtual reality technology, can have the same positive impact on the brain as doing it for real.
Prioritise time to do things that you love doing that you may have stopped doing because you became ‘too busy’. Go dancing, do stand-up comedy, go to the theatre, or just enjoy quality time with friends, family or pets. This time will help you to reduce stress and renew yourself, making you fitter to lead.
Make mindfulness part of your daily mental hygiene routine. It will help you to recover from the stresses and strains of the day and renew yourself by helping your brain chemistry to return to a rest and maintenance state.
Understanding that Mindfulness Is Not a Panacea for All Ills
Consider the following conversation:
Sally: We’ve got a problem with Jim’s leadership style. He’s insensitive to the emotional needs of his team and thinks they should just ‘get on with it’; his staff are feeling bullied.
Bill: So are we going to sort out the bullying?
Sally: No. We’ll make Jim take a mindfulness course so he gets better at controlling his emotions.
Mindfulness training shouldn’t be made a mandatory part of a leader’s development programme. Mindfulness training alone may not fix unwelcome behaviours at work. If leaders are open to learning about emotions and how they inform their behaviour and relationships at work, then it may help. However, mindfulness is not a panacea for all leadership ills.
Mindfulness alone is unlikely to fix systemic workplace or personality problems. In the same way that you can’t force someone to lose weight by giving them a Weight Watchers membership, behavioural change can only occur if leaders are willing to rewire their brain by engaging in the exercises with curiosity, self-compassion and discipline.
Don’t shoot the messenger
For a rare few, unexpected effects sometimes surface when they explore their experience by using mindfulness exercises. A lot of people keep themselves distracted and busy as a way of coping, maybe because they’re afraid to look closely at their experience, so shining a light on emotions and bodily sensations during mindfulness exercises may bring up feelings of anxiety or even panic.
Natural emotional responses can be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. This doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong but may indicate that you need to explore your unpleasant emotions in an especially safe and compassionate way, particularly if they involve feelings of dissociation and enduring discomfort. This means seeking the advice of your doctor, occupational health team, or, if you have one, your mindfulness teacher.
The mindfulness meditation exercises aren’t meant to be relaxing, but nor are they intended to cause unnecessary alarm or discomfort. If that is your experience, pull back from the edge of discomfort and seek professional support where you can discuss these side effects.
