the problem just needs to be heard

Gabrielle Thompson, senior vice president at Cisco, has found that when an employee comes to her with a challenge, sometimes it needs a simple solution. But often, the problem just needs to be heard. “Many situations simply need an ear, not action. Oftentimes, problems don’t need solutions — they need presence and time,” she says. As leaders, having the ability to be fully present and listen with an open mind is often the most powerful way to solve issues.

As a leader, your role can be simply to create the safe space for people to air their frustrations and process their problems. Through mindful presence, you become the container in which they have space to process the issue, without you stepping in to solve, fix, manipulate, or control the situation. Presence in itself can help resolve the issue. This kind of presence not only solves the problem but also creates greater connection and engagement.

Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter

"If You Aspire to Be a Great Leader, Be Present" Harvard Business Review. December 13, 2017.

being present becomes the cornerstone

Like all CEOs, Dominic Barton, global managing director of McKinsey & Company, has a daily schedule of back-to-back meetings. All of these meetings are important, all include complex information, and most require far-reaching decisions. Under these conditions, being present moment to moment, meeting after meeting, is a challenge. But in Barton’s experience, presence is not a choice. It’s a necessity.

“When I’m with people during the day, I’m doing my best to be focused, I’m present with them,” he told us. “Part of this is because I get energy from being with people. But the other part is because if you’re not focused, if you’re not present, it’s discouraging to the other people. They lose motivation. If you’re not present, I think you may as well not have the meeting. It can sometimes be difficult to do, but it’s always important.”

The person in front of you does not know what you were dealing with a moment ago, nor should they. It’s your responsibility to show up and be fully present to effectively use the limited time you have with each person you meet.

Barton believes being mindfully present requires discipline and skill. It takes discipline to stay on task, not letting yourself be affected by nagging challenges or distracted by mental chatter. And it requires skill to have the mental ability to stay laser focused and present. When he’s present throughout his day, he finds it deeply gratifying. Being present becomes the cornerstone to getting the most out of every moment with each person.

Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter

"If You Aspire to Be a Great Leader, Be Present" Harvard Business Review. December 13, 2017.

he was actually there

Some years ago, we worked with a director of a multinational pharma company who’d been receiving poor grades for engagement and leadership effectiveness. Although he tried to change, nothing seemed to work. As his frustration grew, he started tracking the time he spent with each of his direct reports — and every time he received bad feedback, he pulled out his data and exclaimed, ”But look how much time I spend with everyone!”

Things improved when he began a daily 10-minute mindfulness practice. After a couple of months, people found him more engaging, nicer to work with, and more inspiring. He was surprised and elated by the results. The real surprise? When he pulled out his time-tracking spreadsheet, he saw that he was spending, on average, 21% less time with his people.

The difference? He was actually there.

He came to understand that, even though he was in the same room with someone, he wasn’t always fully present. He let himself become preoccupied with other activities or let his mind drift to other things. And, most of all, he’d listen to his inner voice when someone was talking. Because of his lack of presence, people felt unheard and frustrated.

Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter

"If You Aspire to Be a Great Leader, Be Present" Harvard Business Review. December 13, 2017.

rebound from distractions

The moment we feel our phones vibrate inside our pockets, our impulse often drives us to take it out immediately and to interrupt the task at hand. Of course, this may be necessary if you're waiting to hear from someone or are on call; however, for the vast majority of us, especially at work, research shows it can take people up to 23 minutes to rebound from distractions -- for the person to truly dive back into what he or she was originally focused on.

From neuroscience research, we know that simple exercises such as mindfulness meditation and focusing on the breath can increase focus and strengthen connections in the brain related to executive function and goal-directed behavior (aka dedicating that deep focus needed to wrap up that project). We also know that multitasking is a myth, so closing your email and silencing notifications while dedicating yourself to the task at hand will pay off and can enable you to be more focused and to think more clearly about important decisions for your team.

Richard J. Davidson

"How Science Can Inform Good Leadership" Huffington Post. 10/26/2015

awakened leadership

Awakened leadership is reflective. When you reflect on things, you consider them from multiple angles, and think deeper about them than a superficial thought or two. Your job, position, work relationships, the industry you are involved in, the very purpose of your performance, your private or social connections, the things you say, the things you do, and those you refrain from saying and doing: reflecting on all of the above can help you understand yourself better, and make you more mindful from here onward....

Awakened leadership is the continued awareness in your thoughts, actions, and communications that: 

1. You have to make your decisions by reflecting on your lessons learned from past experiences, but even more by reflection on your wishes for the future and the possible effects these decisions will have on that. 
2. You should consider the perspectives of others, and keep an open mind to potentially different ideas, which as they may enrich your understanding, insight, and consequently, the directions you will choose going forward. 
3. You should question, even doubt, established patterns and procedures, as many of them were created when times, expectations, circumstances, goals, and mindsets, were entirely different. If you find that the old patterns and procedures still suffice, you can continue with them, but if you find that there is room for improvement or drastic change, you should implement that. 
4. You should keep in mind that, while details are important to safeguard quality in everything, you also have to keep the big picture in mind, so that you can focus on what really matters in the long run. 
5. You should make mindful leadership your new habit. Your mind is a wonderful instrument, but it has the tendency to lead you astray at every opportunity it gets. This is the time to step up in awareness and regain control over the directions your mind moves into. 

Restore your priorities in the right order, and realize the impermanence of everything, including yourself. If you can keep yourself mindful of the fact that you want to leave this world a better place than you encountered it, you have set an important step on the path to awakened leadership.

Joan F. Marques

"Awakened Leadership: A behavioral roadmap" HR.com. August 2015

actively noticing new things

Mindfulness is the process of actively noticing new things. When you do that, it puts you in the present. It makes you more sensitive to context and perspective. It’s the essence of engagement. And it’s energy-begetting, not energy-consuming. The mistake most people make is to assume it’s stressful and exhausting—all this thinking. But what’s stressful is all the mindless negative evaluations we make and the worry that we’ll find problems and not be able to solve them.

We all seek stability. We want to hold things still, thinking that if we do, we can control them. But since everything is always changing, that doesn’t work. Actually, it causes you to lose control.

Take work processes. When people say, “This is the way to do it,” that’s not true. There are always many ways, and the way you choose should depend on the current context. You can’t solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions. So when someone says, “Learn this so it’s second nature,” let a bell go off in your head, because that means mindlessness. The rules you were given were the rules that worked for the person who created them, and the more different you are from that person, the worse they’re going to work for you. When you’re mindful, rules, routines, and goals guide you; they don’t govern you.

Ellen Langer

"Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity." Harvard Business Review. March 2014.

cultivate resilience

According to experts, the following 11 activities help cultivate resilience:

1. Having a core set of beliefs that nothing can shake.
2. Finding meaning in whatever stressful or traumatic thing that has happened.
3. Maintaining a positive outlook.
4. Taking cues from someone else who is especially resilient.
5. Not running away from things that scare you: Face them.
6. Reaching out for support when things go haywire.
7. Learning new things as often as you can.
8. Having an exercise regimen you’ll stick to.
9. Not beating yourself up or dwelling on the past.
10. Recognizing what makes you uniquely strong—and owning it.
11. Practicing mindfulness.

Mindfulness deserves a special mention. In a study, Marines who underwent an eight-week course in mindfulness showed great gains in resilience. No only did their heart rate and breathing rate show less reactivity when faced with a stressful situation, their brains changed too: They showed lower activation in the region of the brain associated with emotional reactions. By the end of training, their brains looked more resilient.


Samantha Boardman M.D.
"Bounce Back: 11 Ways to be More Resilient: Data-driven insights to help deal with stress." Psychology Today. 8/14/2015

to be optimally motivated

Leaders cannot motivate anyone, but what they can do is create a workplace where it’s more likely for people to be optimally motivated. They do that through leadership behaviors that satisfy people’s three psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence (ARC) and facilitate people’s quality of self-regulation through the MVPs of mindfulness, values, and purpose:

1. Encourage autonomy
2. Deepen relatedness
3. Develop competence
4. Promote mindfulness
5. Align values
6. Connect to purpose

Bonnie Marcus

"The Science of Motivation." Women Success Coaching blog. 7/20/2015