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with fears of lay-offs and anxiety about the future.
When brought to the notice of my manager, he
made a few statements that struck me hard and
were somewhat unpalatable as well.
“Spoil them with all the good choices. Make
sure they are successful in their attempts and
ensure there is no impact to the business during
the transition”, he had said. My response was
of shock; this person was asking me to ensure
success of those who will practically dismantle
all that he had built! I probed, and he responded
“Nothing we build will last forever. What is
important is to keep creating value. And what
is there to lose? If the new teams are not able to
make things work, we are there to handhold so
that the customer is not impacted. If they are
able to make it work, we only stand to learn yet
another way of doing the same thing. At the end
of the day even they’re trying to do the right thing
as they believe is the best.”
For me, this was mindfulness in action. A
penny drop moment demonstrating beginner’s
mind, patience, letting go, acceptance, trust, non-
judging, non-striving, and presence.
Would we not, as leaders of organisations,
as HR professionals and as L&D leaders, wish
for all our leaders to be such epitome of mindful
leadership? I do believe we would — an ideal to
role model in these fast changing turbulent times
that steady the ship no matter what!
However, there is one fundamental fl aw in
the above narrative. While the content is true,
what we tend to focus on is the image of bliss,
focus, clarity and the like qualities. The aspect of
fears, tension, and anxiety in the employees’ is
mostly ignored — more as a matter of collective
convenience of narrative than anything else. The
picture I wanted to paint with the recollection of
the above incident was that of the ideal mindful
leader, not an uncomfortable narrative of what
mindfulness is really about.
Often the question asked is, “Is there a place
for emotions at workplace?” Let’s consider it. A
person walks into the workplace every day. As
a collective, we want to tap into his inspiration,
passion, ambition, aspirations, imagination,
innovation etc. all to achieve our audacious
goals. However, we shy away from giving space
Mindful leadership is not
in being equanimous and
stable. It is in embracing
emotions — the easy,
desirable ones along with
the painful, uncomfortable,
not so pleasant ones.
to the anxiety, self-doubt, pressure etc. that come
alongside. We love the employee who signs up to
grow business by 10 times in an year, but we do
not have the structural or intentional space to
address what emotions he/she goes through along
with the challenge. At best, we call them ‘diffi cult
conversations’. As if, if we don’t address them,
they will cease to exist.
The real work of mindfulness begins here. It
is not in the pursuit of focus, clarity or bliss. It is
in the gut wrenching, ‘diffi cult emotions’. Mindful
leadership is not in being equanimous and stable.
It is in embracing emotions — the easy, desirable
ones along with the painful, uncomfortable, not
so pleasant ones. In oneself, fi rst — and then
creating the space for the emotions of those we
work with. It is holding the space where feeling,
expressing, sharing, and reaching out for support
is celebrated and encouraged, along with the
ability to harness them towards goals and targets.
We all have a mix bag of emotions all through
the day; mindfulness helps embrace, resolve, and
accept them all as real — and focus, clarity and
bliss would be by products of the journey as the
‘diffi culties of the diffi cult emotions’ starts to
become a little easier, bit by bit.
We hire human beings, we leverage human
potential — let us also create the space to allow
the people to be accepted, to fl ourish and to thrive.
The next time you fi nd yourself in a
conversation with someone, check within — what
am I feeling as against what am I thinking? The
next time you are faced with a differing opinion/
perspective, ask yourself — in this moment, is it
more important to be Right, or to be Sensitive.
Watch your experiences start to shift, ever so
slightly. Be Mindful, be Mindwise. P & M
Vol. 9 Issue 6 • Sep-Oct 2018, Noida / Pre-Event Edition |
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