MINDFUL LEADERSHIP

MINDFULNESS @ WORK CONFERENCE

SANDER TIDEMANGLOBAL LEADERS ACADEMY

Key questions

• What is the connection between mindfulness and leadership?

• How can mindfulness practice support leadership development?

Myths Mindfulness

• Mindfulness implies ‘ withdrawing’ from the world

• Mindfulness makes people calm and therefore passive, inactive

• Mindfulness contradicts with creativity, free expression

Myths Leadership

• Leaders are born

• Leadership is about being smart (IQ) and tough

• Leaders can handle constant stress

• Leadership is limited to a formal position

• Leadership is management

Leadership essentials– Leadership is about achieving RESULTS with VALUE

– The question is HOW to achieve this?

– Understanding the key VALUE driver in organisations: PEOPLE (employees, clients, suppliers, funders). Results are achieved with/through them.

– People are more than machines, bodies or brains. Leaders need to understand what makes people tick – their MINDS.

What is Leadership?

Management is making people to perform a task. Leadership is making people to want to perform a task.

Management is about telling people; Leadership is about inspiring people.

Warren Bennis

What is leadership?

Leadership is the ability to tap into and mobilize people’s intrinsic motivation and aspiration, so that they are willing to give their whole being to the collective organizational pursuit.This is how high performance work cultures are created.

Dan Goleman

Great leaders: key attributes

1. They develop and communicate a vision2. They create enthusiasm and motivation3. They listen to and respect people’s needs4. They coach and mentor others5. They agree on clear expectations and hold

themselves/others accountable6. They practice what they preach – walk their talk7. They admit and correct mistakes

Mindfulness & Leadership are connected

• All great leadership attributes rest on the MIND, the quality of the inner being

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Not only these guys

2nd question

• How can mindfulness support leadership development?

4 phases of Mindful Leadership

1. Mindfulness: calming and clearing the mind

2. Connecting: Emotional/Social skills, based empathy

3. Creativity: Innovation, problem-solving skills

4. Sustaining: Making meaning, through dealing with future, creating a vision

1. Mindfulness

• Ability to maintain calmness, stability• Ability to listen and give/receive feedback• Accepting and facing tough situations• Dealing with stress; maintaining health and

resilience• Reducing leader’s selfishness/ego-gratification• Reduce speed addiction, developing longer

term perspective

2. Connecting

• People feel before they think• They are constantly (unconsciously) influenced by

their leaders (role-models)• Leaders have great impact – behavior, speech,

body-language• What are the emotional-social skills of leaders?• What is their level of empathy and care? • How well connected are they?

3. Creativity

• Business is full of problems: can they be dealt with in a bold and daring way?

• Can you dream freely, free from limitations of the past?

• How free is your organisation from naming/blaming, are people allowed to make mistakes – do you have a culture of innovation?

• Are you calculating or controling risks?

4. Sustaining• Making sense/meaning of the many systemic challenges, contradictions

and dilemma's in the modern world, ruled by ‘mindless’ markets.

• Leading through a world that is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambigious (VUCA world).

• How well can we create and hold a vision that serves future societal and planetary needs (sustainability)?

• This vision for sustainability will be your best “competative edge” – success in the future by sustainable leadership.

Conclusion

• All of leadership qualities can be developed through 4 levels of Mindfulness practice

• Beyond behavior change: Enhancing the capacity of leaders. The potential of the mind is limitless.

• Next step: creating mindful organizational cultures: unlocking human potential of all employees/all stakeholders.