3 Keys to Achieving Mindful Leadership

Today’s post is by Dr. Stephen McKenzie, author of Mindfulness at Work (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Remember the difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says, ‘Go!’ – a leader says, ‘Let’s go!’

– E.M. Kelly

Most of us know the enormous benefits of good leadership. Most of us know the enormous difference between a good leader and a bad leader, however do we know what makes a good leader good, or a bad leader bad? Most of us think that we know what good leadership is, however do we really know what it is? What is the essence of good leadership?

The essence of good leadership is knowing where to lead people. The essence of knowing where to lead other people is knowing where to lead ourselves. We have to discover our full working potential before we can lead others to discovering their full working potential.

Being mindful simply means being fully connected to the reality of what is, and accepting this reality, even if we don’t think we like it. Paradoxically we need to recognize and accept what is before we can create what isn’t, yet. When we are mindful we are fully connected to ourselves and to other people, and this connection allows us to lead ourselves and others from and to shared certainty, rather than individual confusion.

The enormous benefits of mindfulness at work are increasingly being recognized by employers as well as by employees. More mindfulness means more professional productivity and satisfaction, and less absenteeism, `presenteeism’ (where workers are physically present but unproductive), accidents, and workplaces stress and the many psychological and physical problems that this causes. Mindfulness improves our work performance and enjoyment because it improves our decision making ability, the quality of our working relationships, and our leadership.

Being mindful more of the time and mindless less of the time helps us be great leaders because it helps unite in common goals and ways of achieving them, and frees us of our separate ideas about what needs to be done and how. When we experience mindful connectedness with the people we work with we will be great leaders, whether we’re leading a sporting team or a hamburger shop or a multinational corporation. We are not great leaders regardless of the people we lead, we are great leaders because of them.

Mindless leadership

An employee’s motivation is a direct result of the sum of interactions with his or her manager. – Bob Nelson

Mindless leadership means being so busy trying to lead other people to and through our personal agendas that we are constantly on a collision course with them. A working definition of the difference between a good witch and a bad witch is that a bad witch uses their powers for themselves, a good witch uses their powers for others. It’s the same with leaders.

A mindless leadership story

A classic story of mindless leadership is Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth was the CEO of a Scottish family Lord business about a thousand years ago. He wasn’t satisfied with being the Lord of Cawdor and Glamis, he wanted more – he wanted to be King of Scotland. Actually Macbeth’s problem wasn’t his leadership style – doing anything to reach the top – his problem was that he didn’t know what he really wanted. With the encouragement of his business and marital partner Lady Macbeth, Lord Macbeth achieved his leadership ambition but not his happiness ambition. If Macbeth and all the other personal-power-enhancing leadership aspirants were mindful of their deep connection with other people their stories would have ended happily.

Mindful leadership

To see things in the seed, that is genius. – Lao Tzu

Mindful leadership means leading unselfishly. If we are leading because we want to help people get where they need to be to best express their professional abilities then we will lead others and ourselves to a good place – professionally and psychologically. Great leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa inspire and transform others by inspiring and transforming themselves. Great leaders recognize potential greatness in themselves and in others that might otherwise never be discovered.

A mindful leadership story

A modern story of mindful leadership is that of Marva Collins, a great educator and leader who rose out of poverty like a rose out of thorns, and achieved enormous success teaching ‘unteachable’ children from similar backgrounds to her own. She was such a successful educator and leader that she was eventually offered the position of US Secretary of Education by Ronald Reagan and again by George Bush Sr. Marva refused both positions because her vocation was to teach, and to lead, not to tell people how to teach, and to lead. In her inspiring book, Marva Collins’ Way, she described the secret of successful leadership: lead people to discovering and believing in their deep abilities by discovering and believing in your own deep abilities.

Keys to mindful leadership

1. Be courageous

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

– Harold R. McAlindon

Mindfulness gives us the courage to face reality, and therefore see real opportunities – to lead ourselves and others too.

2. Listen to people

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

– Jimi Hendrix

Being fully mindful means really listening to people who work for us, as well as people we work for, and not listening to what we think they are saying. If we listen to people as if hearing them for the first time we create new ways of understanding and doing.

3. Be a conductor, not a controller

A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When we are mindful we recognize when someone in our working orchestra is playing their own tune rather than playing in harmony with everyone else. Give people clear directions on their shared working goals, and give them the space to find their own best way to be a wonderful working part of a wonderful working whole.

– Dr Stephen McKenzie has a PhD in psychology and is a lecturer, researcher, and writer in many areas. He has published three books – the best-selling Mindfulness for Life, with Dr Craig Hassed, Vital Statistics, and now Mindfulness at Work (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Stephen has a unique ability to present complex information in an entertaining and accessible way.

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!