SAFE STATESMINDFUL LEADERSHIPRESPONSE – ABILITY
Dr. Aliki NicolaidesAssociate Professor & Graduate Coordinator
Learning, Leadership, & Organization Development The University of Georgia
So glad to learn with and from you!
Mindful – Leader
My summer story
Mindful Leader
Look around you and find an image or two that
represent what mindful and leader means for
you.
You can choose one image that captures your
meaning for both and or two images that
captures your meaning for each.
Once you have your image(s), return to your
table and spend some time sharing your image
and the meaning they carry for you with your
table mates.
MindfulnessHow do you bring yourself to the present moment when reality looks & feels like this?
Paying attention in a particular way:
on purpose, in the present moment,
and non-judgmentally.
Joh Kabat-Zinn
Living under the influence of:
V.U.C.A.
Volatility: turbulence and constant
intensity
Uncertainty: lack of predictability,
prospect for surprise; sense of limited
awareness
Complexity: multiplex of forces, chaos
and confusion brought by system
interdependence and globalization
Ambiguity: haziness of reality, lack of
clear understanding of meaning of
events and patterns
In Flint, Michigan, siblings Julie, Antonio, and India Abram collect their daily
allowance of bottled water from Fire Station #3, their local water resource
site.
New shifts(World Economic Forum, 2018)
Organizations (profit, non-profit,
governmental, non-governmental, higher
learning institutes) - are moving from a
focus on profit, operationalizing
hierarchies, leadership as control,
planning before action and privacy to more
fluid, and organic systems that demand
new forms of learning in action.
Vertical & Horizontal Learning to Grow & Develop Capacity for Response-ability
Vertical Development -
Growing the capacity (mindset) to respond to
disruptive change, which requires that we
learn to shift our awareness from one state to
another. Its about suspending our habit of
increasing what we know, so that we may also
grow the ways we know.
Horizontal Learning:
Acquiring skills, tools, and practices that solve
problems. Increasing the base (skillsets) of
our knowledge.
We are asked to respond in these ways:(B. Johansen, Leaders Make the Future)
■Vision: the capacity to project a positive
picture of the desired future state 3-5 years ahead.
■Understanding: the capacity to pause to
reflect, and intuit the bigger picture amidst the details.
■Clarity: the capacity to make sense of
chaos and bring order forth with intention and purpose.
■Agility: the capacity to communicate and
act in a timely, responsive, and skillful manner.
LISTENING TO RESPONDDeep Listening for Authentic Action
Breath & Listening
The ideal anchor for wayward
attention…paying attention to the
sensation of breathing in the body serves
as the first object of attention, a beginners
practice, simple and yet has within it
everything you would ever need for
cultivating the full range of our humanity,
especially your capacity for wisdom and for
compassion.
VoiceSpeaking from one’s place of
identity Speaking from the heart
Declaring what you wantTaking a stand
SuspendStepping back to see what is
missing
Examining what is taken for
granted”Providing greater
perspective
ListenHearing without judgment
Genuinely receiving
another’s point of view
Being generousEmpathizing
RespectSeeing the other perspective/s as legitimate
Acknowledging boundaries
Identifying and naming when boundaries
have been crossed
Practices for Dialogue
How to bring a disposition of mindfulness
to a powerful leadership tool -
Dialogue: Cultivating a mindful approach
to Speech Acts
Dialogue and Discussion
There is an important distinction between
dialogue and discussion:
KronosKairos
CircumferenceCircle
Hierarchical
Right/wrongSide by side
KnowledgeInsight
DecisionChoice
Notion of Time
Interpersonal Dynamics
Theory of Truth
Type of Knowing
Action Focus
DiscussionDialogue
Dialogue
An art and science of giving voice to our
thoughts, feelings, perspectives with
mindful compassion.
Demands psychological safety.
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within more than the luster of the firmament of bards
and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his own thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come
back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
Great works of art have not more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility
then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought
and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
– -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Four parts of speech
■ Second-person practice for
increasing mutuality
■ Components
– Framing
– Advocating
– Illustrating
– Inquiring (and listening)
Tools for Inquiry –We will Practice
•4 Parts of Communicative Action
•Framing, Advocating, Illustrating, Inquiring
Speech
Framing – This is what I want to communicate. Purpose, focus, intention
Advocating – this is what I think about what I want to talk about
Illustrating – An illustration of what I mean
Inquiring – Asking for your understanding, point of view, reflections, insights, support…
Practice ■ Role play a scenario using
the four-parts of speech Describe basic context, relationships
of actors, briefly situation, and
perhaps a little about how the person
would play the part (send in private
chat)
■ Feedback
■ Switch roles
■ Group
revision/construction
Enacting the four parts of speechHow might you begin using this as a
practice of mindful leadership?
Vertical & Horizontal Capacity Mindfulness Practice
Dialogue Systems
Mindful Leader Formation
Thank you for learning with and from each other and inviting me to learning with and from you.
May I never not be frisky,
May I never not be risqué.
May my ashes, when you have them,
friend, and give them to the ocean,
Leap in the froth of the waves,
Still loving movement,
Still ready, beyond all else,
To dance for the world.
Prayer, Mary Oliver