Chiswick Consulting How much of what you’ve done over the past 24 hours was purposeful and intentional?
Due to the huge amount of writing I’m doing for my MSc, I’m not blogging as much as I should. However, yesterday I came across an article I felt I must plagiarise – it’s about being a mindful leader.
Mindful Leader – three tips to become one (Yeganeh, 2012) defines mindfulness as a state in which a person is intentially aware of momentary experience. Practising mindfulness enhances mental and physical health, creativity and contextual learning. Being mindless, on the other hand, is being unaware, focused on the future or the past, being on auto pilot and results in tunnel vision, stress, low creativity and poor physical health.
Being a mindful leader involves 3 core practices:
1. Intentionally anchoring your mind to the present moment – through breathing and becoming aware of all your five senses.
2. Noticing what is happening without judging it – let go of the belief that we must overthink everything in order to control it. Acknowledge what and how you are thinking throughout the day without necessarily engaging in knee jerk responses.
3. Analyse your environment mindfully – pay attention to the context in which you are operating. Seek out new sources of information and place value on doubt – it’s the opposite of thinking in terms of black and white.
All easier said than done. Practicing mindfulness in manageable chunks of time (10 minutes during a meeting, for instance), with a credible source and/or through the various on line programmes available is a start.