Leading Mindfully

There are so many ways that we can think about what leadership actually is.

If you google it, you're going to get inundated with countless different definitions.

But if you strip away all of the differences, the one thing that remains is that it's a people thing.

One of the ways that I like to think of effective leadership is that it has to do with our level of usefulness.

Being useful to others in helping them gain access to their own usefulness for a particular cause.

When you're being the best leader you can be, what you're really doing is you're helping others access their own best qualities and abilities so that they can do things, they can perceive things, discover things, build momentum towards things that they wouldn't necessarily have had access to, were it not for your presence and the usefulness of your leadership.

So the question I encourage all leaders to contemplate regularly is, when are you that you're most useful to others?

And what are the personal qualities that you need to have access to, to be able to show up in that way?

For me, I've learned that I'm at my most useful to others when I'm calm enough to be non reactive, when I have the presence of mind to be able to see things clearly and to not get lost in the distortions of the stories I'm telling myself, or the judgments that I can make that only create division between me and others.

And it's when I'm able to access my compassion and when I'm genuinely interested in the welfare and the success of others.

When I'm able to show up in that way, that's when I'm most useful.

But here's the stinger.

The next important question is, so what gets in the way?

If you're anything like me, you may have noticed that some days it's easy to not have access to these kinds of qualities.

Sometimes we're just being pulled along on the automaticity of the day, on autopilot.

We might have our own challenges and frustrations that we have to contend with that can put us in mindsets that are at odds with being useful to others.

Or it might just be that we're not even thinking about the impact that we're having on those that are looking to us for leadership.

Now of course none of this is a reason to be self critical, it's just part of being human.

But there are things we can do to stack the odds that we show up with our usefulness more of the time.

We can practice leading more consciously.

Imagine there's a horizontal line. and in any moment you're either above it or below it.

Being above the line represents you as a useful leader and below the line not so much.

Practicing conscious leadership is about recognising the factors that take you below the line and also understanding what helps you to stay above it and then consciously prioritising more of that.

From my own experience and in my experience of working with others, one of the most effective and supportive ways of staying above the line more of the time is with mindfulness and meditation.

Now there are loads of reasons why I encourage leaders to meditate and to practice mindfulness throughout the day, but chief among these is that it makes it easier for us to gain access to the personal qualities that make us useful to others,

i.e. it helps us to become better leaders.

If you'd like to know what a conscious leadership development program could look like for your organisation, or if you're interested in working with me one on one, then just reach out and let's have a chat.