As a coach, it can sometimes be a task to get (especially male) clients in high performance positions, to understand the value of meditation and a mindful approach to career, everyday life and leadership. It is perhaps more about a stigma and that the individual does not dare to be part of something “new” or fail to understand the value of not taking time, but prioritizing time to regenerate.

Now meditation is thousands of years old but didn’t really get to the west until the 1960s. In the west, we tend to measure and weigh everything for it to have value. And yes, you can measure the effect of meditation. There are centers in the brain where density increases and places where it decreases, after only 8 weeks of meditation.  In America every CEO with self-respect has a coach, even the greatest coaches have a coach. The companies know the performance value of a leader in balance.

When Harvard Business Review provides an article about the importance not only of leadership coaching, but that coaching is tied together with mindfulness, well then i must share a little part of it…

-Excerpts from article in Harvard Business Review-

“The benefits of mindfulness meditation for leaders are increasingly appreciated and confirmed by research. Leaders and high-performance professionals are increasingly using meditation to manage stress, maintain strategic focus, improve cognitive performance, promote emotional intelligence, and improve interpersonal relationships. Meditation programs are increasingly offered in the workplace to promote these benefits.” -Harvard Business Review

“Mindfulness meditation, however, is usually a freestanding offer in workplaces and not tied to the user’s specific management development challenges. Mindfulness meditation has not yet been fully integrated into leadership development and leadership coaching. These kinds of development programs can help new leaders identify, and overcome, their limiting beliefs, behavioural patterns and interpersonal difficulties. Such programs can help them develop new skills, including the ability to think strategically and motivate others.” -Harvard Business Review

“Similarly, leadership coaching helps individual clients develop essential skills to communicate more effectively, develop sound strategic plans, and implement success action plans. However, since most management coaches and management development specialists are not also specialists in applying mindfulness ,there are important opportunities the client may miss. While managers can benefit from pursuing meditation as a freestanding stress-management strategy, their development as balanced leaders can be strengthened by integrating the two approaches.” -Harvard Business Review

“When the customer achieves a relaxed state during meditation sessions via controlled breathing and progressive muscle relaxation (temporarily suspending cognition), he or she can then work on the mindset changes that are the focus of the head coach. These thought gait changes are more achievable when worked on in a state of meditative relaxation. Conversely, relevant thoughts that “bubble up” in the client’s mind during meditation sessions are relevant to the tasks of leadership coaching, and the management development sessions.” -Harvard Business Review

The synergy between coaching and mindfulness meditation is compelling. Meditation helps you achieve a state of being where you can think clearly about work-related stressors and goals. And when leaders have a positive mindset around behavioral changes, they are better equipped to relax and achieve a meditative state , with all its inherent benefits. The two approaches are constantly deepening and strengthening each other.

By carefully integrating leadership coaching and mindfulness strategies into a single process, we can help you develop into a more self-conscious, down-to-earth, emotionally intelligent and effective leader. Leader coaching and mindfulness is a strong partnership that creates a higher value for the client. Instead of leaving it to chance whether and how a leader will engage in mindfulness meditation, we have already integrated coaching and mindfulness. The process is more rewarding, and the outcome for the client is far superior, with this kind of coordinated approach.

Creativity is thinking of the new, innovation is doing the new. Be on the forefront of balance, creative innovation & healthy company culture.

Are YOU ready to play ? Call me on +45 91779247

Anders Brogaard