Mindfulness: The "Per Diem" Moment of Truth for a Leader

Leaders are caught in having to make daily decisions that relate to the past, or to the future, thus becoming disengaged with the “here and now”. The connection to the present, and the state of being conscious or aware of something, also known as mindfulness, is absorbed and consumed by the stress of what has happened and what will happen in the future.

One outcome of this attention insufficiency state is that leaders lose their inner focus and “flow”. In sports psychology, flow is the state of total attention and absorption in a task. During that state of heightened attention an athlete’s performance is associated with the most positive results.

Leaders are looking for ways to improve their performance and results without always maintaining an inner focus. Any moment in time is for a leader, not just a cognitively processed truth, but also an emotional state, which requires our attention and understanding if we are to develop an inner radar, and a better connection to the world.

That might also explain why leaders struggle to actively engage people in their organization, and occasionally fail when they themselves lose in the game of mindfulness.