Mindfulness in Management: Respond, Don't React
Sometimes, 15 seconds is all it takes to demoralize someone.
Posted January 15, 2020 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch
It was a small incident from early in my career , but I still remember it well. A colleague of mine poked her head into our manager’s office, opening a partially closed door.
“Can I ask you a quick question?” she asked in a quiet, tentative voice.
Our manager’s voice came out loud and unequivocal. “I can give you a quick answer: no, no, and no!” he said, his voice rising with each syllable. “I’m on a tight deadline right now!”
My colleague closed the door and slunk away unhappily back to her desk. The whole encounter only lasted about 15 seconds, but sometimes 15 seconds is all it takes to demoralize or demotivate someone.
Handling stress productively
Over the course of a long business career, I saw this dynamic play out in many different ways. Some sort of question is asked to a busy, stressed executive. Instead of a rational, thoughtful answer, the asker receives an agitated exclamation. The employee leaves the interaction upset and unsettled. The employee still has no answer to the question, which will probably slow down their work, and they may well even develop negative feelings toward management .
There’s no doubt that management, with many pressures from many sources, is legitimately stressful . But how that stress is handled can make all the difference in one’s success as a leader, which is why I’m an advocate of mindfulness as a management tool.
With its emphasis on “being in the present” and acting in a calm reasonable manner, mindfulness can help us gain better control of our emotions, which can help us become better managers.
Responding, not reacting
I first became aware of mindfulness through readers of my book, The Type B Manager . They noted similarities between my own thinking — which advocated a more relaxed, measured approach to management — and elements of mindfulness. It piqued my interest. The more I studied and practiced it, the more I came to believe it had many practical applications for management .
Just as stress leads to fast reactive behavior, mindfulness leads to more deliberate, non-judgmental behavior. In a less-stressed state, it’s easier to respond thoughtfully, rather than react out of frustration or anger . Mindfulness is no panacea, but it can move us in the right direction.
Implications for management
Consider the busy executive who delivered my colleague an agitated “no, no, and no.” It would’ve been just as easy to calmly respond, “I’m sorry, I’m on a tight project deadline right now, but if you give me till 4 o'clock today, I’ll be glad to talk over any questions you might have.”
That might’ve taken 20 seconds as opposed to 15, but I’ve no doubt those extra five seconds would have been worth it.
A version of this article was first published for The Predictive Index .
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Victor Lipman, MBA, is author of The Type B Manager: Leading Successfully in a Type A World . His online courses on Udemy are "The Manager's Mindset" and "How to Manage Difficult Employees."
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.