We have heard many variations of “Take your medicine…” at VIM Executive Coaching, including, “Eat your carrots…” or “Listen to what the corporate management trainer tells you, she’s developed a proven method.”
As we have all learned, a single approach to treating a condition is not always the best approach, carrots are not always delicious and there is no singular management training method that works for everyone who tries to follow it.
Executive Leadership is not a Book
We aren’t physicians at VIM Executive Coaching nor are we master chefs. We are business coaches and as such, we are on much safer ground reflecting about the misconception of “taking the medicine” of a single methodology for an approach to executive leadership. Frankly, we have an inherent wariness of any one path. We especially reject the premise of some philosophies that are more than pleased to push a certain leadership agenda by saying, “We know what you’ve done wrong, and we’re not pleased, so ‘take your medicine’ and change.”
By change, what is often meant by that sentiment is to encourage executives to change into one approved fashion
Our experience over many years has shown that to guide someone to become an effective leader does not so much rely on externals, i.e., an approved book, podcasts, a series of virtual, boiler-plate lessons, or even an “in-your-face” keynote speaker, but in developing the internals.
The internals are the ability to look deep within and to understand what leadership techniques may or may not effectively work in the moment.
Mindfulness is Not a Book
If we were to randomly ask one hundred executives not what their executive leadership technique is all about, but about who they are, we could easily imagine one hundred different answers. Why then, should anyone expect one executive leadership approach to work for all of those differing points of view?
Mindfulness is the ability to look deeply within and then to apply what has been seen, noted, felt and sensed into a responsive (not reactive) set of actions that can be applied to executive leadership.
The above description, we must add, is both personalized and guided. If developing executive leadership mindfulness was just a matter of doing as we want, we would often find organizations to be in the same quandary they are in now. Some executive leaders could be quite effective; most would not.
On the other hand, if a singular executive leadership technique was force-fed on everyone (much like forcing the same medicine on every patient), some executive leaders might, and we intentionally repeat, might be effective, but most would not – and could get sicker.
In obliging one executive leadership approach on everyone (the fallacy of books or podcasts), generally speaking we have found no one approach is fully effective for everyone. At VIM Executive Coaching, using mindfulness meditation and self-reflective techniques, every current and potential executive leader has the ability to shine.
We are not out to change the extrovert into the introvert, nor the quiet and reflective into the energetic and humorous, but to allow both personality types to be responsive, mindful, compassionate and to develop superior listening skills.
“Mindful” does not mean weak or lukewarm in response to an executive leadership crisis; it means in-the-moment, aware, understanding of the issue and most importantly, free of bias toward one side of the problem or the other.
Taking a prescribed “Medicine” may be good or bad for us depending on who we are, but force feeding an approach without being mindful is unhealthy. Guided and developed mindfulness inherently tells us how to approach an executive leadership issue, it does not power through a solution before we are ready to make it.