the most important leadership skill you're missing

Summary

mindfulness used to sound like a soft skill. the research now shows it’s a business skill. a meta-analysis of nearly 20,000 participants links mindfulness directly to stronger teams, better decisions, and less reactivity in high stakes moments.

what mindfulness actually is, in two parts:

1. attentional. the ability to keep your attention on what’s in front of you, instead of letting it drift to your inbox, the next meeting, or the argument you had last night.
2. acceptance. noticing what you’re feeling without trying to fight it, fix it, or perform a different version of it.

how it shows up in leadership:

• destructive leaders are reactive. they’re somewhere else mentally, so they snap, misread, or skip the actual signal in the room.
• transformational leaders are present. their team feels heard. follower performance goes up just because the leader is actually there.

how to train it without meditating:

1. listen without planning your reply. the hardest one. most people are queuing up the next sentence while the other person is still talking. stop.
2. breath, stillness, noticing. three reps a day. one minute each. that’s the whole practice.
3. catch yourself drifting. the rep isn’t the focus, the rep is the noticing that you stopped focusing.

stillness makes you stronger. and your team can feel it before you can name it.

Transcript

why mindfulness matters for leaders

Does mindfulness make you a better leader? Well, I just read a study with nearly 20,000 participants that said it absolutely does. Now, if you’re not into mindfulness at all, it’s pretty simple. It’s just being a little bit more present, more aware in your current moment. There are lots of ways to achieve mindfulness. Things I’ve done over the years, uh breath work practice like box breathing or the Wimhof method, any of these kind of things for breath work.

Also, meditation, 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes of meditation. All these things help you become more mindful and help you with mindfulness, but aren’t necessarily what the study was really looking at. It’s more of that trait of having mindfulness, that presence, that awareness is what they were looking at.

the research: 20,000+ people prove this

And what they looked at in the systematic review was, okay, how did a leader with mindfulness traits and qualities, how did they do compared to people who didn’t? Well, in the study they uncovered there was a strong positive link with transformational authentic and ethical servant leadership. All things you want on the leadership side and there was negative associations if you weren’t mindful and you know it would be more congruent with destructive and abusive leadership if you weren’t mindful.

And then as far as follower outcomes, so getting your team to do what you your team needs to do, there was a better leader and follower relationship established if you were a mindful leader. improved follower well-being, so your team just had better well-being. They felt more well taken care of, and higher follower performance, so your team just performed better. So, really interesting that mindfulness can do all of these things.

what mindfulness actually is (2-part definition)

So, I wanted to talk about that a little bit more and something that you can start thinking of because when we got to the actual definition of mindfulness, it was an open, non-judgmental, receptive awareness of present moment experiences and events. And it had two core elements and this is all according to the study. It was attentional and attitudinal. So attentional was sustained present- centered attention to what is happening right now. And attitudinal was an open, curious and non-defensive stance towards those experiences.

how presence impacts your team

So here’s the deal. You need to be a more mindful leader to be a better leader. And I’d never seen research like this before, but it’s so true. It’s the being unoffendable, right? You have to be completely open and present with your team and don’t get offended by what they’re saying. Hear them, pay attention, be mindful in the moment. And when I was going through this, I was like, okay, what are some of the biggest takeaways?

Like, how could you be more mindful to improve your leadership capability? And I came up with three things is notice before reacting. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs specifically on their leadership. I talk to leaders about it uh each and every single month.

listening without planning your reply

And one thing that I notice is sometimes they’ll get rubbed the wrong way, but more for some sort of personal reason, like the leader will, and they’ll immediately react. And it’s not always a bad reaction, but they just react too fast. Sometimes you just need to notice something, let it sit for a minute before you take any action. And the reason things like meditation and breath work can help with this, even though you don’t have to. you might already be a mindful type person is because one thing that you learn in meditation is you can notice your thoughts coming in and you can recognize the thoughts and let them pass.

Your thoughts are not you. It’s it’s the recognition that you can just have thoughts but not act on them and let them pass you by. It’s the same thing when you’re noticing something. So notice something before you react. Like whatever it is, like okay, I see that happening. I’m not having an immediate reaction. That’s going to help you with your mindfulness. The second thing is listen without planning a reply. If a team member wants to talk to you, sometimes you’re already starting to think of like how you’re going to reply or you’re trying to guess where this conversation is going because you’re busy and you want to get to the point.

tools to build mindfulness (breath, stillness, noticing)

Just listen. Stare them directly in the eyes and listen to exactly what they’re saying. And that will help you a ton. And then the last one is pay attention to them. And this one I can’t stress enough is if you are in meetings and you seem busy or you seem distracted or you’re not really giving someone your full attention then they notice that and you are not being a mindful leader. So if you’re struggling with mindfulness in general the other practical implications or practical applications that you could do I have already recommended.

So, breath work and meditation. There’s so many different apps out there to help you focus on your breathing, to clear your mind, to practice controlling your mind, you know, letting your thoughts pass. These are all things that can help you become a better leader. And if you are the person who reacts or you go too quickly or you’re not paying attention, that is more congruent with this destructive leadership styles. So, if you want to be a better leader, start to practice your mindfulness.

Pay attention to people and don’t react right away. To do all this, you’re going to have to try harder.