Mindfulness, Emotions and Leadership

Abstract

The interest in mindfulness practice and research has surged dramatically in the last decade. Especially, practitioners continue to incorporate mindfulness (i.e., the “receptive attention to and awareness of present events and experience” (Brown et al., 2007, p. 212; Quaglia, Brown et al., 2015), into their daily programs to improve organisational functions and processes (Levett et al., 2019). For example, organisations like Google, AstraZeneca and Nike are known for their mindfulness programs and in Australia, companies like Medibank and Smiling Mind (a not-for-profit organisation) are partnering to bring mindfulness to more people. Similarly, mindfulness scholars have multiplied while the literature is rapidly evolving, spreading across disciplines, journals, and other research outlets. In their article, Good and colleagues (2016) reported over 4000 scholarly articles on mindfulness. The above is a testament to the growth of mindfulness practice and research. Mindfulness emerged from the Buddhist mental training that has existed for a few centuries. By the 1970s, it started to capture people’s attention as therapeutic for patients with chronic illness (see Kabat-Zinn, 2003). However, by the 1990s, Weick and Roberts (1993) introduced mindfulness to management literature and by 2023, the research on mindfulness had deepened and gone beyond the mindfulness as sourced from the field of Buddhism (Paul et al., 2013). Bishop and colleagues (2004) describe mindfulness as the highest level of situational awareness and self-awareness and is usually about analysing events without judgment. Generally, it initially refers to stabilising the mind and engaging what is happening in the body by not forgetting or letting it disappear (Kabat–Zinn, 2003). In this regard, mindfulness involves individuals processing their experiences (Brown et al., 2007) by consciously attending to internal thoughts, emotions, or external stimuli. In this regard, self-talk, emotions, impulses to act, and mental images are hallmarks of consciousness. Altogether, mindfulness essentially signifies a quality of consciousness that is open and particularly sensitive toward what is happening in the current or immediate surroundings (See Brown et al., 2007; Dane, 2011), including routine activities (Frigotto et al., 2015). We know mindfulness has a widespread positive impact on human functioning (Brown et al., 2007), such as coping with burnout and improving job satisfaction (Charoensukmongkol, 2013). Empirical research suggests that mindfulness positively impacts cognition, emotions, and behaviour; all of these culminate in improved workplace functioning (Glomb et al., 2011). With regards to the connection between mindfulness and emotions, mindfulness training shortens time to peak arousal in a sample of patients with social anxiety (Goldin & Gross, 2010) while trait mindfulness (a dispositional tendency toward mindfulness, Glomb et al., 2011) dampens an emotional reaction to positive stimuli (see Brown, Goodman & Inzlicht, 2013). A recent meta-analysis revealed that mindfulness training is linked with less harmful and more positive emotional tones (Eberth & Sedlmeier, 2012), which are critical for daily workplace climate. Based on the premise thatmindfulness positively impacts organisational processes and functioning (Brown et al., 2007), the collection of articles in our current issue (29.2) interrogates the nexus between mindfulness, emotions, and leadership. First, we present a lead and invited article, “Mindfulness and Emotion: A Five-Level Analysis”, where the authors, Ashkanasy and Kay, mapped mindfulness onto Ashkanasy s five-level of emotions in the workplace (FLMEW; (see Ashkanasy, 2003a).