I’ve been having a lot of conversations about leadership and vulnerability recently.
The word ‘vulnerability’ raises so many objections. Many people who are leading others are terrified that if they show any vulnerability it will make them seem weak.
What is Vulnerability?
Brené Brown defines vulnerability as ‘uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure’.
And leadership is all about uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.
Leadership and vulnerability have a lot in common!
The Link Between Vulnerability & Leadership
Just like vulnerability, leadership requires us to step up, step forward, constantly stepping out of our comfort zones.
“Vulnerability is not weakness, but rather our clearest path to courage.” —Brene Brown
Most of us were brought up to believe it’s not okay to admit weakness. However, we can see everywhere the most authentic leaders are the ones we admire. Authenticity requires developing true self-awareness.
This takes courage and can be challenging, and sometimes painful. In developing self-awareness, we have to admit all sorts of things to ourselves. Transformation cannot exist without courage. Courage, in turn, requires vulnerability. That is, an openness to uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. Much of the literature and research relating to creativity and innovation in organisations shows successful results from cultures where ‘risk taking (within safe boundaries) is encouraged and where there is an acceptance that not all innovation will be successful.’
This type of culture enables ‘psychological safety, such that staff feel confident speaking out about errors, problems and
uncertainties and feel empowered and supported to develop and implement ideas for new and improved ways of delivering services.’ Psychological safety evolves when leaders display vulnerability. Otherwise it will never feel okay for others to make mistakes and admit uncertainties.
When we talk about vulnerability in leadership, the objection is often the fear of having to expose our deepest and darkest fears. However, this is not the expectation.
For example, vulnerability can simply be any and all of the following three:
1. Admit you don’t have all the answers. This encourage others to share their ideas.
2. Share that you have struggled with something in the past and what you did to rectify that struggle. This encourages growth mindset and openness to learning in others.
3. Discuss what is important to you – your values. This will help others to share their values and recognise you all have more in common than it may seem.
Is doing any of the above weak? I don’t think so.
Try ‘vulnerability’ on and let us know how it goes for you…
Imagine if I proposed that the absence of a vital element could render all the investments your company makes in employee learning and development futile, both in terms of time and money.
A recent conversation with a friend got me thinking about this problem.
During a zoom lunch date (one of the things I am doing to give myself some work-life balance while working from home),
I asked her what she had going on at work that afternoon.
Her face shifted to irritation and, with an exaggerated eye-roll, she said:
“Ugh, we have another training workshop… this time on motivation during Covid-19. I could not be bothered.”
As a performance psychologist I am fascinated by motivation and so this statement made me laugh. I was immediately reminded that we should never assume people are interested in the same things as us!
Further questioning clarified that my friend had been subjected to lecture-style training sessions with little interaction and no opportunity to apply what she was being taught. These sessions felt like a waste of time to her, and in fact they were, because afterwards she never felt able to implement the knowledge.
The Power of Habits
We now know that at least 40% of our daily actions are habits. Habits are a combination of automatic
thoughts, sub-conscious reactions and established routines. The longer we have been following these
routines, the harder they are to change. Even when we have the desire and the best intentions to
change, the sheer strength of our established neural pathways pull us back to our old ways of doing
things. When we don’t understand the processes behind this, we are left feeling powerless to make our
desired changes a reality. This feeling of powerlessness feeds a fixed mindset, which whispers to us
there is no point in trying hard to change as it won’t make any difference.
But why is learning such a struggle?
Implementing new learning is, at its essence, a struggle against our established habits. It requires a
strong clarity of what you are looking to change and the sheer discipline of repeatedly choosing a new
way of acting or thinking until it becomes your new habit or way of being. Contrary to previous research
which suggested it takes 21 days to form a new habit, we know now that this process can take anything from 3 weeks to
to six months, depending on our focus, determination and how our individual brain works.
So, the problem is this: learning and development training can be waste of time and money if we do not
give people the tools to understand their own learning, take control of their behaviour and implement
what they have learned.
Figuring out how to do exactly that is a priority at Adaptas. As a team, we teach learning and habit
change as a core element in all our training, from presentation skills to higher business performance. We
have seen the benefits of this approach, with clients often reporting back to us that through
understanding their own learning and habit change challenges they were able to take control of their
choices and behaviours and make long-term, impactful changes in work and in life.
The crucial ingredient, as we see it, is habit change.
Anyone who has set, worked towards, and eventually gave up on a new year’s resolution knows that behaviour change is not easy.
We set out with the best of intentions and yet the drag of our established habits inevitably pulls us back into our old way of doing things. Habits sit at the foundation of our daily behaviour. When you look at this process closely, you see that successful behaviour change and learning comes down to successful habit change.
At Adaptas, we incorporate habit change education into all our workshops so that our clients can learn how to create long-term lasting changes and experience the benefits of positive, constructive thoughts and behaviours at work and in life. Through this work we notice that by learning how to effectively change their habits, our clients experience a host of often unexpected, exciting side effects.
Positive Thought. The way we think about ourselves comes down to habit, just like the time we wake up in the morning. Through habit change education, our clients learn to recognise and disrupt negative thought patterns. They often report to us that they feel lighter, are more content and experience enhanced enjoyment of work and general life.
Supportive Beliefs. Our beliefs about ourselves and the world are formed through habitual thought and behaviour. Challenging and changing habits around unsupportive beliefs can completely change someone’s life. Building supportive beliefs allows our clients to move away from fear-based decision making and this can have a hugely positive impact on happiness and performance.
Increased Confidence. Clients often tell us they experience a sensation of increased control over their choices, environment and emotions as a result of understanding habit change. This has a positive impact on their self-confidence as they feel better equipped to deal with challenging situations at work and in their personal lives.
Increased curiosity. Habit change work conditions us to continuously ask ourselves questions about our thoughts and behaviours. This results in enhanced self-awareness and a sense of curiosity about our own learning and potential. Approaching problems from a state of curiosity, rather than fear increases creative problem solving for our clients.
Reduced stress and anxiety. Habit change teaches us about how fear and anxiety is hard-wired in our brains as a form of self-protection. Understanding this process, recognising triggers and learning how to move our thoughts away from our flight or fight response gives our clients the power to reduce their anxious responses with time and practice.
In short, habit change is about so much more than performance. At Adaptas we believe that understanding habit change is a key ingredient to building a happier, healthier life at work and at home. Let’s get started!
In our careers, success and confidence often seem inextricably linked. This can be stressful as confidence is a tricky thing to hold on to. Too often we allow our confidence to be dictated by the events and people around us.
Here at Adaptas, we believe the missing piece is the understanding that confidence is something we control for ourselves.
At its essence, confidence is a sense of “sureness.” Feeling sure that we are equal to the task at hand. This sureness comes from preparation and deep-seated beliefs about ourselves. Confidence is not the complete absence of fear, worry or self-doubt. When we are trying to feel more confident, we often focus on technical preparation, failing to tackle the core beliefs that are fuelling our feelings of self-doubt in the first place. Why? Because they are big, intimidating things to tackle, and because sometimes we aren’t aware of them. Here is the problem: if we don’t tackle the beliefs, we can get stuck in a long game of bluffing ourselves and playing a part, all the time feeling like an impostor.
Our core beliefs act as a life blueprint. Forming the foundations of how we interpret the world, core beliefs shape how we react to success and struggle and the way that we see and understand our thoughts and actions within the context of our lives. Sound a little complicated? Well, it is! It can be tricky to identify our core beliefs and understand how they are influencing us. The best place to start is by analysing the thoughts that pop into your head un-invited.
“I won’t be able to answer the questions they ask me at the end of the presentation.”
“I don’t know enough about ________ to be in this meeting.”
“I am terrible at speaking in front of people.”
These unhelpful thoughts are little clues to the core beliefs that are creating them. Identify a negative thought and ask yourself: why do I think this? Follow the thought back into your mind. You’ll know when you stumble across a core belief because it will feel 100% true, even if you wish it didn’t.
I am stupid.
I am not good enough.
I don’t deserve success.
We call these types of negative core beliefs ‘Limiting Beliefs’ because they prevent you from reaching your full potential and they are not true. They feel true but they are not. These beliefs are a habitual way of thinking about yourself, built on faulty information. Like all habits, they can be changed. Our workshops build confidence by guiding participants through the process of confronting and changing their limiting beliefs around important work-related behaviours, while also teaching the tricks and tools of long-term habit change. This empowers our clients to continue the process of developing their confidence long after the workshop is over.
Dr. Celine Mullins has over 15 years’ experience as a Psychologist, Coach and Training Consultant working across Multinationals, SME’s, Governmental and Educational agencies. Dr. Mullins is the CEO and Founder of Adaptas, a Leadership Development Training organisation, developing managers and leaders and teams, in Ireland and Internationally. She founded adaptas to put a gigantic spin on more traditional approaches to learning, which she believes often fall short of making real and lasting change happen.
With a focus on narrowing the gap between the training room and the real world, and using what we know about the brain and behaviour from psychology and neuroscience, Celine’s specialities include; leadership communication, eradicating behaviours and limiting beliefs that restrict performance and relationships, while improving team communication and collaboration.
Q & A
Q1. What led you to pursue a professional interest in business psychology?
I initially thought I wanted to be a clinical psychologist. But at the same time, I wanted to be an actress and director! I always had a curiosity around business psychology, but it wasn’t until soon after completing my PhD whilst I was working as a research psychologist, and also acting, that a conversation at a friend’s dinner party resulted in me going home and writing a business plan that lead me into business psychology. It soon became an obsession.
Q.2 You’ve written and spoken widely about the fact that many problems in organisations are due to poor communication. In your experience, what is the major reason for poor workplace communication?
I would say that 70-80% of problems are caused by communication or lack thereof. We all make assumptions in our communication. We all think we are communicating in a way that everyone will understand. But often the people around us hear things differently to the way we meant it. Many of us are not listening to the people around us, and therefore we miss really great ideas and we also dis-empower others by not being present to them in our listening. All of us learnt to communicate from the people we grew up with; our friends, families and teachers. Very few of us had role models who were excellent communicators and we do very little in school and college to get the basics of communication really working well for us.
In the workplace, when people attend development programmes which include a communication module or they work with a coach, it is often the first time they have really thought about their listening skills and how they are communicating. At this stage it’s very challenging to break the communication habits that are in place.
In most cases, we will only change our communication habits if we believe it will benefit us personally. Changing communication habits are some of the toughest ones to change. It takes real commitment and often requires shattering some deeply held beliefs we are holding on to about ourselves.
Q3. In addition to poor communication, as a psychologist working in organisations worldwide with individuals, groups and teams, what would you say are the most common issues you have to address?
At the moment, aside from communication, there are three main things we regularly find ourselves helping people with:
Educating people on stress management and resilience skills. There is a lot of ‘busyness’ and expectation for us always to be on (digital communication etc).
Supporting individuals, teams and organisations to clarify and maintain the types of behaviours that enable that team and organisation to be a place where people want to be i.e culture. There are a lot of toxic organisations where blame and fear is rife.
Developing Emotional Intelligence. It may not appear to be the case sometimes, but many of the people who are rising to the top of organisations are those who not only communicate really well, but also understand their own emotions and can manage the emotions of other people.
Underlying all of this is helping people to really understand the psychology and neuroscience of how they can make habit change and embed it long-term.
Q4. You’re renowned for employing new technologies such as Virtual Reality as part of your organisational learning and development work. What are the major benefits of these new technologies as far as employee training is concerned?
Going back to my passions in acting and directing, for many years we have written and produced training and educational videos for our clients. So in ways VR was a natural step for me as it brought together theatre, film and psychology – VR has been dubbed the empathy making machine. When my friend and colleague Camille Donegan called me up after experiencing her first ‘hit’ in VR, I knew we had found a way to create training experiences that were more true to life and immersive than many other approaches.
VR is when the viewers audio and visual senses are taken-over by a VR headset display and headphones. This enables the viewer to be transported anywhere, even into the perspective of another human being (known as embodiment).
Training and Learning is one of the best use cases for VR. When using VR headsets, the brain is tricked into thinking that the input being received by the visual and auditory senses is real. This is thought to be due to the spatial nature of the medium. The only other dimension where our brain has experienced 360 degree, 3-dimensional content before was in Real Reality (RR)! So, providing the content is created adhering to design principles to prevent motion sickness, and designed to make the viewer feel ‘present’ in this alternate reality, the brain believes the simulation to be real.
VR is being used for training in pretty much any sector or industry you can think of – healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, military, and of course corporate training. Since we started using VR at Adaptas, we have created VR training tools with the insurance industry, healthcare, and currently progressing tools in the legal sector.
One of the benefits of VR is consistency across all learners. And recently released research shows that training in VR is 40% faster than traditional training, which can result in a real and tangible cost savings for an organisation.
Compare the cost of a VR simulation and some headsets to the cost of video production, textbooks, and trainer/ facilitators and VR will be cheaper in the long run.
Our VR training tools for FBD Insurance was shortlisted for an IITD (Irish Institute for Training & Development) ‘Excellence in Digital Learning’ award in 2018 and again in 2019 when it WON the award. The judges commented that it was important that the tool was proven to be useful and sustainable for the organisation, which it had by year 2.
I’m excited to see what happens in Augmented reality (AR) in the coming years also. AR is when the viewer can still see the real world (their physical environment) but some extra information, such as video, imagery or audio is overlayed into that view. AR content is primarily experienced via mobile phones or tablets, but in the not too distant future, it will all happen via AR glasses. I believe AR is going to be a real winner for training as it becomes less glitchy in coming years.
Q5. What is neuroplasticity and why do you think it’s so important in relation to adult learning?
Neuroplasticity is the ability of neurons to change their structure and relationships to one another in an experience-dependent manner according to environmental demands. This means that everything you think you know and feel now can change, depending on what you focus on. This capacity for learning and change is available to us throughout our entire lives.
As children, we learned by playing, making up stories, creating games together and actively using our imagination. This is how we best learn as adults; when learning is engaging, fun, and full of “imagining the possibilities”. But as adults many of us stop imagining the possibilities and are very stuck in our habits and our beliefs and biases, many of which are unconscious.
Q6. What can readers expect from your book ‘Our Learning Brain’?
The idea with Our Learning Brain is that reading the book will help you to see learning from a new perspective and enable you to fully engage your brain for learning & habit Change.
The feedback I have received to date is that the content is clear, accessible and covers salient points about habits and learning; that it is grounded in research and well laid out, while being easy to read. Readers from all types of backgrounds, from engineers, to therapists, psychologists and coaches, to auctioneers, (the list goes on) tell me that they are learning a lot, that there’s good practical strategies in it, which they can implement quickly, and that it makes them look at things in a different way and raises questions and thoughts they hadn’t considered. Many people are saying that it should be available in secondary school and for all adults in the workplace. Many of them agree that we are not acting on the learning science that is available to us, whether we are the teacher or the learner. And this book now makes this accessible.
Q. 7 If you had to pick just one defining characteristic of a great leader, what would it be?
Curiosity. If we can live from a place of curiosity, we ask more questions, we live from a growth mindset and we can overcome obstacles easier. The best leaders I have met are naturally curious or they have worked on creating a more curious approach, with both themselves, the people around them and the challenges they face. This is why I have been writing another book, currently titled “The Ignited Leader’, which help people to understand, explore and embed a mindset of curiosity.
Q.8 What advice would you give to someone considering a career in workplace psychology?
Go for it. When you get to work with people, helping them to grow, with teams helping them to work together better and with organisations looking to change their ways, everyday flies by. I get to the end of every day wondering where the day went. I can’t imagine working in a role where I was clock-watching. If you are looking to get into the area just do it, even if it means interning for a few months. If you are waiting until you have a masters in organisational psychology, stop waiting. You’ll learn so much by ‘doing’.
Q.9 What projects are you currently working on?
Where do I start. On my list this and coming weeks: VR training tool pre-production with a new insurance client; 2-D Video shoot with a healthcare client; design and start delivering a year-long programme for managers in a technology company; write a report on sales teams progress and development needs in a tech client; coaching client meetings; supervise 3 masters theses who are moving to completion; prepare an outline for a programme with a healthcare client; finalise workshop outline for managers with an insurance company client re. culture; deliver sessions with a law firm client; finish edits on Book 2 ‘Developing Learning Addicts’ in the Maximising Brain Potential series and send to publisher; finish edits on ‘The Ignited Leader’ and send to publisher; Finish bringing the Maximising Brain Potential series online so that people can progress through the information and make real change from anywhere in the world. And that’s all just a quarter of where my time is spent.
It’s difficult to change old ingrained habits, isn’t it? To create a hunger for change, we need to be clear on what the benefits of changing our behaviour will be.
Kahneman and Tversky, two of the most famous of modern psychologists are well known for the theory of “loss aversion”. This refers to people’s strong preference for minimising losses over acquiring gains. People in fact prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains. For example, it’s better to not lose 5 euro than to find 5 euro. We feel almost twice the emotion over a loss as opposed to a gain.
Changing how we do things in life and work can be challenging in three ways; firstly, the loss of the familiar is immediate and significant (this is usually experienced as a negative effect); secondly, the gain is distant in both time and in relation to self; and thirdly the so-called gain is really more abstract than real, meaning that incentive to pursue the change is not optimum.
This dynamic plays out in all changes we attempt to make and at all levels in a business setting. (e.g. reducing a behaviour that saves the business money in the long-term) because doing things a different way can often be associated with loss.
This means that to help us make change, we often need to be supported in thinking bigger or differently for ourselves. And as we know, in our busy lives, there isn’t always time to think about this.
Imagined outcomes are really important. It’s been shown that the brain makes connections between things that happen in real time and predictions of possible outcomes. The neural wiring blends together what is currently happening with the imagined predictions. In this way, the brain weaves its own explanation, or interpretation, of reality and this can be used as the basis of new habit and skills formation. Fundamentally, belief in the outcome significantly raises the likely hood of that outcome or behaviour associated occurring, be that outcome/behaviour positive or negative.
What are you afraid of losing? Could you practice visualising the outcomes you desire to get your brain focused on the wins? Hopefully just being more conscious of our brain and body’s strong preference for minimising losses over acquiring gains can help you to get back on the change train!
Many of us are bringing our work home with us, whether actively working at home or just thinking about it.
As mentioned in our piece last week, Norman Doidge’s book ‘The brain that changes itself’ (2007) is a truly inspiring collection of studies, real life examples and conclusions on the mould-ability of the brain.
It turns the traditional thinking that the capacity of the brain is fixed on its head and shows how the brain can reorganize itself and make new neural connections throughout life. Rather than being hardwired and wearing out with age, the brain is at your disposal to use and grow to YOUR benefit, and to promote mental longevity.
The only thing is, many of us are living lives that cause our brains to age quickly. For example, many people boast that they don’t need much sleep and many other people I know do not prioritize it because many work late into the evenings and therefore find it difficult to get the brain to shut off once they get into bed. Of course, having young children and many other things can get in the way of sleep, and often cannot be avoided. But long-term it’s imperative you don’t let the brief hours of sleep continue.
During sleep we discharge toxins from the brain include flushing out amyloid proteins in the brain (bad sleep increases levels of some proteins, such as amyloid that have been associated with Alzheimer’s disease). During sleep, we also regulate hormones that are responsible for satiety and hunger. Anyone who’s ever had a flu or a bad cold, knows how sleep helps recover our immune system, and this recovery is taking place either way, daily as our system is met with so many germs. Sleep also consolidates our memories and enhances our creativity. Are you getting enough sleep?
If you are not sleeping enough each night, which includes relaxing the brain well before you actually get into bed, then you are going to be less alert the next day, impacting your productivity, your relationships and your long-term health.
Are you getting enough sleep?
Over the coming weeks, we are releasing little snippets and tips from our upcoming Habit Change book and sending them out to you. We would love to hear your thoughts on these, if any of them resonate with you or make you think differently about your current actions, we would love to hear from you about it.
Every January, it seems the world at large, puts themselves under huge pressure to force habit change and adopt unrealistic RESOLUTIONS. By middle to late January, the feeling of disappointment is epidemic.
This series of short and simple blogs hopes to tap into a few key tips to help you understand how your brain actually works in creating habit change in your life.
Understanding the Power of your Brain.
The brain has been shaped by evolution to adapt and readapt to an ever-changing world. The ability to learn is dependent on modification of the brain’s chemistry and architecture, in a process called “neural plasticity”.
Neural plasticity is the ability of neurons to change their structure and relationships to one another in an experience-dependent manner according to environmental demands.
This means that everything you think you know and feel now can change for better or worse depending on what you focus on.
It’s easy to think of the brain as being responsible for processing information and problem solving but not always as obvious how much it controls our habits and behaviour too. In all areas of its capacity, it is not a static quantity. It can be grown and shaped deliberately.
How Can We Engage Our Minds to Make the Best Use of Our Brain?
Here are a few tips for you.
Concentrate on what is working and the motivation will naturally follow.
Set bite-sized goals (chunking down). When we break goals or jobs into bite-sized pieces, the memory of the ‘job’ is not so bad and we are happier to take on the task again and again.
Keep doing it until it becomes habit. If you are having fun and chunking things down, new habits (e.g. going to the gym) will become easier to repeat.
Keep self-judgement to a minimum. If you do fall off the wagon with a change or a new habit, don’t give yourself a hard time. Negative self-chat imprisons you in your own fear and makes it difficult to take action to get back on track again.
“When you are taught about something, it feels distant. By experiencing it in Virtual Reality it suddenly feels real”
NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT
Over the last couple of years, a special branch of virtual reality content creation has developed, known as Cinematic VR. It is typically based on 360-degree video and offers an affordable alternative to 2D video. It can form the foundation of eLearning that will transport learners into compelling, immersive stories and environments.
Adaptas have just completed a first person perspective virtual reality experience to be used in training for one of our clients. With the immersive potential of this new medium, trainees and low performers are able to ‘sit in the perspective’ of an expert customer sales representative and get a sense of what they need to develop in their own behaviour, in order to be successful in their role. This is a confidence building piece that is a new tool as part of the progressive Learning & Development training suite for this financial services sector client.
Research has shown to date that pieces like this drive actual behavioural changes far more effectively than previous media sources. Stanford Professor, Jeremy Bailenson has discovered that users retain 33% more from VR than standard video. This is at least in part to the finding that VR has 27% higher emotional engagement and people stay 34% longer than in a 2D (video) environment. Another study has shown that fear of public speaking can be reduced by almost 20% with VR and another that almost 9 in 10 participants reduced their fear of heights with VR.
Have you seen the film ‘Being John Malkovich’, where the character literally sees and hears the world from John Malkovich’s perspective? For the purposes of a work environment, experiencing the scenario from the viewpoint of the expert has not been possible before with any other medium. The Adaptas team responsible for designing this innovative VR experience believe it will prove to enhance an employee’s success.
This client project consists of a stereoscopic 360 interactive video where the viewer can ‘be in the perspective’ of the sales star in a busy call centre environment. The piece was filmed on-site at the clients office, working with a genuine sales call and staff to ensure authenticity. It will be used to on-board new employees as part of their 3 week induction training. Our client is delighted with the progress of this project so far. We will keep you posted on further developments with this.
If you are interested in this idea or interested in discussing how this might look for your organisation, please do get in touch, give us a call and we can brainstorm some scripting and role-playing ideas. Every organisation is different, and we pride ourselves on our ability to tailor each project specifically for the objective at hand.
Did you know that most people leave their jobs because of their manager?
Did you know that only 1 in 10 managers actually have the natural talent to manage a team of people? This blog is my thoughts on Authentic Leadership.
When neither managers nor leaders are perceived as effective, only 8% of employees are highly engaged. On top of this, 30% of employees report a lack of recognition and feedback, and managers not living up to their word as a cause of work-related stress.
In their study of 2.5 million manager-led teams in 195 countries, featuring analysis that measures the engagement of 27 million employees, Gallup has concluded that “Great managers have the talent to motivate employees and build genuine relationships with them. Those who are not well-suited for the job are usually uncomfortable with this “soft” aspect of management. But employees are people first, and they have an intrinsic need for bonding that does not automatically turn itself off between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. The best managers can understand and relate to their team members’ inherently human motivations.”
More and more research shows that it is Authentic Leadership which improves job satisfaction and engagement in individuals and teams. It also develops resilience and fosters creativity and innovation.
What is Authentic Leadership?
There are many ingredients that go into becoming an authentic leader including:
• Self awareness – an awareness of one’s strengths, limitations, values and an understanding of how these impact others.
• Having an ethical core, or ‘doing the right thing even if it’s the hardest thing’.
• Being honest and straightforward in dealing with others.
• Fair-mindedness – soliciting opposing viewpoints and considering all options before choosing a course of action.
Authentic leadership is characterised by honesty, altruism, kindness, fairness, accountability, and optimism.
Organisations need more authentic leaders to cope with the new, turbulent and dynamically changing work environment via making a fundamental difference in organisations by helping employees find meaningfulness and connection at work.
Are you developing Authentic Leadership in your organisation?
If you like this blog please let us know, we would love to hear your thoughts. Please sign up to our newsletter where we can keep you informed on topics like this.
Are you living focused on the next meeting, the next meal, the next email that needs to be responded to?
Right now, are you focused on that holiday you booked six months ago and is finally happening in the next week or two?
Or are you living in the past, regretting what you have done or not done? Or are you feeling angry at how you were treated by someone or how you didn’t make it to the gym, or because you ate that second croissant when you promised yourself you would turn over a new leaf for the month?
Are you attempting to get 3 documents completed, respond to 5 separate emails and take 2 calls?
Or are you living presently and focusing in the moment?
Are you using one of the oldest practices in human history?
You are probably well aware that mindfulness, one of the oldest practices in human history has become one the newest ‘breakthroughs’ in managing thoughts and mental well-being in the workplace.
It is more important than you might think to start taking this seriously. Research consistently shows us that Multitasking is literally the enemy of productivity. Did you know, that when you divide your attention between tasks, it takes 50% longer to accomplish a task, and you are 50% more likely to make errors?
I started attempting to focus on living presently, using mindfulness and meditation a number of years ago, when approximately 20 years after being introduced to meditation and mindfulness, I finally was adult enough to start giving it a real go. The impetus was the realisation that if I didn’t focus on one thing and on the NOW, that life would pass me by and I’d have missed out on just experiencing rather than thinking about what was coming next.
We have been recommending Mindfulness to our clients for years. Many of the middle and senior managers we work with insist they don’t have time to be mindful. Yet those that take it on see the benefits very quickly. They feel more focused, more calm, and in control of their emotional reactions.
Can living presently help you to succeed in achieving your goals?
Sometimes you hear the message; ‘Focus on the goal’ and other times you hear the conflicting message; ‘Be more mindful’. The real story is that goals can help spark our initial interest, but then we must consistently focus on the process rather than being overly focused on the end goal.
Research shows that people who focus on being mindful rather than focusing on the end goal are more successful (e.g. Fishbach & Choi, 2012). It is much better for the outcome, if we focus on the experience rather than the benefits. As Dr. Christian Jarrett (author of ‘Great myths of the brain’) said ‘Once you are doing it (e.g. exercise, work-based project), let your long-term future-based mission fade into the background.’
Mindfulness is not an easy habit to adopt however! It involves being present in the here and now; when eating, when walking, when speaking, basically in every moment. And let me tell you, it’s a struggle. When I started this approach, I had to constantly remind myself to be in the present and to focus 100% on the conversation I was having, or the document I was working on and really just slow down to experience fully what was happening.
If it is so difficult to be mindful or present in this moment, then why bother?
There is empirical evidence that mindfulness:
· reduces the physiological and psychological effects of stress
· correlates with emotional intelligence
· improves well-being and happiness
· improves attention and emotional regulation
(see Keng, Smosku & Robins, 2011 for an extensive review of the empirical studies on the effect of mindfulness on psychological health)
Personally speaking, when I am being mindful, I feel more tuned in to the people I am with, the conversations we are having and the accompanying sensory information in the environment. I feel more grateful. You may be aware that there is tons of research showing that gratitude is associated with reduced depression, more positive relationships, greater competence, resilience, self-acceptance, less stress, better sleep and much more. All in all, being Mindful leads to a life that is much richer and much more enjoyable.
As we run our Leadership Development Program in Dublin and around the world, we have witnessed a remarkable trend towards the emergence of ‘learning’ organisations. While some forward-thinking organisations took the lead and embraced this concept over a decade ago, many others are just embarking on their journey now. The shift towards becoming learning organisations signifies a transformative movement within the corporate landscape, with an increasing focus on continuous growth and development. As we engage with diverse organisations globally, it is evident that the pursuit of a learning culture has become a pivotal factor in fostering long-term success and adaptability in today’s ever-evolving business environment.
Is ‘Learning’ a part of your company’s culture or are you just hoping it will happen?
What is a learning organisation, you might ask?
A learning organisation is one where:
“Employees continually create, acquire and transfer knowledge-helping their company adapt to the unpredictable faster than rivals can e.g. tougher competition, technology and shifting customer preferences ” (Garvin et al., 2008)
There are 3 building blocks suggested by Garvin et al. that many organisations fail to put in place, making it very difficult to achieve the ideal. One of the most important building blocks according to many global learning leaders is having the type of leadership in place that reinforces learning.
Here, the organisations leaders (including managers of smaller departments and units):
Demonstrate willingness to entertain alternative viewpoints
Signal the importance of spending time on problem identification, knowledge transfer and reflection
Engage in active questioning and listening
(Garvin et al, 2008)
When leaders actively questions and listen to employees –and thereby prompt dialogue and debate- people feel encouraged to learn. If leaders signal the importance of spending time on problem identification, knowledge transfer and reflective post-audits, these activities are likely to flourish.
When people in power demonstrate through their own behavior and willingness to entertain alternative points of view, employees feel emboldened to offer new ideas and options.
What are you doing to create and maintain the type of leadership that reinforces learning?
