INsight/ Making Mindfulness Work

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Bussum, 10 October 2024 — How to make mindfulness multiply your leadership progress and impact. 

Story

It happened in the past two decades. Mindfulness has become a common practice in many workplaces around the world. You may already have discovered the benefits of meditating for a few minutes daily. With or without an app, of which there are many nowadays. Congrats, you are making a good start.  

For leaders, mindfulness is key to everything we do, and what we decide not to do. The benefits of meditation to our health and functioning in life and work are well understood from extensive research. There is, however, much more to mindfulness than meditating for a few minutes every day. What else is at stake?

When we invest in expanding our awareness we experience a wide range of benefits in all areas of our leadership, from influencing others in our work to improving our leadership hygiene and making better decisions. Importantly, when we practice expanding our awareness every day and week, we overcome the mental blocks that prevent us from multiplying our leadership.

Challenge

From the many challenges we face in making mindfulness multiply our leadership, here are three that every leader needs to master in their workplace practice. We call them the Three Leadership Blocks.  First is The Progress Block, to unleash your drive to make positive progress. Without this drive, nothing much happens. Dwayne Johnson, an actor and wrestler, said “With drive and a bit of talent, you can move mountains.” On the other hand, when your drive is low, you’re not getting anywhere and it’s easy to get stuck in rumination, fear, stress, anxiety, fatigue, being bullied, and even burnout.

Second is The Purpose Block. Years ago, I learned that while you may be able to do almost anything, you certainly cannot do everything. Until you get clear about your purpose, you are drifting instead of designing your life. As Mark Twain, an author, explained, “The two most important days in your life are the day you’re born and the day you find out why.” Getting clear about your purpose has everything to do with your mindfulness.  

Third is the Programs Block. James Baldwin, a writer, states, “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” Just like the operating system in your computer and phone determines what you can do with the apps and information on your screen, your mental programming drives what you think you can and cannot do. We need to clean up those programs, and this can be more difficult than we think. Typically, this is where working with a coach on your mindfulness can help you accelerate your progress.

Question

Summing up, the Three Leadership Blocks are about a lack of motivational drive, a lack of clarity about your purpose, and your mind running on outdated mental programming. How will you work on these three challenges? Practicing mindfulness, aka expanding your conscious awareness, will multiply your leadership progress and impact.

In our Grow3Leaders community, expanding our awareness is one of the 12 effective leadership behaviors we practice to experience a transformation in how we lead ourselves, grow leaders around us, and flourish in the workplace. It has many benefits. It updates our beliefs about what we can and cannot do, it helps us see more opportunities to lead positive changes in the workplace, and it builds our self-confidence as leaders. That is why we want to practice and master this behavior. 

After overcoming the Three Leadership Blocks, there are many more challenges to making mindfulness multiply your leadership. Developing your leadership is a marathon, not a sprint. That’s why it’s important to get started with deliberate practice, supported by a coach and several mentors. If you see and feel the need to develop your leadership to the next level, check out the Leader in Transition Program and let us know what you want to accomplish in your next leadership transition.