The key to becoming a present leader is being able to manage your thoughts & emotions so you can meaningfully engage with others, and authentically lead by example.
Thought Management
There’s a framework you can use to become aware of your thoughts, and learn to manage them effectively, so that they don’t dictate your actions.
Thought Management is a process that’s extremely useful in stopping incessant thinking, and unhelpful thoughts from getting in your way. It can help you become more present with your team, and other stakeholders, reduce stress, and increase your effectiveness as a leader.
It’s based on scientific evidence from hundreds of clinical trials, and uses skill development concepts that have been used for 30 years to help individuals deal with extremely challenging situations. These heavily researched evidence based techniques, which have typically been reserved for therapy based needs, are also applicable and benefical in day-to-day work situations, and have been proven to have significant benefits.
“Truly effective leaders are distinguished by a high degree of self-awareness, self-regulation, and empathy.”
Daniel Goleman
All of us have thoughts, and to a varying degree, these thoughts can play a positive or negative role in shaping how we lead. For some present leaders, when thoughts appear, those that are useful are used to take positive action, and unhelpful thoughts are let go so that they don’t lead to negative reactions.
For many though, this isn’t the case. If any of these sound familiar you’ll know what I’m talking about:
Unhelpful thoughts pop up randomly and distract you from what you’re doing, or even trigger you into reacting to the situation you’re in. Maybe you’re in a meeting and someone says something that feels detrimental to you or your team, and you become angry or defensive. Before you know it you feel you need to react, or perhaps you disengage completely from the conversation.
Thoughts come and go all the time, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them. You never have a break from them, they’re incessant. Whatever you do, you can’t stop the thoughts jumping into your head, and often they distract you from what’s happening right now.
You have no awareness of your thoughts - they are part of who you are. There’s nothing you can do to stop them, change them or quieten them, so why even try?
Thought Management is all about becoming aware of our thoughts, and being able to detach from them, especially the unhelpful thoughts that inhibit our ability to be the best leader we can be.
There’s a framework that helps explain this, called the ‘Thought Management Window’. It’s a process that demonstrates how you can go from being completely unaware of your thoughts and be so attached to them that they are causing you major challenges (suffering), to being aware of your thoughts and being able to detach completely from them, especially the unhelpful ones (grounded) .
Beyond that, there’s a state of freedom from thought, where as a leader you are completely in flow (free). You’re not attached to your thoughts and can be completely present in your work, and in this state you don’t even notice what’s going on in your head - it’s all flowing freely.
