Written by: Alex Bravo, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
This is my second article of the Mindfulness at the workplace saga. As it was explained on the first article, I’ll be elaborating on the benefits that disciplined meditators ‒ that have participated on “The 8 Week Mindfulness program”, which I facilitate ‒ have reported working on 7 competencies that Gallup has defined to be key for a successful leader.
We’ll explore the behaviors, traits and results that leaders that operate on an “auto pilot” mode have versus the ones that "mindful leaders” have.
Throughout the Mindfulness at the Workplace saga, I will consistently recall that meditation is the path to mindfulness. Even when there are very pragmatical mindfulness tools that leaders can use on a daily basis, it is the formal meditation practice that will allow leaders to almost automatically make a pause whenever they are experimenting a stressor or a difficult situation, take a breath, start recognizing the sensations, emotions, stories and ideas that are arriving to their minds so they can welcome them, accept them, investigate how those sensations, emotions, stories or ideas feel in the body and understand what is really happening in the present moment and finally, identify all the options that they have to proceed, shutting down the auto-pilot mode and it’s limited vision.
It is also important to remember what Mindfulness is: The practice of maintaining a nonjudgemental state of heightened or complete awareness of one’s thoughts, emotions, ideas, stories and sensations on a moment-to-moment basis.
The competence to be explored on this article is building relationships. As a departure point, it is worth to revise what does building relationships means.
build
/bild/
construct (something) by putting parts or materials together.
make stronger or more intense.
re·la·tion·ship
/rəˈlāSH(ə)nˌSHip/
the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected.
the way in which two or more people or groups regard and behave toward each other.
I truly believe that everyone might understand how relevant is to build relationships within the corporate arena to thrive individually and collectively. The question is if everyone is having success doing so or not.
I blame the “auto-pilot mode” for being a significant barrier to a lot of leaders.
These are some of the behaviors that leaders working on an “auto-pilot mode” might experiment building relationships:
They might understand that building relationship is important but they might not clearly understand who are the key contacts or groups to build relationships with losing visibility across the organization and the opportunity to gain promoters. They might not even realized how relevant is to build significant relationships within the team they are leading, ignoring basic information about them.
They might even try to build relationships proactively but whenever they are having a difficult conversation with someone, they just over react and find themselves prey of the auto-pilot and their negative emotions without being able to build rapport.
If they are going to have a meeting with key stakeholders, they might not take the time to think about how those stakeholders will react with the message that they will be delivering.
If they receive any kind of feedback, they might not be able to shut down the autopilot and might be perceived as defensive losing an extraordinary opportunity to adjust some of their behaviors or develop new skills.
Whenever they have to create commitment and agreement, they might be ignoring the agenda of the other party and might want to impose only theirs.
Having an important meeting or just grabbing a coffee, they might not be fully present whenever they are interacting with someone else. Their minds could be wandering most of the time losing an extraordinary opportunity to really connect with the other person and show care.
They might not understand what are the scenarios in which they should “fix” someone versus only “serve” them. It’s incredible how many times we only need someone to truly listen to us without wanting to fix something. They might not realize whenever they need to ask help, to be fixed or served.
Leaders operating on the “auto-pilot mode” might forget the value of showing and expressing gratitude or asking forgiveness to build relationships.
They might not ask with true curiosity, care and authenticity: “How are you?”
Last but not least. It’s important to understand how do we build a relationship with ourselves. Leaders operating on the “auto-pilot mode” might not show self-compassion, self-regulation, curiosity about their emotions, thoughts and body sensations. They just keep going without making a pause having a limited relationship with themselves.
On the other hand, these are the behaviors that leaders that have attended to The 8 Week Mindfulness Program have expressed to practice building relationships:
Mindful leaders build healthy and meaningful relationships throughout the organization including the most relevant contacts and groups they need to build relationships with to thrive in their role and they have a clear understanding of whatever matters to them. This understanding is a bedrock towards an effective relationship.
Before focusing on developing new relationships, mindful leaders understand their own strengths and weaknesses. They work on developing relationship skills like communication, active listening and conflict resolution.
Whenever there is conflict, they can easily show patience, empathy and curiosity to understand what is the rational of the other party and how they can both arrive to a win-win situation.
They work consistently on self-awareness, self-regulation and self-compassion. Even when they have relevant challenges, stressors and negative emotions, they realize whenever they are arriving to their minds and are able to observe them with curiosity, non-judging and to explore how they feel in the body and finally control them being more effective building relationships.
They proactively schedule time to develop relationships and are present most of the time during the interaction. They ask questions, listen and ask with curiosity, care and authenticity: “How are you”?
They offer assistance or even offer to fix whenever is appropriate but they also understand when they only need to listen and serve.
They have the courage to ask for assistance or service whenever they need it.
They understand that appreciation is a powerful relationship builder and show it authentically to their managers, peers, direct reports, etc.
Mindful leaders keep their commitments. Whenever there’s difficulty to deliver them, they proactively communicate it.
They practice authentic gratitude and offer forgiveness when appropriate and with ease.
This is just a sample of a list of behaviors that disciplined meditators practice within the corporate arena when they build relationships. There might be more behaviors that could be included. Meditation benefits arrive to its practitioners in different ways but if there is something in common is the ability they have to shut down the “auto-pilot mode” to find that there’s always a set of options to consider before making a decision. Understanding this fact is a game changer.
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Alex Bravo, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Alex Bravo combines 22 years' experience as Sr Director leading CX, Innovation, Transformation and large Operations teams mainly within the Financial Services Industry with 15 years' experience as Sr Executive Coach and Mindfulness Teacher. Given his struggle with anxiety and depression at some point of his career, his purpose is to instill the importance of assessing mental health in the corporate arena and recall to his colleagues that the way they deal with their inner world defines the way they show to themselves, how they interact with others, how they lead and how they love. He is a Harvard Business School Grad and holds a BSc in industrial and Systems Engineering and a MSc in Quality and Productivity.
