Leading Mindfully: Two Studies on the Influence of Supervisor Trait Mindfulness on Employee Well-Being and Performance (original) (raw)
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How mindfulness impacts the positive forms of leadership and enhances performance at workplace
Human Systems Management, 2021
BACKGROUND: Mindfulness is a multi-millenary concept that is fundamental to meditative traditions. Nowadays it is a well-documented psychological construct and a proven therapeutic technique, particularly in stress reduction and depressive relapse prevention. However, mindfulness and its effects on management practices are still relatively unexplored in the literature. OBJECTIVES: This paper aims to address this shortage and demonstrate the claims that mindfulness is a psychological construct that is doubly beneficial to business executives by supporting a more balanced relationship to work while promoting the adoption of more positive and effective leadership behaviors (transformational leadership and authentic). METHOD: A model using positive forms of leadership as mediators of mindfulness / performance relationship is proposed for this assessment. A quantitate analysis is performed on a sample of 319 African managers, 95% of which are South Africans. RESULTS: The data supports th...
Journal of Business Ethics, 2018
In the present research, we examine the relation between leader mindfulness and employee performance through the lenses of organizational justice and leader-member relations. We hypothesize that employees of more mindful leaders view their relations as being of higher leader-member exchange (LMX) quality. We further hypothesize two mediating mechanisms of this relation: increased interpersonal justice and reduced employee stress. In other words, we posit that employees of more mindful leaders feel treated with greater respect and experience less stress. Finally, we predict that LMX quality serves as a mediator linking leader mindfulness to employee performance-defined in terms of both in-role and extra-role performance. Across two field studies of triadic leader-employee-peer data (Study 1) and dyadic leader-employee data (Study 2), we find support for this sequential mediation model. We discuss implications for theorizing on leadership, organizational justice, business ethics, LMX, and mindfulness, as well as practical implications.
Mindful leadership : the Impact of mindfulness on managers’ ethical responsibility
2017
Many publications highlight the importance of mindfulness in today's world. However, it is vital to link this topic with organizational performance and ultimately with leadership, since leaders do not only directly influence employee but eventually also corporate performance. Companies are facing challenges regarding performance, pressure on the workforce is rising dramatically, since companies need to remain competitive and are thus trying to do more with less. Therefore, people are working more and harder while paying less attention to detail. With a constant flow of information, individuals can get overwhelmed quickly. Thus, it can be a challenge to focus on a particular matter and more importantly, to set priorities. This pace of life requires being mindful of activities from moment to moment, particularly in times where people are pressured to act against their own values. Studies show that times of pressure and stress can lead to unethical behavior and drastic measures.
Frontiers in Psychology
In recent years, the construct of mindfulness has gained growing attention in psychological research. However, little is known about the effects of mindfulness on interpersonal interactions and social relationships at work. Addressing this gap, the purpose of this study was to investigate the role of mindfulness in leader-follower relationships. Building on prior research, we hypothesize that leaders' mindfulness is reflected in a specific communication style ("mindfulness in communication"), which is positively related to followers' satisfaction with their leaders. We used nested survey data from 34 leaders and 98 followers from various organizations and tested mediation hypotheses using hierarchical linear modeling. Our hypotheses were confirmed by our data in that leaders' self-reported mindfulness showed a positive relationship with several aspects of followers' satisfaction. This relationship was fully mediated by leaders' mindfulness in communication as perceived by their followers. Our findings emphasize the potential value of mindfulness in workplace settings. They provide empirical evidence for a positive link between leaders' dispositional mindfulness and the wellbeing of their followers, indicating that mindfulness is not solely an individual resource but also fosters interpersonal skills. By examining leaders' mindfulness in communication as an explanatory process, we created additional clarification about how leaders' mindfulness relates to followers' perceptions, offering a promising starting point for measuring behavioral correlates of leader mindfulness.
2015
This chapter examines the complexities of mindfulness in leadership, exploring potential advantages and disadvantages of mindfulness for leaders. Such an inquiry is important for theoretical development but also has practical implications when considering the design of mindfulness training for leadership and other areas such as employee wellbeing. In the present discussion, we clarify the discussion on mindfulness by distinguishing between the dimensions of mindfulness -- that is present-moment attention, intentionality, attitude of self-compassion, witnessing awareness and clarity -- and suggest ways these dimensions affect leadership behaviors. We also distinguish between mindfulness as a construct and as a practice, to elucidate potential effects of mindfulness. Given the focus of most mindfulness research is on intrapersonal effects of mindfulness, we turn our attention to the interpersonal effects of mindfulness which we feel is particularly relevant for leadership. In particular, we discuss three leadership styles—authentic, charismatic, and servant—that are widely considered in contemporary conceptualizations of leadership, that have an inherent link to mindfulness, and whose effectiveness can be regulated by mindfulness. Finally, we consider how mindfulness may affect the developmental process of leadership focusing specifically on how witnessing awareness quality of mindfulness could play an important role in facilitating constructive development.
Mindfulness and job performance: a study of Australian leaders
Mindfulness relates to being aware of the present reality and living in the moment, and, while linked to well-being, it has only recently been tested on specific leader samples. Despite attention, the links between mindfulness and job performance are scarce, with the performance of leaders especially so. The present study tests self-reported mindfulness from 84 Australian leaders towards two forms of leadership performance as rated by their immediate manager. Using structural equation modelling, we find mindfulness is positively related to leadership self-mastery and leadership organizational-transformation. The best fit for the data was a full mediation model: mindfulness predicting leadership self-mastery, predicting leadership organizational-transformation. Furthermore , we tested for the moderating effects of tenure duration and found that mindfulness was especially beneficial for leadership self-mastery at low tenure duration. Findings suggest that leadership performance may ultimately be enhanced by having leaders who are more mindful and present at work.
MINDFULNESS MATTERS: The Effects of Mindfulness on Organizational Citizenship Behavior
2018
Both mindfulness and authentic leadership base themselves on self-awareness. Authentic leadership has positively predicted organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and mindfulness has been positively correlated to work engagement, which has shared positive relationships with OCB. Job demands (JD) have been shown to compromise work engagement. Using a sample of 134 MBA and undergraduate students, a longitudinal design evaluated the meditational role of authentic functioning (AF) between mindfulness and OCB and the moderating role of JD. Over the course of three months, three questionnaires were administered to measure mindfulness, AF, OCB, and JD. Despite the positive predictive relationship between mindfulness and AF, there was not a significant predictive relationship between AF and OCB or the predictor (i.e. mindfulness) and criterion (i.e. OCB) variables, so structural equation modeling could not reveal if AF mediates the relationship between mindfulness and OCB. These findings...
The Transformative Leadership Capacities of Mindfulness
Effective Executive, 2020
The paper explores participant leader experiences of mindfulness at the workplace and presents an inductive model that highlights the potential of the mindful individuals to transform their work world in the domains of productivity, relationality, and power. The model highlights the resources and capacities built through practice and considers capacities developed as antidotes to the three Buddhist poisons of greed, hatred and delusion. Using a phenomenological approach and semi-structured interviews from 53 participant leaders working in a variety of organizational contexts, this paper explores how individuals, trained in mindfulness, applied and understood this capacity at work. Participant leaders had trained in one of three different Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs): Executive MBA (EMBA) Mindful Leadership Program, Mindfulness Teacher Training, and a eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program. The research distinguishes some key individual meta-capacities (awareness of the wandering mind, embodiment, equanimity and kindness) and individual capacities (resilience, sense-of-self, multiple perspectives and possibility) that develop. These individual capacities enhanced participant leaders’ abilities to work with difficult emotions. The individual changes allowed for new behaviors and experiences in the areas of productivity, power and relationality.
Mindfulness as substitute for transformational leadership
Journal of Managerial Psychology, 2017
PurposeTransformational leaders spark the intrinsic motivation of employees, thereby stimulating their extra-role performance. However, not all employees are lucky enough to have a transformational leader. The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent mindfulness can function as a substitute for transformational leadership. By being attentive to and aware of what is taking place in the present, mindfulness provides employees with a source of intrinsic motivation that lies within the person, thereby possibly making employees less dependent on transformational leadership.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey was used to collect data of 382 employees working in diverse sectors in the Netherlands.FindingsModerated mediation analyses indicated that mindfulness partly compensates for a low levels of transformational leadership in fostering intrinsic motivation and in turn extra-role performance, thereby providing evidence for the substitutes for leadership theory. Moreo...
PSYCHOLOGICAL NEED SATISFACTION AT WORKPLACE: THE ROLE OF MINDFULNESS
Journal of Strategic Human Resource Management, 2017
The purpose of the present paper is to examine the significance of dispositional mindfulness in prediction of basic psychological need satisfaction and explain how positive psychological strengths and capabilities motivate employees to perform in a stressful work environment. According to self-determination theory (SDT), we have basic, universal psychological need for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. SDT proposes that these basic needs represent the necessary nutriment for healthy, fully functioning personality. The study has been conducted on a sample of 322 IT professionals. Data analysis was performed using correlation and regression analysis. The results indicated that dispositional mindfulness is significantly related to basic psychological need satisfaction. The finding suggests mindfulness is a significant predictor, in fostering basic psychological need satisfaction in employees.