Mindful Leadership:
Studies Show the Regular Practice of Being Mindful Drives Success; is it Right for You?
Angela Conrad
Fall 2013 ©
Abstract
This research study has examined the effects of incorporating a regular mindfulness practice into ones daily life and the result of success that has followed. To clarify, a mindfulness practice is something most are probably already familiar with and will be further defined as deliberately focusing on personal thought and reflecting upon personal emotions. What does it mean to be mindful? In short, it means to be aware of one self, and aware of ones thoughts. How does this correlate to success in one’s personal and professional life? I have discovered through this research study that many greats have demonstrated the regular practice of being mindful. Whether their practice has been called meditation, yoga, centering, or just some simple techniques during physical fitness or while writing/journaling, the results have all been the same, clarity that has created the pristine space for success. This topic is significant because, “The movement to develop mindful leaders in business is at the Tipping Point, as interest from corporations, educational institutions and the media continues to grow.” (George, 2013).
Mindful Leadership:
Studies Show the Regular Practice of Being Mindful Drives Success; is it Right for You?
“What do Steve Jobs, Ray Dalio, Bill George, Marc Beinoff and Phil Jackson have in common? They are visionaries, have been known to lead and inspire teams, and have achieved significant success in their professional lives. They have one more thing in common – meditation.” (Singhal, N., Vakil, S. 2012) Could the regular practice of being mindful in such methods as mediation drive such astonishing success in an individual’s daily life? What if it could? Would it change your daily habits? Or maybe perfect your existing practices? As a trained and certified Yoga Instructor and practitioner of meditation I can share on behalf of my own experience that the regular practice of becoming mindful is the quickest and most precise method of drawing clarity to my own mind, my thoughts, my decisions and therefore the performance of my life.
Let us explore; what is mindfulness or the practice of being mindful? Do you know the feeling you experience when you first wake in the morning; you are barely awake, you are still, you are aware yet you are at rest or shall I say in a state of relaxing. Your body is calm and your first thoughts begin for the day. Well, let me take this back just briefly to the state of lying calm and being aware – this is a mindful state. Before a stream of thoughts take over and flood your mind with chaos or emotion such as excitement, worry, anxiety. There is a space of awareness upon stillness maybe even just a simple awareness upon your breath. The recognition of how you feel as you lay comfortable and still, the recognition of thoughts as they arise, the ability to dismiss them and return to the focus of your breath. This is the practice of being mindful. It seems simple but many have discovered the ‘practice’ of a mindfulness practice, takes practice! This sense of calm delivers peace throughout the mind and body and dismisses the presence of worry or anxiety. This place of stillness in the mind and body welcomes clarity and an inner focus that drives toward success. The more frequently this place is explored, the more familiar it becomes and the easier it is to find. No matter what you are doing and no matter what you need to accomplish you begin to realize you have the ability to center yourself even if just briefly before you being your tasks. The offering this practice brings is a pristine space, where clarity, certainty, and the life force of intuition and inner knowing are birthed and are able to drive the practitioner toward success.
Studies have shown many benefits of practicing mindfulness. Some of which are:
- Improved mental focus and reduced mind wandering
- Extension to attention on a single task
- Awareness of emotion and ability to control emotions
- Lifting one self from constant stream of negative self-talk “voice in the head”
- Improved sleep
- Improved immunity
- Greater clarity
- Reduction of cognitive decline
- Overall greater peace
Truly, this is just a short list to provide examples of some of the benefits of a mindfulness practice. Each bullet point on the list has obvious benefits toward an individual’s overall performance both personally and professionally. Each point presented, on it’s own would improve a person’s mood, cognitive stability, and result in greater performance. The truth is a routine mindfulness practice will deliver all these benefits and then some!
Now, what are some additional ways of being mindful? Any individual activity such as Yoga, Jogging, Walking, Lap Swimming or simply house cleaning can offer the chance to practice being mindful. The idea is to focus your thoughts on the feeling of the physical self, tune into the small details such as shifting your weight, the sensations of the body as you shift your balance, the compensation of your muscles or the use of your fingers and toes during normal activities such as reaching or stepping. The small details teach our mind to fine tune our awareness. Once someone is a seasoned practitioner they may find themselves ready to develop a more typical mindfulness practice such as meditation. However, upon introduction to a mindfulness practice I would not focus directly toward meditation because the word itself seems to have some heavy implication toward religion or a “woo-woo” way of life. This interpretation of the word meditation is derived from those whom have no real understanding of it’s true meaning or it’s true value in their personal lives or the workplace or even our world for that matter.
“Mindfulness is not a new idea. Forty years ago Kabat-Zinn founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts to treat chronically ill patients. This sparked interest in the medical field, where mindfulness began to be used and applied to both healthy and unhealthy people.” (Garms, 2013). Today, there are numerous companies, corporations, educational institutions, teams and individuals who practice being mindful on a regular basis to stay focused upon their desired goals and drive success. As mentioned at the opening of this research paper such greats as Phil Jackson used the regular practice of Yoga and Meditation to train the Chicago Bulls as well as the Los Angeles Lakers to multiple championships based upon the foundational principles of the practice. The previous Vice President of General Mills, Inc. a Fortune 200 company, Janice L. Marturano left her job after building a successful career to open The Institute for Mindful Leadership. The Institute which Janice designed and developed from the ground up came to be based upon her own rewarding experience with mediation and mindfulness practice. She concluded if such techniques worked for her to achieve clarity, peace of mind, greater focus and success in her personal and professional life; why not offer the basis of this education to leaders around the world. Janice has multiple workshop offerings and retreats focused around improving the quality of performance of anyone’s life. Janice describes mindfulness as, “paying attention on purpose, non-judgmentally, in the present moment.” (Marturano, 2011). Releasing judgment is a foundational principle in the practice of being mindful. When anyone, much less a leader understands the value of releasing judgment both upon themselves and another person they begin to recognize acceptance. People often do not realize the importance of releasing judgment of themselves. When you consider the natural tendency for your mind to focus negatively on the things you are not so great at, the thoughts tend to build momentum and before you know it your focus in greatly aligned with the attributes in which you do not excel. Rather, than catching this tendency as soon as it starts and realizing it is negative self-talk and you have a choice to turn it off or at least change the mental subject to something that you are good at. When you practice this awareness more and more frequently, you soon discover that you are quicker to turn off the negative and turn on the positive which then becomes fuel toward your greatness and therefore your success. This again, is just one of the simple techniques in mindfulness. Achieving clarity, greater focus and streaming positive energy that will transform your life and enhance success. Another principle that can easily be adapted into one’s life to further their development of being mindful is recognizing there is space in between your thoughts. Sure you are aware of a thought that pops into your head but have you ever considered breathing rather than responding to that thought with another thought? Here is an idea for a simple practice: The next time your phone rings, recognize it has rang, take a deep breath, allow it to ring a second time, breath again and now set an intention before you answer the phone. The intention can be something simple such as, “I will remain calm through this entire phone call no matter who is on the line.” Answer the call, carry on and when done, evaluate how that simple practice made you feel. You practiced being mindful by allowing space in between the recognition of a phone ringing and your reaction to it. In addition, you further explored the experience by setting an intention to practice having choice during any routine task. These simple ideas of creating space are principles of mindfulness and will allow the practitioner greater clarity, focus and translation of pure performance to any task. When operating at such a place of peace one is able to receive authentic power and ultimately that translates into success.
Having awareness of our thoughts and emotions both our personal and professional lives can truly transform our world. Imagine a world where all schools and then businesses believed in the practice of centering yourself and finding true clarity before they undertook any activity or meeting. Or more importantly before creating a potentially damaging reaction to another person whether that be a client, colleague or a customer. Bruce D. Schneider, is the founder and CEO of iPEC Coaching, one of the world’s most highly regarded coach training and leadership development organizations. Schneider teaches “Interpersonal Effectiveness (I.E.) equals Emotional Intelligence (E.I.)”. When any one is able to bring awareness to your emotions, recognize how you feel, create space and then choosing an appropriate reaction to your feelings based upon your environment and the person(s) you are communicating with. You are far more likely to have made a reasonable, responsible and pure decision based upon controlling yourself which again drives toward success. The payoffs of learning to be mindful are endless. Businesses and Employees alike are in favor for the long list of benefits that result in a mindfulness practice. In communication efforts, relationship and team building as well as improved health and well-being, it is clear the benefits of mindfulness practice are nearly endless. Businesses can reap the benefits of exploring these benefits and creating worthwhile training programs or course offerings within their companies. The foundational principles are easy to translate and explore so there is a sure understanding no matter how diverse the audience. The topic resonates with the souls of many because it delivers a pure sense of calm and peace which brings about a freeing sense of surrender. To dismiss negative self-talk, negative emotions, worry/anxiety and bring a focus upon positive energies that fuel motivation, innovation and peace sure sounds good to me.
The next time you find yourself aware of your thoughts – stay there a moment, deliberately release any judgment and just say Aha – my thoughts. Recognize if the thought was negative and choose to change the thought to positive. Allow your mind to compliment your talents and good traits more often. Fill yourself with positive energy as you increase this practice throughout your days. In the morning ‘just-be-still’ and bask in the feeling of peace, begin to recognize that the feeling of peace is with you before your mind fills with chaotic thoughts. Before you begin a meeting or walk into a room full of people, take a moment to breathe and think of an intention to set for the task at hand. All of these suggestions will develop your practice toward greater mindfulness, a sense of being present in all that you do. When you have built this practice it will seem natural for you to perform the deep breath for clarity before you perform your work. You will have opened your mind allowing for space in between thoughts. When there is space in the mind, rather than a stream of thoughts you allow room for your intuition or life force to enter and from there you are running on the most efficient fuel there is. Your energy and your power will be coming from the most authentic source and you can take it from the experts, if you routinely perform such a practice, success is sure to follow.
References
Garms, E.T. (2013). Practicing Mindful Leadership. T+D Magazine
George, B. (2013). Resilience Through Mindful Leadership. Huff Post: The Third Metric
LaBarre, P. (2011). Developing Mindful Leaders. Harvard Business Review
Marturano, J.L. (2011). Institute for Mindful Leadership. Finding the Space to Lead.
Schneider, B. D. (2008). Energy Leadership. Transforming Your Workplace and Your Life from
the Core, 180-181.
Singhal, N., Vakil, S. (2012). Meditation May Be the Key to Business Leadership. The Harbus
Online. The student news organization of the Harvard Business School since 1937.
thoughtsonstage 