Mindfulness in Leadership

If we all implemented mindfulness in daily life – whether at work or at home – I have no doubt we would see the benefits as a collective. We might observe a decrease in reactivity, an increase in listening, and likely a shift in focus. As I take clients through my initial 15-session series for individual coaching, we address mindfulness as a self-regulation practice. This methodology is intended to help leaders take a brief pause, assessing feelings throughout the day, especially when feeling “overwhelmed.” It’s efficient to say “overwhelmed” or “busy” but in actuality, we might feel anger, embarrassment, sadness, or even fear. Such feelings might emerge when your team has made a sizable mistake, when you have a tight deadline, when you’ve worked a 13-hour day, when there’s legal trouble, or when there are pending layoffs… the list goes on.

The reason mindfulness can be a powerful tool in a leader’s toolbelt is two-fold. First, it does not require the allocation of funds (no apps or technology needed!). Second, it changes behavior over time; managers will become more behaviorally predictable and anger less readily. With a simple practice each day we can rewire our brains and it will have an immediate effect on those around us. 

In fact, there was a 2019 German study with almost 60 organizational teams. The researchers found that leaders who participated in mindfulness practice (or “intervention”) demonstrated lower aggression (when rated by their employees) and stronger transformational leadership behaviors than compared to the control group. While reading a book on management can surely shed light on topics managers know not of, the practice of mindfulness is just that: A practice. And you will improve over time. 

Ultimately, mindfulness will support you (as a manager, leader, or even individual contributor) to become a more effective communicator. When we are aware of our feelings, we have improved self-regulation which allows for more purposeful discourse and this allows space for diffusing conflict. 

If you’re interested in learning more and want a “how to” on mindfulness, drop me a note here.

First published on LinkedIn

How (Un)ethical Are You as a Manager?

Most managers think they are ethical. But the truth is most of us are not. 

We would like to think we are objective:
> We obviously choose the best candidate for the organization’s benefit based on fair assessment and drawing rational conclusions.
> We only assign “high potential” status to those who are certainly high potential – and use historical data to drive decisions.
> We proactively offer mentorship to all team members, and are careful to be fair with our time… 

But the truth is, we harbor far too many unconscious (and unethical) biases that not only cause faulty decision-making but undermine our work as managers. 

Biases are not harmless, they are harmful. Our biases prevent us from recognizing high-performing workers, contribute to turnover, decrease the amount of trust within a team, and stop us from collaborating effectively. And these effects all contribute to lower performance.

You may now be thinking, “Hmm, when am I unethical as a manager?” (that is my hope, anyway!). Self-reflection is the first step in re-training our brains, and altering our unconscious bias. The great news is you are not powerless. In fact you can take deliberate actions to counteract the forceful pull of unconscious bias. 

• Regularly audit your decisions (this is also known as controlled processing). Why are you making the decisions you are? Why do your candidate pools look the way they do? Who gets the most talk time on the team? Who receives the most stretch projects? 

• Expand beyond your comfort zone. Actively look for environments that differ from your own and that challenge your biases. Attend an array of ERG events for exposure, or spend time in varying departments to observe the different mores within a workgroup that is not your own.

• Actively seek to change policy. Equity is not a trend, but it has emerged in the spotlight within corporate America. How can you influence hiring practices at your company? How do you ensure onboarding is equitable for your team and beyond?  

In my Fostering Inclusion in the Workplace workshop, we dive into the specifics of just how to create accountabilities to ensure behavioral change. Contact me to learn more about how this workshop can help you and your team, and in the meantime, I challenge you to practice the above steps.

The Layoff Resurgence and How to Support Your Team

Amidst broad-stroke layoffs, economic uncertainty, and organizational restructuring, it’s no wonder I am hearing a trend from clients: “I’m having a hard time focusing my team.” 

Layoffs cause insecurity and insecurity can cause a stable team to become weak; as team members feel threatened or in competition with others, trust and cohesion splinter.

As the work stress remains constant, so too does the workload. It’s not an easy pairing. What’s more, focus is already an issue: In one study it was discovered that 60.6% of employees rarely do one to two hours of deep focused work each day without distraction. With stimulation all around, the ability to focus is already a tall order. When stressors run high, distraction only increases. So, how do you realign, refocus, and reenergize your team during challenging times?

• Never underestimate the power of acknowledgment. Whether a team member expresses a favorable attitude, or a member of your workgroup completed a task efficiently, take the time to acknowledge them. (Try this today!) 

• Communicate. This seems like a no-brainer, but the elephant in the room is often overlooked. While you may not have all the answers and you will not be able to fix the problem in some cases, you can surely create a space that allows for debriefing after a challenging change has been made.

• Enable purposeful productivity by being specific. In your weekly 1:1s understand what is consuming their time. Are they getting the work done that they need to be doing? If not, you will need to offer support with prioritizing to-do lists and discuss time management (think calendar blocks for focused work). Find the challenges and aim to solve them.

As the variables continuously come our way, managers must continuously adapt and flex the muscles of a leader.

Motivate Your Team Members (a "How To")

When you think of your team members, do you think of them as eager to work more hours and initiate more responsibilities? Across the board, it seems to be a fair shake out: Some individuals are intrinsically motivated, and others pose a distinct challenge to their manager, resisting to get the bare minimum accomplished. The good news? There are solutions to help motivate your team members.

For many business owners and team leads alike, motivation is believed to stem from “what you get.” The extrinsic incentives — a term linked to Frederick Herzberg’s research on motivation. But here’s the thing about the research, it tells us that motivation does not come from those external incentives such as office perks. It’s not the company game room, the nap pods, the work-funded drinking extravaganzas, or even the promotions (which are all starting to return in the normal course). Instead, these are short-term fixes and there’s an expiration date associated with each. The dangling carrot of promotion is enough to keep someone motivated to reach that achievement, and yet it’s shown that as soon as the promotion is achieved, the motivation doesn’t last. Herzberg very pointedly directs organizations that they have limited power in motivating employees. (Um, yikes?)

Not to worry, the point in exposing the minimal purpose of extrinsic motivation is to demonstrate the necessity of the intrinsic rewards that unlock the vault of motivation (what makes our motor tick). It’s about allowing each person to turn their own keys in the ignition, not constantly trying to start it for them.

Let’s break it down so you can take the most useful tidbits along for the workday (otherwise, read Herzberg’s One More Time for full research).

Create a more enriching environment (leading to motivated employees) by employing the following:

• Accountability

  • Remove your need to control and make individuals accountable for their work. Not sure if you are controlling (e.g., a micromanager)? Ask for feedback.

• Responsibility

  • Rather than giving individuals responsibilities for one part of a task, give them ownership of the entire work stream or unit. Don’t fix it for them, and surely do not take credit for a team member’s work.

• Information flow

  • We like to filter information: Remove this extra step and include your team members in discussions. When trust increases, unhelpful water cooler discourse decreases.

• Challenge

  • Allow (and encourage) your team to take on new projects and responsibilities they haven’t addressed before.

• SME

  • Subject matter experts are essential in teams. Not only does this stem from added responsibility and accountability, but it also stems from the trust that this person owns the knowledge for a certain topic. Assigning individuals specializations is useful for their careers and for the teams of which they’re a part.

In short, this is a management worldview for motivation that says, “Empower, don’t control – Educate, don’t tell.”

Not only is this comprehensive, but it’s also reasonable. Of the listed suggestions, what can you immediately change for your team?