Mindfulness at Work for Leaders and Managers

The aim of this two-workshop course is to introduce mindfulness and the mindfulness-based approach to mental balance, personal effectiveness and responding to stressful situations. It is a refinement of an earlier 2-day programme and focusses on the hub of a theory of mindful leadership and ‘space to respond.’ This theory is explored more in a blog post by the Hult international business school.

This programme is for University of Leeds leaders and managers with no experience of mindfulness or who have done some mindfulness training or practice and who wish to deepen it and explore the application to their leadership role.

Training develops the capacity to be open and aware of a wider range of experience and to relate differently and more effectively to both pleasant and unpleasant features of day-to-day life. It involves paying conscious attention to thoughts, feelings and body sensations in a way that increases awareness, acceptance, and self-compassion. This can help to manage difficult experiences and create space to make wise choices and decisions. Mindfulness Based Programmes have shown them to be effective in reducing perceived stress and enhancing resilience as well as improving relationships, sharpening attention, and aiding self-regulation and mental balance. The development of attentional stability contributes to workplace outcomes; effectiveness in task control and decision making, communication skills, conflict management and collaboration; capabilities which are specified in the University Leadership Excellence Behaviour framework. There is growing evidence that the mindfulness skills can complement those required for the leaders.

Mindfulness training and practice leads to improvements in collaboration, resilience and leading in complexity.

(Reitz et al, 2016)

The programme consists of two workshops and is for University of Leeds leaders and managers with no experience of mindfulness or who have done some mindfulness training or practice and who wish to deepen it and explore the application to their leadership role.

Workshop 1

Title: Becoming mindful in the context of being a leader and manager (developing awareness of our minds and developing a more active relationship with them)

Duration: 3 hours

• How our minds are – how life and work is – what our minds are faced with and implications for wellbeing and functioning
  The mind of the managers and demands placed upon it
• Positioning mindfulness conceptually and experientially
• Intentional presence and focus
• Guided practice and inquiry – The attention cycle
• Barriers and challenges as insights and opportunities to work with the mindful ‘muscle’
• Perception exercise – meaning making minds and layers of experience
• ‘Our experience is what we pay attention to’ (William James)
• Mind-Body balance and reactivity
• Workable Range Model and emphasis upon the value of mental balance and rationale for cultivating it
• Mind-body balance – meditation and mindful movement practice
• Cultivating presence – moving from react to respond
• Personal practice – you will have a programme of guided meditation practices and related exercises to practice in the two-week period between the two workshops.

Workshop 2

Title: Developing and applying mindfulness as a Leader and Manager  (Applying the skills and qualities of mindfulness based mental balance to professional effectiveness.)

Duration: 3 hours

• Application of settling and centering as a model for leaders and Managers
• Theatre of the Mind (David Rock)
• Mental defences – mobilise/Immobilise, fight, flight, disconnect – avoidance habits
  Reprise of Workable Range Model – optimal states – returning to presence
• Building capability to be present across the spectrum of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral experience as a Leader and Manager
• Safe sensory anchors
• Mindfulness and insightful leadership and management
• Mind the Gap – model of embodied situation analysis
• Exploring scenarios and reactions
• A Day in the Life of a manager
• Approach orientation which gives choice and mindful stance
• Looking at rather than through automatic thoughts and feelings
• Discerning what is needed for the mind/body
• Application of ACT Workability
• Hult model of mindful leadership
• Action planning - Taking it forwards in working life