Cultivating Mindful Leaders

One topic I am passionate about is growing future leaders.  Having worked in large corporations over several decades, I have been repeatedly disappointed at how little attention is paid to selecting, nurturing, and building leaders.  The habits and behaviors, attitudes and philosophy new leaders establish when they experience their very first position as a supervisor or team lead usually cement in place the type of leader they will become.  Unfortunately, people are often selected for their technical competence with little thought given to their preparedness to lead.  Worse still is they are rarely given the time and attention, coaching and mentoring, critical to building the skills necessary to become truly great leaders.

Of all the qualities that seems to be lacking in leadership today, mindfulness is at the top of my list.  For me, the quality of mindfulness is the very foundation on which other skills should be built.  Mindfulness is like the still waters that run deep.  There is tremendous energy beneath the surface yet the mindful leader maintains a sense of calm around them.  The mindful leader brings strength and confidence without creating confusion and chaos.  Mindfulness is the by-product of awareness, and when people are aware (they are sensitive to) of who they truly are and what is going on around them, they make better decisions, treat others with greater respect, and take into account innumerable factors that others would easily miss or overlook.  Mindfulness requires an individual to be in touch with how their ego affects their actions and they take steps to avoid decisions where it's their ego that is leading instead of their true self.  Authenticity is another by-product of awareness.  They are consistently the same person regardless of situation and their words can be counted on to align with their actions.  Leaders mindful of who they are exercise greater respect for the views of others and aren't intimidated by alternative viewpoints.  They respect each person as a uniquely equipped individual with particular talents that when combined with others, can generate great results.  Mindful leaders are construction specialists.  They build other people and through building others, they help to create great organizations.

So why is it then that organizations choose to largely ignore newly-selected leaders?  Some continue to believe that leaders are born, not cultivated and they leave it up to chance that the new leader will pick it up as they grow.  Instead, what most of these people pick up are the bad habits and behaviors they see in others more senior then they.  Left to themselves, new leaders will surmise that the behaviors they see in those who have gone before and been "successful" must represent what it takes to be great.  Is it any wonder then that when those people achieve higher levels of leadership, they fail?  Remember that the consistently #1 reason why people leave a company is their manager, and those habits and behaviors were likely established when they were a new leader.  In my experience, mindful leaders are able to retain great talent because people know they are valued and treated fairly.  If you're trying to build a high performance organization then, you need to have a substantial supply of mindful leaders.  We are what we teach, and so if you want truly great leaders, you must start today to cultivate the values and behaviors you want in the future.

What happens all too often in most organizations is that new leaders are given few tools and support, and what they do receive is often focused on compliance and policy versus personal growth.  And even companies that may have initially supported their new leaders with personal development resources, quickly jettison them when financial difficulties arise.  A friend of mine who specializes in mindful coaching was recently notified by a very large, well-known IT company that his services would no longer be paid for by the company due to budget constraints.  So new leaders get help in ensuring HR compliant performance reviews are completed, company policies are understood and followed, and project performance metrics are collected and reported on time, but they are left on their own when it comes to developing personal awareness and development.  While it's not the company's sole responsibility to provide this support, it is the environment they create, the mentoring and coaching they provide, and the resources they make available that ultimately determine the success or failure of a leader, and by extension, the company itself.

I would encourage you therefore to build mindful leaders.  Make it a point to carefully select new leaders not based entirely on how competent they are, but also the qualities you observe in how they treat others, the degree of empathy they exhibit, how they support their colleagues, and look for the tell-tale signs of awareness.  From there, focus on building those attributes and deliberately surround the new leader with coaches and mentors that are themselves mindful.  For leaders already in place, consider doing a leadership reset in your organization to correct past errors when you may have promoted someone who really wasn't ready or lacked the qualities of mindfulness.  Finally, where it becomes necessary, replace leaders who aren't willing to focus on becoming more mindful.  You will be doing your organization, employees, and the individual a great favor in the long run.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action.