The Yin & Yang of Mindful Leadership

Have you ever had that feeling that you have just woken up from a very long sleep that you did not even know you were in? That is how I feel right now. I feel as though this brilliant white lightbulb has just been lit and suddenly everything makes sense. The catalyst has been studying for my 200-hour yoga teacher training qualification of which I am about halfway through and it is by far the biggest catalyst of my leadership so far.

In fact, I am slightly saddened that at “middle aged” I am only just waking up from this slumber. Not that I am professing I wished to be “Sleeping Beauty” being woken by a charming Prince, but I do wish there had been “something” that had made me think about leadership differently many years ago!

Hence the reason for this article, it is purely my thoughts and observations looking at the role of leadership through my new lens of Yoga. I have practiced Yoga for years but only now that I am studying it am I realising that it is a framework for leadership that is impacting me profoundly and allowing me to grow and to become so much more rounded as a businesswoman!

Yoga is a Framework for Mindful Leadership

When I asked Janette Edmonds at Beautifully You Photography to do some new headshots for my website, I had no idea that I would be uncovering something that would later make sense! In the shot I asked her to create a banner that showed the two versions of me. The entrepreneurial businesswoman and the Yoga loving fitness instructor. The banner expresses my Yin and Yang, without one the other does not perform. The Yoga me balances the entrepreneurial me and together the successful businesswoman I am today.

It is this concept of Yin and Yang that I want to bring to life in this article as I have a profound belief that leadership is about patterns of behaviour that when in balance create above average performance and impact positively the lives of others around.

For many years I lived my leadership in a “fight or flight” state, always having to fight for something or challenge something or push something or manage something! It was tiring and what I realise now is that because I was “fighting”, my objectivity was impacted, and my highly charged leadership would not always have impacted people as positively as I would have wanted it to! Some of this was because I started my career in pubs 3 decades ago when there were very few female area managers, so it was a “fight” to be taken seriously or heard. That said I was my own worst enemy and my strengths and weaknesses were working against each other, yin and yang, and not in harmony!

Today, my Yoga lens has brought to life the stark reality that performance comes from a leader in balance.

Mindful leadership is about balance.

Balancing Manage versus Lead

You cannot be a high performing leader without both elements. The yin and yang of leadership, managing a task that needs to be done within a time frame with the engagement of clear leadership. One does not exist without the other. Only this morning Jacinda Ahearn has led her country by managing the implementation of a 3-day Lockdown in Auckland. The difficult decision managed with the engaging and inspiring vision of a leader in balance.

Balancing Task versus Relationship

You cannot be a high performing leader by just focussing on getting tasks off your to do list. Those tasks will continue to be your tasks unless you build relationships with those around you and empower and inspire them to grow and take some of your tasks off your to do list, allowing you to think more strategically rather than tactically. Even if the relationship is a very functional one instructing the completion of a task there is still a form of relationship, the high performing leader will understand the balance and focus on growing the relationship to drive the results. You will often hear me talk about this being Human Doing versus Human Being, you can manage task, but you need to lead behaviour, they work in harmony but too much human doing will likely suppress talent and performance. The Yin and Yang of leadership - task and relationship, both are needed but without balance performance is impacted!

Balancing Compassion and Commerciality

It is a business leaders job to make money, that is not a dirty word. Regardless of sector, as a business leader you will have performance targets and metrics that will align to the organisations growth objectives. A high performing leader realises that if they balance the compassion for their team with their focus on growing the finances, they will likely grow performance. A team that feels valued and cared for will follow their leader and forgives. Compassionate leadership drives performance and that performance results in more money. Business growth does not come when the team feels uncared for and used! It is perfectly acceptable to talk about compassion and commerciality in the same breath as mindful leaders understand the beautiful balance between the two!

Balancing Hard Skills with Soft Skills

You can teach a member of the team what to do but if you miss helping them with the right behaviours then it will not have the same impact. You can provide someone with the skills but if they do not have to confidence to do them then what is the point. It is the balance of task and behaviour that is critical to success again. Opposite sides of a coin but together they become powerful. How often do we induct a new team member and show them what to do but we do not focus on things like confidence or empathy?

Being a mindful leader is about balance!

Balancing the elements above, just like in Yoga it is a blend of the movement and the breath, together they can transform a pose into something that allows the achievement of more such as clarity of mind or a feeling of enlightenment. It should never be forgotten that leadership is a public service where leaders work to create a safe space for those who follow them to perform in. The team member should always come before the leader and the leader must adapt their behaviours to get the best out of their teams – in Yoga this is called adaptive sequencing, adapting poses for different people, leadership is no different.

A leader has a noble endeavour to uplift and support their teams – this is what drives performance.

Taking the learnings from a Yoga practice and applying them to leadership provides best practice to becoming more mindful, more compassionate, and positively impacting both people and performance.

1. Practice does not make perfect, drop the unrealistic expectations of yourself and just practice being the best leader you can be in that moment
2. Adapt your behaviours to meet the needs of your team rather than expecting them to adapt to you
3. Be present in every moment and every day, you may have a list as long as your arm but not listening to a member of your team in that moment may be the difference between them staying and going – and if they go, that to do list just got longer!
4. Be non-judgmental! Not always easy but accepting people for who they are is crucial for driving engagement. How many times have we not recruited someone because of something subjective rather than objective?
5. Finally, step away from fight or flight and just accept a situation for what it is, remove your emotion and be awake to whatever is happening. The inner chatter that creates a story in our heads is likely not the real story – learn to step away from it and be mindful, present and effective.

A Mindful leader is a balanced leader

A balanced leader is a high performing leader!

Choose balance and you will succeed!

If you would like to find out more about how this lens can be applied to your business to work on the behaviour of your teams or leaders to drive better performance drop me a message! If nothing else I love to chat and broaden my network!