Leading with Kindness and Compassion can be Learned!

Leading with Kindness and Compassion can be learned!

By Miren Sanchez

17 June 2021

“IF YOU TRAIN YOUR BRAIN, YOU CAN CHANGE.” This was one of the key messages two weeks ago by

Dinah Salonga, Yogaplus Managing Director, thought leader on management, entrepreneurship, yoga, and energy healing, as she led an exclusive roundtable conversation with over 50 C-level officers at “Mindful Leadership: Leading with Kindness and Compassion,” in partnership with bnfts.ph, PhilPacific Insurance Brokers & Managers, Inc. (Philinsure)’s flagship platform for risk protection and benefits programming for corporations and SMEs.

Dinah noted that scientists have discovered that there is neuroplasticity that allows adults to change their ways. Neuroplasticity is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization. These changes can mean new connections within the brain (synapses reconnected that were previously broken, for example) that affect what they call cortical mapping.

So, when they say, “old dogs can’t learn new tricks,” that is only because they refuse to learn. It’s a conscious choice.

Before the 20^th century, scientists thought of this ability of the brain to only be present in children. However, research in the latter half of the 20^th century showed that while the best way to optimize the plasticity of the brain is in its developmental stages, many aspects of the brain can be altered (or are “plastic”) even through adulthood.[1]^/[2]All of these affect healthy development, learning, memory, and even recovery from brain damage.[3]

Why is this important to know as a leader? Because it is a scientific basis for why YOU can change, and why your frontline leaders can change. The “superpower” of having a “learned response” is so important to be acutely aware of. And Dinah says we can learn this through mindfulness with meditation as a key component of the process.

There are different goals for meditation and the focus of the sit-down with Dinah was “Mindfulness Meditation for Greater Ability to Pay Attention.” Especially under a pandemic, more and more leaders face the challenge of being attentive during meetings or being attentive, in general. This phenomenon has been present since the early 2000 when the pace of technology and change accelerated tremendously with the introduction of Facebook, with the launch of Google, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, among many other platforms, when online social networking boomed and access to the worldwide web through phones trended, which led all of us to the idea that multitasking was the norm. Killingsworth and Gilbert published through the Harvard University: “A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind” in 2010, and they stated that 70% of leaders had to deal with this issue with all the accelerations that had happened.

To deal with this lack of attentiveness, Dinah led the session participants in actual short meditation practices driving the following points home:

• In order to be an excellently performing, outstanding, and a happy leader, emotional intelligence plays a great part in response to the top 6 Leadership Challenges of today, these being:

(1) developing managerial effectiveness,

(2) inspiring others (and not just being feared as a leader which is the more common reaction of underlings),

(3) developing employees,

(4) leading a team,

(5) guiding change, and

(6) managing internal stakeholders;

•  The buck stops at Self-Awareness – Of all the domains, this is the one foundational domain for high emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence domains involve: (1) self-awareness, (2) self-management, (3) motivation, (4) empathy, and (5) social skills. However, the goal is not to be a soft leader but a mindful one (yes, there is a difference).

• Our emotional intelligence grows with the practice of mindfulness (we can learn mindfulness!).  Mindfulness means purposively taking a step back and allowing the space to see what is going on inside your head and being more attuned to your physical surroundings. Having a clarity of focus of your internal and external situation or deliberately considering what is going inside of you and outside of you, without getting carried away by it and driven by (or coming from a place of) genuine appreciation, curiosity and kindness. This kind of mindfulness can be learned (and must be learned, I should say) because it helps us:

o   Recognize, honor, and manage our emotions -- This means we self-manage and not control; we respond versus react; and we make a conscious choice versus draw from a compulsion to act. You are your emotions is true. You can make a choice how to express it (because all emotions need expression after all).

o   Relieve stress  -- Mindfulness allows us to truly appreciate and listen where another person is coming from, and leads you to be more accepting of what scares you or makes you stressed; and

o   Building resilience -- When the executive part of your brain is complemented by emotional intelligence, you are able to make better decisions, get better information, and you allow a shift in perspective more easily.

Dinah indicated that the why behind these key points is so that we can help each other lead happy and healthy lives (who doesn’t want to be happy, right?) through productive organizations (because we contribute by being mindful and compassionate leaders).

The participants raised many practical questions on how to balance mindfulness and policy enforcement, best ways to ensure self-care to be more successful and effective leaders, as well as handling difficult employees. From an organizational and a leadership perspective, Dinah pointed out that mindfulness can be promoted through norms, because NORMS MAKE A GREAT TEAM. How well we treat each other is an expression of our mindfulness. Norms must ensure the following: (1) Psychological safety, (2) Dependability (meet things on time), (3) Structure and Clarity - Clear goals, plans, roles, (4) Meaning (is the work that I do important to me?), (5) Impact (does this work matter and can it create change?).  4 out of these 5 all point to emotional intelligence.

Hopefully the lessons and insights in this article will help you start to learn how to be a more mindful leader. Let me share one of the important final thoughts Dinah closed the sessions with as a way to motivate you further (if you still aren’t convinced you can learn to be more mindful as a leader).

Whatever situation we are faced with, “a response rarely makes things better…what makes things better is connection.”

Hopefully, with constant mindfulness practice, we can all develop higher emotional intelligence, we can recognize our common humanity, that we all want to be happy, and nobody wants to suffer. So, wish kindness on yourself and another person. It’s time corporate leadership shifted to practicing more kindness and compassion and lead the herd to be more connected. It is the way we can all survive through these volatile, uncertain, complex, uncertain and disruptive times.

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About the Author

Miren Sanchez is Vice President for Strategy and Development at Philinsure. She founded Future By Design Pilipinas, a learning network of professionals focused on self-mastery towards co-creating positive realities in the Philippines. Her key advocacies include Filipino leadership, digitization of public education, and mental wellness as a driver of growth.