Mindful leadership: Evaluation of a mindfulness-based leader intervention

Abstract

In times of tremendous organizational changes in the light of “Industry & Work 4.0” it is crucial to support leaders in regard to stress management and leadership effectiveness. Based on previous findings of mindfulness-based stress reduction and trait mindfulness affecting leadership quality, we developed a specific mindfulness-based leader intervention, which has been evaluated in regard to leaders’ stress and mindfulness as well as their leadership behaviors (Transformational & Destructive Leadership). We, specifically, looked at the subordinates’ perception of leaders’ destructive behaviors in the sense of Abusive Supervision. Moreover, we tested, if followers’ stress was affected, too. We used a pretest-posttest control group design. In total, the sample consists of 57 teams from different German organizations. 19 leaders participated voluntarily in the intervention called Mindful Leadership (one-day training, 2 follow-up sessions including one-on-one coaching and digital-based mindfulness/relaxation instructional videos), building the experimental group, 21 leaders only used the digital-based instructional videos and 18 leaders did not get any treatment. We collected data one month before the intervention and two to three months afterwards. Leadership has been rated by subordinates; all other variables are based on self-evaluations. Leaders, who participated the mindfulness-based intervention significantly reduced their level of stress and increased their mindfulness skills compared to both control groups. Furthermore, their leadership quality in terms of high transformational leadership behavior and low abusive supervision sustained and differed significantly compared to the controls. Effect sizes of the whole intervention were much larger in comparison to those of using the instructional videos only. Our findings contribute to the literature by expanding the effects of mindfulness-based interventions and integrate those to the organizational context. The new insight about leadership trainability should pave the way for more research. Practitioners should be incentivized to invest in mindfulness-based programs in order to develop employees holistically. In this article of the journal Group. Interaction. Organization, we clarify that such programs have the potential to reduce stress, enhance mindfulness and sustain leadership quality.