Brendan Reid is an accomplished career coach, author and executive. He shares leadership lessons and career advice on his blog, www.brendanreid.com, and in his popular book, Stealing the Corner Office.
The best leader I ever knew looked like he did almost nothing at all.
He was calm, rarely busy, always available for a deep discussion. Always thinking, always engaged, always present. When I met with him, I knew I was getting 100 per cent of his energy. He stood in stark contrast to his peers, who frantically bounced from call to call, issue to issue, trying their best to keep it all together.
He was a mindful leader, before we called them that.
His infectious calmness shaped my career as a leader. It was easy to underestimate him since he wasn’t the loudest or boldest in the room. He was easy to underestimate until you looked at his results. He was the least busy leader I had ever seen, and by far the most successful. Only later did I equate his leadership approach with what we now call mindfulness.
Mindful, present, calm, engaged – these are universal modern leadership virtues. He personified them nearly 20 years ago. In my experience these virtues are universally admired but rarely practised. We hear the words and nod our heads in a knowing way, and then click back into the stresses of the day.
If we know in our hearts mindful leadership is effective, why do we pay it lip service? Why do 60 per cent of Canadian employees face increased workplace stress, according to a survey by recruitment firm Robert Walters. Why do we still see reports like the one from McKinsey & Co. where only 25 per cent of workers feel their organizations’ leaders are engaged, passionate and inspire employees? If mindful leadership is effective leadership, why don’t we practise it?
In my experience, it’s easy to discount mindful leadership as something we do just to manage stress. We don’t equate it with actual career success which makes it easy to ignore. Ironically, mindfulness seems easiest to ignore when we’re stressed. I would argue that while stress reduction is a benefit of mindful leadership, it is only one of the benefits. When we are mindful at work, we think deeply. We make decisions logically. We engage with our teams. We delegate and prioritize. We model a mindful culture for our people. Mindful leadership is effective leadership, and if you practise it, your career will improve.
Here are three of my favourite habits that inject mindfulness into my leadership approach:
1. Eliminate multitasking
It’s easy to fool yourself into believing multitasking is a valuable skill at work. It’s a trap. Your success as a leader will ultimately be determined by the quality of your work, not the gross volume of your output. Doing more half-baked work is not a recipe for success, yet I see so much of it in the workplace today. Leaders only half paying attention in meetings. Catching up on e-mail when they should be engaged. Checking their phones when they should be listening. Prepping for the next meeting while still in the first one. Multitasking is a leadership mistake, not a virtue. At scale, a multitasking culture leads to stress and mediocrity – the opposite of mindfulness.
My advice to leaders is to eliminate multitasking completely. Do less. Prioritize ruthlessly. Do one thing at a time and do it well. Focus on big wins. When you’re in a meeting, be fully engaged. Demand the same of your team members. Raise your standard for quality and lower your expectations for pace. The result will be a healthier and higher-performing team.
2. Block time for meeting prep
I still see leaders scrambling from one meeting to the next, completely unprepared. Endless Zoom calls has exacerbated the problem. Many leaders burn the first half of meetings figuring out what they should have known already. Then they are forced to schedule a second meeting to give time to contemplate key issues and make decisions. The impact is a near-doubling in meeting volume, frustrated team members and a perpetuating cycle of wasted energy.
My advice to leaders is to fill your calendar with 15-minute buffers throughout the day. Your team members and colleagues will respond by scheduling 45-minute meetings with you instead of a full hour. These precious buffer sessions will allow you to be fully prepared for every meeting. Your team will thank you and so will your career.
3. Schedule e-mail response time
Too many leaders believe instant response to emails is a sign they are doing a good job. I don’t believe this to be true, with the exception perhaps of direct customer inquiries. Keeping a clean inbox is a workplace addiction that does more harm than good in my experience. It fools us into thinking we’re on top of things. It temporarily soothes our stress. But how much does rapid e-mail response actually contribute to the big wins that will define our success?
My advice to leaders is to schedule blocks of time to work through e-mail. Ideally once in the morning and once before the end of the day. Tell your boss and team members to text or call with urgent issues. You will be surprised by how receptive they are, and how this one change will reverberate through your team.
The best leader I ever had was mindful at work. Calm, engaged, effective. His practices shaped my leadership career, and I hope they will help you too.
This column is part of Globe Careers’ Leadership Lab series, where executives and experts share their views and advice about the world of work. Find all Leadership Lab stories at tgam.ca/leadershiplab and guidelines for how to contribute to the column here.