The Modern Leader's Strategic Imperative
The Story of a Leader
Let me tell you the story of a leader I know. He worked hard for many years to get to the top of his career ladder. He is a master in his field and was promoted rapidly for his industry expertise and technical skill.
Once in the big job, his drive and ambition energized his team, who were eager to learn from someone with his depth of experience. But the leader quickly grew impatient with his team, who weren’t as technically proficient as he was, nor did they move as fast. They often didn’t understand the direction he was giving, and they didn’t feel comfortable letting him know he wasn’t being clear.
As a result, the leader became frustrated and pushed his team harder. He got immersed in the day-to-day work and dug into every detail of his team’s performance. He figured the most efficient way to control his team’s outcomes was to be in control of his team.
The team, however, their leader didn’t trust them—and they lost trust in him too. They did precisely what he asked, even if they knew it wasn’t the right thing. After a while, they stopped asking themselves what the right thing was. They did as they were told, just to get by. Just to survive.
Performance dropped. The pressure on the leader intensified, from his bosses and from his own inner critic, and that pressure trickled down to the team, who were now fully disengaged. Talented people started leaving. Those who stayed felt as if their leader was their biggest challenge, the greatest inhibitor to their success.
Have you seen this story before? Can you tell me how it ends?
What is leadership?
Before we talk about what makes leaders successful, let's define the role of a leader. I see it, quite simply, as:
By this definition, anyone can be a leader. You don’t have to be an executive.
And in fact, not all executives are leaders. Leadership is not a title, it's a way of being in relationship that drives impact.
Leadership is not a title, it's a way of being in relationship that drives impact.
That’s the role of a leader, but of course the reality isn’t that simple. Every leader I know is navigating deepening complexity around them and struggling to integrate the complexity within them.
Recently I posted on LinkedIn about the many polarities or tensions that every leader navigates. I offered up as examples:
And when I asked what polarities other leaders are working with, the responses flowed in:
The modern leader's skill set
Because the role of a leader involves such profound complexity, it requires much more of us than high-tech skills aka technical expertise and ability to do the thing your people do.
Leadership requires two more skill sets (often lumped together reductively as “soft skills”) that I propose we think about as:
Not only are these skills directly tied to the definition of real leadership we discussed above, they are essential in our modern context.
High-Tech skills alone are sufficient when the situation is familiar, the problem is simple and the outcomes are known.
High-Touch and High-Impact skills are what allow us to navigate novel and volatile situations, and approach complex and ambiguous problems to find emergent, creative outcomes. For anyone leading anything in 2024 and beyond, they are indispensable.
A common misconception I hear often is that while high-tech skills can be learned and developed, these high-impact and high-touch skills are innate. You either have them or you don’t. So many organizations all but ignore them in their leadership development strategies. But this is a mistake.
Cultivating high-impact and high-touch skills is a strategic imperative, both for this moment and for whatever is coming next.
We can cultivate high-impact and high-touch leadership skills in ourselves and in our teams. I think it’s clear that doing so is a strategic imperative, both for this moment and for whatever is coming next. And today I’m going to offer you one simple practice that is a gamechanger for any leader.
Including that leader we talked about a moment ago.
Tell me: What comes to mind when you hear the word "mindfulness"?
Most of the connotations we have around this word are related to wellness, spirituality and a general sense of "soft"-ness.
And it's true, mindfulness has been co-opted by the wellness industrial complex, but I'll be honest: I’m not interested in wellness. I mean listen, I love you and want you to be well, but that’s not what mindfulness is actually for. I think it is only the most surface-level and individualistic understanding of the practice.
It's also true that mindfulness is derived from Buddhist teachings that emerged from what is now India and Nepal, China, Japan and all across Southeast Asia. However, the practice of mindfulness in a secular context been tested and proven highly effective by neuroscientists, cognitive and behavioral researchers, social and organizational psychologists, medical researchers and others studying how we humans grow and change, individually and collectively. All this research confirms that mindfulness is not only good for our health and wellbeing—which it generally is—but that it's good for us because it builds our high-touch and high-impact skills.
As for “soft,” we’ve already talked about how reductive that notion of “soft skills” is. If these are the hardest skills to cultivate, then we should think about mindfulness as high-intensity interval training, but for the mind.
What is mindfulness (really)
Let’s talk about what mindfulness is and how we leverage it. And because it's so deeply misunderstood, we'll do this by busting the three biggest myths that keep leaders from practicing mindfulness:
MYTH #1: THE WHAT // Mindfulness is about calming and quieting the mind.
This myth misunderstands what mindfulness is, so let’s give it a simple definition too:
Mindfulness is the opposite of mindlessness.
It is, very simply, paying attention to what’s happening, around us and within us, in a given moment. Sometimes what’s happening around us and within us is quite noisy. Mindfulness can sit with that too.
That’s why the expectation of a placid mind is a set-up, and the notion that when you practice mindfulness you should feel good is a lie. Mindfulness is about being with the reality of what's happening—good, bad or ugly—so that we can respond appropriately.
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(Doesn’t that sound like something more leaders today could use?)
Let’s do a quick mindfulness practice together. This will take about 20 seconds, but once you get the hang of it, you can do it in 5 or less. And no one needs to know you’re doing it.
STOP is an acronym you can use anytime, any place to bring yourself into present moment awareness, aka mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the opposite of mindlessness.
As Viktor Frankl, psychologist, writer and Holocaust survivor said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Practicing mindfulness gives us that space. The space to see more clearly what’s happening within and around us, and then to make intentional choices. To not be on autopilot.
Space, Clarity and Choice… that’s what mindfulness offers us as leaders.
MYTH #2: THE HOW // I can’t do mindfulness.
I hear this all the time: "I can't be mindful. I just have one of those brains."
Fact: You have one of those brains that can do this, thanks to a little phenomenon called neuroplasticity. Your brain, like all brains, is plastic—that is, it can change. And the cool thing is, what changes our brain is what we do with our minds.
Think of it this way: what you practice grows, and you’re always practicing something. You’re either practicing mindlessness, in which case your autopilot is large and in charge… or you’re practicing mindfulness, and you have more space, more clarity and more choice.
Here's another simple mindfulness practice: Focus for the moment on your breathing. Notice if you're on an inhale or an exhale. See if you can watch that breath all the way to the end.
Sooner or later (probably sooner), your attention will get pulled away. Not a problem—your brilliant brain is doing its job and thinking up a storm. You're simply giving yourself an alternative to getting caught up in that storm.
When you notice you've been pulled away from the breath, simply come back to the question of whether you're breathing in or out. Simply notice, until you get pulled away again, and then notice that.
Each time you notice something happening here and now—whether that's the feeling of an inhale or the recognition that your mind is fixated on a worry—THAT is a moment of mindfulness. And thanks to neuroplasticity, each time you intentionally return to present moment awareness, you are building your brain's capacity to find that space. If you keep practicing, it will become your brain's new default.
Your brilliant brain is doing its job and thinking up a storm. You're simply giving yourself an alternative to getting caught up in that storm.
Another flavor of the “I can’t do it” myth is “I don’t have time.” But you just saw how little time it takes to practice STOP.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft and a truly transformational leader, has a 90-second mindfulness practice he does every morning. He explains: "You get out of the bed and then you put your feet down and say what you were thankful for and what you're looking forward to. That's it.”
That, too, can be enough.
If you’re still skeptical, let’s try another super fast mindful awareness practice. Ready?
Don’t be aware! Don’t focus on the present moment at all! Get lost in thought!
How did that go for you? ??
It doesn’t take any extra time to practice mindfulness. The practice is in bringing mindfulness into the time we already have.
MYTH #3: THE WHY // My mindfulness practice is self-care, which feels selfish.
This, to me, is the biggest issue with the whole wellness frame. It individualizes the issue. But there’s nothing individual in our lives, and certainly not in our leadership.
Our mindfulness practice is very much about the impact we have on others. We practice creating space to see more clearly and make new choices so that we can show up in the world the way we want to.
Not just to make ourselves happier and less reactive—though yes, that will happen—but to be safe people in the world, and have a positive impact wherever we go.
If you want things to change around you, as leaders we have to go first. I like to say: The curse of leadership is that nothing changes until you do. The gift of leadership is that everything changes when you do.
Take a moment and think about a pattern you’re trying to change. Maybe it’s in a relationship, or in a team or even a company.
Now ask yourself: What is the role I’m playing in this pattern? How am I showing up (not intentionally but on autopilot) that is contributing to this pattern?
Don’t worry about writing yourself a bunch of rules about what you’ll do differently from now on. Just see if you can notice when you’re doing it and practice STOP. Then you’ll have more choice, and you can respond the way you intend to.
That is how everything changes.
The curse of leadership is that nothing changes until you do. The gift of leadership is that everything changes when you do.
Let's get back to the leader we talked about at the top. I met this leader when he took my mindful leadership course, Momentum .
It was his first experience with mindfulness, and he was skeptical. But he knew he couldn't keep going the way he had been. He knew he needed to augment his high-tech skills with high-touch and high-impact capabilities. He allowed himself a bit of space to see more clearly and make new choices.
Over the 12 weeks of his Momentum cohort, he expanded his understanding of what it means to lead. He started cultivating real relationships with his team, team engagement began to turn around and performance picked up, and he discovered both a deeper sense of purpose in his work and a true sense of himself in his life. He and his team still face plenty of challenges, but they face them together and they have what it takes to overcome them.
In other words, he’s no longer just an executive.
Now he’s a leader.
Learn more about Momentum and register for an upcoming cohort at kristenlisanti.com/momentum .