quieting one's leadership

How many times did you stop thinking today?  That may seem like an odd question to ask anyone, let alone someone who is in a leadership role.  Thinking is how leaders do their work by considering future strategy, determining how scarce resources will be used, and planning how the company's culture will continue to improve.  To not think would be anathema to one's leadership...or would it?

This past week Concordia University's Leadership Team spent some time with Patty Speier of The Seton Cove, a spiritual learning center here in Austin.  In my interview with her, she encouraged us to take time each day to stop, be still, be quiet, and engage in some type of contemplative practice.  She reminded us that this is healthy for the individual, for their personal relationships, and for the organization in which they lead.  Contemplative practice does the following for leaders:

• it allows them to be still and let ideas come to them rather than seeking out ideas
• it allows them to STOP and let their minds rest
• it helps to connect the ego with the inner self
• it provides a mechanism so that one may "respond" rather than "react" in a tense situation
• it reconnects people with their true sense of being
• it helps to create a more full and productive life

Many people in leadership roles are handed their positions through the activity they do, and continued to be rewarded for "doing" rather than "being."  To stop and take time to breathe seems out of character for many who lead...and yet, research continues to show that one's best leadership results from time for quiet and contemplation.  So how might leaders find time in their busy schedules to stop and be quiet?  Here are a few ideas:

• wake up ten minutes early and spend some of that time in meditation or other contemplative practices
• build a period of solitude into the day.  Calendar that time into the schedule and hold it as sacred
• take a walk and, rather than finding the most direct route, wander around before getting to that next meeting (and find a path where you might be alone)
• for help with this practice, download a free add such as Mindfulness and use the guided meditations on a regular basis
• give permission to fail...there will be days (and stretches of days) in which these quiet times are forgotten or put aside.  Just be sure to start again the next day

A final note about quieting one's leadership through meditation and contemplative practice - this is not a time to read and catch up on the latest strategy and visioning techniques.  This is a time to be still...to focus on one's breathing and the sounds around them...to empty the mind...and to come to a place of void, even if it is for only a few minutes.  This will not be easy work AND it may just prove to some of the most important work leaders can undertake.