Mindful leadership: Developing leadership skills with mindfulness

The shift to a digital working world with remote work and working from home has also significantly changed the tasks of management. Innovations are rapidly penetrating existing processes and decision-makers need to be flexible and agile in their response. This fast pace, constant availability and increasingly complex tasks require a special mindset that managers need today in order not to lose the joy of work amidst all the stress. Mindful leadership means incorporating the principles of mindfulness into leadership.

What is mindful leadership?

The term mindfulness originally comes from Buddhism and describes a special form of concentration. The core idea of mindful leadership is to consciously perceive moments and events without judging them directly. This enables you to deal with events without being directly emotionally overwhelmed by them.

Mindfulness training generally has a positive effect on body and mind. There are already numerous studies on this. The first studies were based on the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training program, which was developed by Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn in the 1970s. In this program, participants learned how to better deal with stressful situations and emerging excessive demands in everyday life.

Mindfulness in leadership: The 7 pillars of mindful leadership

Mindfulness in leadership is based on 7 pillars. The aim of implementation is to find a mindful way of dealing with yourself and your employees.

1. Don't judge
   Most of the time, we have a spontaneous impulse to judge a situation. An employee makes a suggestion and a feeling of approval or rejection immediately arises, which influences all subsequent actions. A reflective approach to the situation usually produces much more sensible results in the end.
   
2. Have patience
   A contradiction in a time that demands quick reactions? No, because the quickest way is not always the best. Having patience means pursuing a goal not as quickly as possible, but as sustainably as possible.
   
3. Awakening a beginner's mind
   Existing thought patterns slow down innovation. This is also the reason why many companies rely on external consultants to gain new perspectives on existing work processes. Instead of seeing things from a familiar perspective, it is worth taking many steps back and breaking down old patterns.
   
4. Trust
   Trust in mindful leadership means having trust in yourself on the one hand and trust in others on the other. Every team member can draw on their knowledge, experience and network and learn from their own mistakes. To do this, there must be a space in which everyone can develop.
   
5. Don't force things
   We often have the impulse to want to force things in a world where everything seems possible. But there are also moments when you should let things take their course. This is especially true for employees who bring in new ideas that you are not convinced of at first.
   
6. Acceptance
   Accepting things as they are, keeping calm and not giving in to the impulse to want to change things from the ground up. This is also an important skill in mindful leadership.
   
7. Letting go
   Mistakes and negative things happen and it is important to let go of the old. This liberates us and makes room for the new.

Why is mindful leadership so important today?

The tasks and requirements for good leadership are constantly changing, and with them the demands on self-management and employee management. In order not to push your own energy resources to their limits, it is important to develop a healthy work-life balance and not to waste energy in areas where calmness and mindfulness are required.

Modern leadership benefits from mindful leadership through increased motivation, higher productivity and an increase in the motivation of all employees. A people-centered culture results in greater identification with one's own tasks and ultimately better quality work.

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