How mindfulness impacts the positive forms of leadership and enhances performance at workplace

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Mindfulness is a multi-millenary concept that is fundamental to meditative traditions. Nowadays it is a well-documented psychological construct and a proven therapeutic technique, particularly in stress reduction and depressive relapse prevention. However, mindfulness and its effects on management practices are still relatively unexplored in the literature. OBJECTIVES: This paper aims to address this shortage and demonstrate the claims that mindfulness is a psychological construct that is doubly beneficial to business executives by supporting a more balanced relationship to work while promoting the adoption of more positive and effective leadership behaviors (transformational leadership and authentic). METHOD: A model using positive forms of leadership as mediators of mindfulness / performance relationship is proposed for this assessment. A quantitate analysis is performed on a sample of 319 African managers, 95% of which are South Africans. RESULTS: The data supports the idea that mindfulness is a resource that can be mobilized for inducing transformational and authentic leadership development and positive organizational behaviors. CONCLUSION: Mindfulness seems to be a very interesting predictor of transformational and authentic leadership styles, which prove to be the most powerful generators of performance