Mindfulness at Work For Dummies

Chapter 13

Thriving on the Challenges of Leadership

In This Chapter

Flourishing in your leadership role

Discovering how you can become a more mindful leader

Leading your organisation mindfully

Boosting your resilience using mindfulness

Most people spend a huge amount of their time at work. It stands to reason, therefore, that work should make you feel good about yourself, give you a sense of personal mastery and be fun. Unfortunately, many find work to be stressful, demotivating and frustrating. Great leaders identify what motivates people and match their skills to those needed by the organisation, thus creating a win–win situation. In order to create this situation, leaders need to be in a fit state to lead others.

Ideas about what makes a good leader have changed dramatically over time. In the 1920s and 1930s, trait theories argued that leaders were born. From the 1940s to the 1960s behavioural theories argued that you can be taught leadership – it is just a matter of adopting the right behaviours when attempting to lead. You can be autocratic (‘I am the boss, do it this way’) ...