Be a Mindful Leader Because it Gets Results
“The leader of the past was a person who knew how to tell. The leader of the future will be a person who knows how to ask.” Peter Drucker.
Leaders need to surrender the belief that they have the answers. This is NOT always easy especially for people who’ve accomplished much and succeeded based on their individual drive, hard work, and expertise.
A few basic mindfulness concepts can help leaders to surrender that belief, improve performance, help leaders find more joy in their role, create more effective teams, and a culture of shared accountability - all of which support the culture, and the outcomes, you want.
Leaders need to surrender the belief that they have the answers. This is NOT always easy . . .
Don’t dismiss mindfulness as something that will simply allow people to avoid burnout, or make people “feel” better about themselves. Yes, mindfulness is linked to making people feel valued, and heard – but it can also challenge people to connect to the organization’s goals, and improve their ability to support that work.
(Note: Mindfulness CAN be a powerful tool to support physician well-being - Here's a great summary by Jonathan Fisher, M.D.: How Mindfulness can Bring Healing to Healthcare).
A Simple Way to Think about Mindfulness
First, a few important disclaimers:
1. Mindful leaders can still utilize an authoritative leadership style when it’s called for.
2. You DON’T need to integrate meditation into your meetings – heck you don’t even need to meditate, yourself! (but it certainly can help - See the HBR article, Why Leaders Need Meditation)
3. Mindful leaders can still set high standards, and demand excellence.
Mindfulness has become a buzzword, and some immediately dismiss it. Unless I’m presenting content that is openly about mindfulness, I avoid the term so as not to lose the skeptics in the crowd, even though we are, in reality, often talking about mindfulness concepts.
Over time, leaders embrace the concepts as sound, simple and practical skills. If they appreciate the broader mindfulness approach, that’s a bonus.
Mindfulness can be described as a state of awareness, a trait, a practice, or a quality of behavior. Certainly, it can develop into a way of living that brings greater focus and effectiveness, as well as kindness and caring, to everything we do.
For our purposes, though, in the context of leadership skills, let’s just start by defining it as “the ability to be present, composed, and thoughtful, as we face challenges.”
Overcoming the Culture of Expertise
A recent HBR online article opened with this paragraph:
“Historically, leaders achieved their position by virtue of experience on the job and in-depth knowledge. They were expected to have answers and to readily provide them when employees were unsure about what to do or how to do it. The leader was the person who knew the most, and that was the basis of their authority.”
Healthcare has emphasized a culture of expertise, especially in the clinical fields. Yet, healthcare is so complex that no leader, no matter how accomplished in his or her area of expertise, can be effective because they “know the most.”
We have, traditionally, celebrated independence, confidence, self-reliance and placed people in leadership roles based on individual accomplishments.
In approaching complex challenges, especially under pressure, these leaders might feel pressure to have the answers, to just "do it themselves", and that it's quicker to assume an authoritarian leadership style so as to avoid discussion, negotiation, and compromise. In most instances, these approaches are NOT ideal, or effective.
How does a leader move to being curious, seeing the role as primarily about asking questions, surrendering control, and the letting go of the reliance on your own expertise? These are invaluable skills, and are very much, mindfulness concepts.
Mindful Leadership – Simplified
(But not necessarily easy)
Mindful leadership skills are not complicated – but this does not mean they are easy (especially for some people). We need to start by accepting that traditional models of leadership are not as effective as what are commonly referred to as servant leadership, or transformational leadership (or similar terms).
I like thinking of leadership as the “art of building trust and meaningful connections in an environment where results matter.” (From Marc Lesser, Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader)
Certainly, a leader may leverage his or her own specific expertise and experiences in some areas. Generally, though, a mindful leader’s job is to listen, respect, and consider the ideas and insights of his or her people, and leverage their collective skills.
At its core, mindful leadership requires the ability to foster a sense of community and connection, with empathy as a core competency. (These are not, most assuredly, the initial thoughts of most healthcare professionals as they move into their first leadership role.)
At its core, mindful leadership requires the ability to foster a sense of community and connection . . .
Displaying empathy is critical not only for caring for patients, but also for each other. This helps a leader and his or her team to create shared goals and a sense of team accountability, and more effectively manage conflict, challenges and crises.
In many ways, the leader must realize that the best way to achieve the organization’s goals, is to build the work around the long-term emotional well-being of everyone in his or her charge - including helping them to achieve THEIR goals.
A leader can be driven, motivated, hard-working, set high expectations, make tough decisions, and not tolerate poor performance – but still do all of what we just outlined.
The challenge for many, though is that depending on others requires humility, vulnerability and a willingness to give up control. For some people, this is NOT their natural tendency, or the leadership approach under which they trained – so they may not even have a frame of reference.
[T]he best way to achieve the organization’s goals, is to build the work around the long-term emotional well-being of everyone in his or her charge - including helping them to achieve THEIR goals.
Specific Skills
To get started, consider the following specific skills. Given your own personality, and experience, which of these are easy for you? Which are difficult?
Approach disagreement and criticism with curiosity instead of frustration.
Approach conflicting opinions as an opportunity for learning, finding better solutions and teaching effective communication and problem-solving.
See the "ground truth" – the gap between the truth and the vision – without judgment, or the reactions and biases that we all develop over time. You don’t need to purge yourself of emotion, but understand that emotion is borne of these experiences and biases – and often clouds the “ground truth.”
Make work a place of continual learning.
Get REALLY good at listening.
Think, listen, and hold space – even when you want, desperately, to just tell people what to do!
Resist the culture of expertise: Recognize that our mental model of the world is incomplete and biased. Realize that for you, and for many on your team, it’s psychologically easier to be the expert. “Knowing” is predictable and safe.
Be vulnerable – It’s a sign of strength and the best way to establish meaningful connections and build trust.
Consider every meeting a chance to constantly improve the sense of “team," communication, and support.
Support people when they challenge the status quo, or present new ideas. Encourage this behavior.
Recognize, and leverage, the universal human desire to belong to something bigger than yourself. Even when it’s not readily apparent in your team members.
Make efforts to connect on a personal level.
Your Challenge…
• Be courageous - It’s hard to be REALLY self-aware – to step outside of yourself- identify your fears, blindspots, biases and assumptions.
• Embrace the Pain - It hurts to become aware that we avoid, or over-react, and aren’t as effective as we’d like to be. But there is learning in that pain. It gives you the power to learn, change, and grow, to respond more effectively, connect deeply, to find solutions and think creatively.
• Shift from the narrow, ego-centric, fear-based mind that at some point controls all of us, to one that is open, curious, connected, and able to help others.
• Embrace the idea that success happens when you can combine caring and compassionate people, with quality and results.
• Realize that being mindful does NOT mean you avoid difficult conversations, that you don’t demand excellence, challenge others to be better, or sometimes make the difficult decision that someone can’t be on the team.
And, finally . .
Approach leadership and relationships with the transformational motivation of love. This one sounds odd to some people, but if you think about, you will likely realize that leadership is an affair of the heart.
Think about the best leaders you've known. Regardless of their personality or leadership style, it's likely that underneath it all, they loved the work, the organization, and their people.
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