Category: Mindfulness for Leaders
Tips and tools for leaders to develop mindful habits and increase their personal leadership impact.
4 simple strategies to define your leadership purpose
There are many types of leaders and, yet, very few of the leaders I meet have consciously chosen the type of leader they want to become. The conscious choices you make as a leader begins with why you want to lead. I came to learn this the hard way. In my corporate life, I started to feel like I wasn’t in the right job, and that perhaps I should be doing something else. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure what this ‘something else’ was, and so, I continued working in the same environment despite my head and heart telling me otherwise. Eventually,…
Read 4 simple strategies to define your leadership purposeThe Mindful Leadership Challenge 2021
Welcome to my 2021 Mindful Leadership Challenge to celebrate Mindfulness and Compassion Week. What’s the challenge? 5 days of practical tools to create a compass to navigate uncertainty and lead your team to deliver market leading results in the new financial year. Check back here each day for a new video on a range of mindful leadership topics, and, if you’d like to be sent the daily meditations, simply contact me with your email address and I’ll ensure that they’re sent to you. Wishing you many mindful moments. Mindful Leadership Challenge Day 1: Clarity In times of crisis, it’s…
Read The Mindful Leadership Challenge 2021Mindfulness: A Valuable Tool For Leaders
Have you noticed how mindfulness has become a buzzword, with many organisations adopting mindful practices in their leadership development, and others rejecting the notion outright as eastern “woo-woo”? What exactly is mindfulness, and why is it a critical tool for leaders? I define mindfulness as being fully present in this moment, without judgement and with self-compassion. There are three critical elements of this definition: Deliberately choosing to pay attention to this moment. This requires you to make a conscious choice and often transcend your mind’s attraction to distraction. Letting go of all expectations of how this moment should be, not…
Read Mindfulness: A Valuable Tool For LeadersTo Change Your Results, Change Yourself
Most organisational change focuses on structure, process and systems. Even when there is a genuine intention to engage people to effect change, the majority of resources, effort and energy is concentrated on processes and systems changing, and then expecting people to adapt quickly. To create real change in an organisation, you need to start with changing the way your leaders behave, supporting them to effect a deeper personal change that is not reliant on the end result. In any change initiative, there are bound to be errors and things that don’t go to plan. This is a salient reminder that…
Read To Change Your Results, Change YourselfRest Is Not a Luxury
Every year come December, I am inundated with friends, family, and clients telling me how tired and burnt out they are. Modern workplaces and 21st century living has resulted in employees working longer hours, taking fewer holidays, and succumbing to illness when they finally do stop for their annual Christmas break. This year has been particularly taxing with working from home blurring the lines of work, family and rest. Working on demand without daily periods of rest and sleep is simply unsustainable. In the pursuit of excellence, and the rise of “hustle culture”, we have come to believe that rest…
Read Rest Is Not a LuxuryBe Conscious of What Drives You
Have you ever worked really hard for something in your career and experienced only relief when you achieved it? Cathy Freeman described this when she won Olympic gold at the Sydney 2000 games. That’s what you experience when your goals are not aligned with your purpose. Purpose is a confusing word that is often used to mean anything from values to intention. It’s not some lofty ideal like world peace or solving poverty either. Purpose drives performance and it’s the impact you want to have on others. One of the questions I’m asked most often from leaders I work with…
Read Be Conscious of What Drives YouHow to Manage Uncertainty as a Leader
COVID 19 has put the business world in a spin. Leaders in many organisations are navigating unknown and very unpredictable waters, whilst also having to maintain positive morale among team members. It can be anxiety-causing in itself but believe it or not the best defence comes in the way of the mind. The ancient yogis would say we can’t control or predict the future but through our actions, we can influence outcomes. Rather than posturing for predictability and trying to control outcomes, try building the life skill of managing your mind to consciously choose your actions and so create new…
Read How to Manage Uncertainty as a LeaderFight for your focus
“Information is power” Or is it? How much information do you receive during a work day? Is it empowering or overwhelming? In my last corporate role, I received over 70 emails per day. As the leader of an international team that covered every time zone from New Zealand to New York, I felt a sense of duty to read all of them, in case I missed something that was important. I realised this was a problem because I spent the day working with my team and early mornings and late evenings reading and responding to emails. I was exhausted. Technology…
Read Fight for your focusStop Feeling Stuck In Your Career
As a leader, there are many transitions that you make. Probably the first is the move into a leadership position, followed by transitions into larger, broader roles or new industries, functions or career paths. Think back to your last transition. When did it begin? If you are like most people, it began immediately before you stepped into the new role. In reality, the transition process actually started with that first thought you had about making a change. Your mental energy shifted at that point and you started thinking about and weighing up the options. If the change was external, caused…
Read Stop Feeling Stuck In Your CareerCritical Steps to Elevate Your Executive Transition
In a survey conducted by Egon Zehnder, 80% of executives said it took them more than 6 months to have an impact in their new role. They identified a poor grasp of how the organisation works and cultural mismatch as the top derailing factors. Recently I ran a workshop on the 7 Critical Steps to Elevate Your Executive Transition. The first and most critical step is to manage your mind. As Rod Stryker says “the mind is the architect of your destiny”. Neuroscience is discovering many benefits to mindfulness, including, what you focus on grows (so choose your focus wisely)…
Read Critical Steps to Elevate Your Executive Transition