All too often, we as leaders lose our way. Rather than face into what is most important, we allow ourselves to get pulled into the surrounding chaos or distracted by the ’emergency of the day’ while the truly important matters are left unattended.
Last week, I had the privilege of being a part of a unique, all day gathering at the Third Metric: Redefining Success Beyond Power and Money. In many different ways, the panelists and the attendees spoke about the struggles of leading and living in today’s 24/7 culture. It felt to me as though there was a consistent theme of ‘something is missing in my life’ and, more importantly, ‘is there any way to find it?’
What is a ‘mindful leader’? A mindful leader is someone who embodies leadership presence by cultivating focus, clarity, creativity and compassion in the service of others. If we look more deeply into this definition, we will notice that these four innate abilities are fundamentals of leadership excellence. And yet, even though these abilities are innate, we often fall short of our potential to embody leadership presence because we live in a world that surrounds us with unlimited distractions.
In the past year, I have been interviewed many times about the relationship between mindfulness and leadership. Why do we want to explore this training of the mind in the development of excellence? Is it to become better at our chosen career? It has the potential to do so. But is there, in fact, something more that is drawing us to explore this relationship?
We have at our fingertips, right here, right now, the ability to give ourselves a gift, the gift of being fully awake and at ease with our lives. And sometimes taking a walk in nature is the perfect reminder to unwrap the gift.
