Mindfulness is learning to open our attention inward to observe our thoughts, feelings, and actions without judgment. Great leadership develops with an open mind.
Mindful Leadership
Great leaders are ‘mindful’ of everything and everyone in their organization. Great leadership is developed over time, and ‘breathing’ into your role as a leader takes practice.
Expanding your mindfulness begins by focusing on your breath, noticing when your mind wanders, and then bringing it back to your breath. As your concentration gets stronger, you can simply note your inner experience; like how it relaxed you before a meeting that you may have been stressed about attending. The benefits to this practice range from stronger relationships with others to higher levels of leadership performance to an overall release of stress.
Leaders that incorporate Mindful Intelligence™ (the RITE combination of Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence) into their daily routine, have become less reactive and more receptive. Mindfulness paired with emotional intelligence affects leadership skills, like:
- Controlled emotions under pressure
- Better empathy with others
- Increased focus towards issues at hand
Mindfulness with practice, can improve leadership skills. Our clients wanting to introduce mindfulness into their leadership development, love and appreciate that we start simple, in order for everyone to participate. Great benefits are perceived over time, with ongoing practice. Here are 3 useful tips towards Mindful Intelligence™:
- Start with Self Breath work
In order to affect your workplace, start with yourself. Learn how to develop your own personal practice on a daily basis. This helps set realistic goals for yourself about what it takes. Start with simple.
Right now… take a deep breath in thru your nose… as you count to 5. Then slowly exhale from your mouth, counting down from 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Repeat this 5 times with your eyes slightly open, or even closed.
At the end, just notice how you feel. Allow yourself to do this throughout your day, whether you feel stress or you just want a break. You’ll see, it takes no time at all to complete. And if your mind wanders, just bring it back to your breath. Practice, then practice, then practice some more.
- Meeting with a Mindful Minute
Start your next meeting with one minute of mindful breathing. After you personally practiced for at least one week with the above #1 Start with Self breath work technique, bring that into your next meeting.
Help your meeting attendees increase their focus and attention on what the meeting is for, and what you all want to achieve. Just one minute can make all the difference to a great, purposeful meeting.
- Mindfulness from Work to Home
It’s time to leave work, and head home. Allow yourself 5-10 minutes of your commute, to decompress. Go back to #1 Start with Self breath work… no phone, no radio, just allow yourself to simply be. (But keep your eyes open if you’re driving!) Let go of any thoughts that arise. Use your breath to relax you. Let go of the stresses of the day, and head home to be fully present with your family.
Mindfulness, when combined with at least 10 minutes of daily practice can lead to valuable changes, decrease in stress, and increase in effectiveness. Mindfulness helps develop sharpness, clarity, and focus within the mind.
Mindful Intelligence™ helps apply focus and emotional awareness to everything you do from the moment you wake up, to when you enter your office, to the commute home, to when your head hits the pillow at night. Focus on the present, recognize and release internal and external distractions as they arise. Used daily, mindfulness helps increase effectiveness, decrease mistakes, and even enhance leadership creativity.
RITE Academy is a women owned and operated company, is the only diversity and inclusion program that includes Emotional and Social Intelligence techniques, for a truly Mindful experience, benefiting the individual and the company. Randy Friedman, President and co-founder of RITE, is a certified hypnotherapist and Mindful Intelligence coach.
