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To build a better future do we need a
radically different kind of leadership? If so,
Imagining the Future of Leadership what might allow us to build a better
model?

A Call for Mindful Leadership Imagining the Future of Leadership

12:00 PM Wednesday April 28, 2010
by Ellen Langer | Comments (5)

(Editor's note: This post is part of a six-week blog series on

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how leadership might look in the future.)
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Mindlessness — not a good quality for any organization —
has led to some questionable assumptions about the need Share on LinkedIn

for leaders; namely that 1) those who lead have privileged Print
and reliable abilities and knowledge — what are often
described as "leadership competencies" ; and 2) people need
to be led to achieve their goals.
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If organizations were mindful — referring to the simple act of

10 Must-Read
noticing new things — leadership would be quite a different Articles from
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matter. They would not only be mindful themselves; their by Clayton M.
most important responsibility would be to enable their Christensen,
Michael
followers to be mindful as well. One might argue that in an Overdorf,
increasingly complex world — where work cuts across all Thomas H.
Davenport,
types of institutional boundaries — the leader's only task Peter F. RECENTLY FROM IMAGINING THE FUTURE OF
Drucker, Daniel Goleman, Robert S. LEADERSHIP
may be to promote and harness "distributed" mindfulness.
Kaplan, David P. Norton, Rosabeth
Moss Kanter, John P. Kotter, Leadership on the Brain APR 28
Noticing puts us in the present, makes us sensitive to Theodore Levitt, Michael E. Porter,
C.K. Prahalad,Gary Hamel A Call for Mindful Leadership APR 28
context, and aware of change and uncertainty. When we are
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mindless we hold our perspective still, allowing us to confuse
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the stability of our mindsets with the stability of the How to Get the
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underlying phenomena. Hold it still if you want but it's Right Work
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changing nonetheless. Imagine the Future of Leadership APR 26
by Gina
Trapani, Steven
However visionary we consider our leaders, they cannot DeMaio, Tony
Schwartz,
predict the future any more than anyone else. They may be Catherine
McCarthy,
able to predict what might happen much of the time if the
William Oncken
situation stays constant — which of course is questionable Jr., Donald L. Wass, Stephen R. How I Did It: Google's CEO on the Enduring 1.
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— but can never predict individual occurrences, which is
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that the next time you do "x," "y" will follow. (Do you believe Reads on 3. Rethinking the MBA
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Those in positions of power often keep quiet about what they Donald L. 5. What Trust Brings to Amazon, Zappos, and
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don't know. Instead of making a personal attribution for not
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us to get on to the problem at hand. Being awake in the moment allows us learn better what we 9. The Mark of a Great Leader
need to know now.
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Leaders can't know and that's fine.

What about those being led? Mindlessless can lead you to assumptions about their behavior.
Once you understand the actor's perspective, you can be less judgmental. If I see you as rigid, I
want to ignore you. If I see you from your perspective, as someone I can count on, I'll value you.
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We can turn around every judgment in this way (e.g. impulsive/spontaneous, grim/serious,
conforming/eager to have everyone get along) and when we do we'll find we have a less rigid Follow us on Twitter »

view of people (some bad, some good). Once we free ourselves from our misplaced superiority,
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we may find talent and ability to provide solutions in those we prematurely cast in an unflattering
light. HBR on YouTube »

Regardless, the larger issue is that, if everyone is awake, you don't have to lead as if everyone
else needs to be led. You may find that people will see what the situation demands, and the
surprising result may be superior performance.
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In a study I conducted with Timothy Russell and Noah Eisenkraft, orchestra musicians were Management Tip of the Day
The Daily Stat
instructed to be either mindless or mindful. In this case, being mindless meant replicating a
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previous performance with which they were very satisfied. The mindful instructions directed them
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to make the piece new in very subtle ways that only they would know. (They were playing
classical music and not jazz so the novel distinctions were indeed subtle.) Their performance was
taped and then played for audiences unaware of our instructions. We found that not only did the
musicians much prefer playing mindfully, the mindfully played pieces were judged as superior.
Everyone was in a sense mindfully doing their own thing and the result was a better coordinated
outcome.

In more than 30 years of research, we've found that increasing mindfulness increases charisma
and productivity, decreases burnout and accidents, and increases creativity, memory, attention,
positive affect, health, and even longevity. When mindful we can take advantages of opportunities
and avert the dangers that don't yet exist. This is true for the leader and the led.

In sum, there is no best way to do anything independent of context, so the leader cannot have
privileged information. When leaders keep everyone in their place with the illusion of knowability
and possession of this privileged knowledge the benefit to them is that we "obey" and leaders feel
superior. The cost is that they create lemmings. Their mindlessness promotes our own
mindlessness which costs us our well being and health. Net result, the leader, the led, and the
company all lose.

It's nice to imagine a company where everyone is mindful. But it will take some time to achieve the
ideal even if possible. Meanwhile, we need leaders whose major, perhaps only task is to promote
mindfulness in those around them. By learning how to exploit the power of uncertainty maybe all
of us will wake up.

Dr. Ellen Langer is a professor in the Psychology Department at Harvard University.

(Editor's note: This post is part of a six-week blog series on how leadership might look in the
future. The conversations generated by these posts will help shape the agenda of a symposium
on the topic in June 2010, hosted by HBS's Nitin Nohria, Rakesh Kharana, and Scott Snook.)
More on: Leadership, Managing people, Personal effectiveness

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COMMENTS

5 Comments Add a Comment

April 28, 2010 at 2:00 PM

Ellen,

Thanks for your work on this topic and for bringing an interesting and fresh perspective on
leadership. Or perhaps I should say from a traditional point of view, "unleadership."

Among the things you've said, I'm taking away two things. Mindfulness is the ability to see new
things. And, uncertainty creates opportunities for mindfulness.

With that in mind, would you suggest leaders create uncertainty as a tool to create opportunities for
mindfulness?

What role does vision play for mindful leaders? The question is based on the unmindful idea that
vision is not about the present but the future.

You have my regards,

Leadership Freak
Dan Rockwell
My blog: http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com

— DAN (LEADERSHIP FREAK)

April 28, 2010 at 4:15 PM

Dan,

Just a quick comment on the concept of "the present" and the impact of vision. If you look up St
Augustin on this, you will find his beautiful reflections on the present as consisting of three parts: the
present of the past - the present of the present - the present of the future.

Your past is indeed formative for what you think and do right now, right here. Just as your
aspirations and hopes for the future are formative for you actions.
 — JENS HENRIKSEN

April 28, 2010 at 5:39 PM

Jens,

Love the quote. Thank you!

I wonder what Ellen thinks?

Best,

Dan

— DAN (LEADERSHIP FREAK)

April 29, 2010 at 10:00 AM

Thank you Ellen for your thoughtfulness regarding the role of mindfulness in leadership.
I'd like to take it a step further and expand the concept of mindfulness into a discussion of the value
of altruism. Altruism, the ability/willingness to go beyond self in consideration of "others".
Altruism used to be a respected and expected attribute of leadership. When altruism is part of a
leader's character they are able to elevate themselves above self interest and actually take in what is
going on around them(mindfulness?).
When altruism is present the good of the whole can be ascertained and leaders can act in ways that
benefit the greater needs of their employees, customers,constituents...moving beyond the
constraints of their ego and self preservation. Employees can take their cues from their leaders and
also learn to act with an eye towards contributing to something greater than themselves.
I believe that a lack of altruism is at the core of much of the financial collapse and at the heart of the
overabundance of scandal and fraud in leadership today. Same might be said for an ineffective
congress overpopulated with self serving politicians.
So thanks for the discourse on mindfulness; I'd like to put that term under the umbrella of altruism
and get that value back into leadership discussions and incorporated as a basic requirement for
anyone in a leadership position.
With regards,
Betty Shotton
www.liftoffleadership.com

— BETTY SHOTTON

April 29, 2010 at 10:23 AM

Ellen,

If I may respond to Dan's question about whether leaders should create uncertainty. There's no lack
of uncertainty. The next moment is inherently uncertain. In training and coaching leaders on
mindfulness, I encourage them to help everyone become aware of, okay with, and energized by
uncertainty.

Thank you for pointing to the evolution of "leader" to, what?, awakener, arouser, Chief
Consciousness Officer?

When an awakener is truly comfortable with uncertainty, the need for hierarchy drops away. While
she's still responsible for outcomes, the superior/inferior polarity softens, sometimes dissolves. That's
when the led become responders and fully contribute.

With gratitude,

Suzanne Kryder
The Mind to Lead

— SUZANNE KRYDER

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