You might say that VIM Executive Coaching sits smack in the middle of an executive leadership cross road. We’ve coached those who are brimming with ambition, their stars rising, and those who have all but given up, looking for a landing they can simply walk away from and “be done with it.”
But the long and the short of it, is that mindfulness stresses moderation. A rising star is only as good as the skillset that will bring them success, and for the most part those who find themselves in a career free-fall don’t really want to crash. In fact, most feel terrified at the thought of crashing. It is, of course, a cycle. Every rising star has experienced a hard fall, and many a career in ruin has lifted itself off the executive scrap heap. What moderates both? Mindfulness.
But the long and the short of it, is that mindfulness stresses moderation and that is what we need to talk about with this post.
The value of being mindful is its inherent dedication to authenticity. Being mindful demands executives are aware, in the moment, respond rather than react and see conditions as they are, not how they want them to be.
A dynamic executive leader who we have had the privilege of coaching was recently confronted with a challenge that came in the form of a H-U-G-E medical insurance bill. Her old plan apparently “forgot” she was covered for many procedures. One, not-so-happy Monday, her in-box contained a warning that she was overdue in paying what turned out to be an “obscene” amount of money dating back two years prior. No, it was not SPAM nor was it an over-billing. It was a failure of a department to properly code and of employees too disengaged to go back into her history and to see she was indeed covered.
Many people (dare we say, most people?) might have gone ballistic in the moment, screamed at the poor customer service rep and threatened all sorts of legal action and social media campaigns. That, dear VIM friends, is what we call “reaction.” Indeed, nearly every day on nearly every social media platform, we may find rants against any number of companies, insurance to computers to restaurants to smartphones.
But the long and the short of it, is that mindfulness stresses moderation. Our former client “responded.” She was pleasant (realizing the voice at the other end was a human, not AI driven!), she was factual, calmly explaining all the details of her coverage, she offered contact numbers and asked how she could help the customer service person resolve the misunderstanding. It took a little patience, but the situation was fully resolved.
The bias and the bribe
In a somewhat related scenario, we know of an executive leader whose trusted, long-term manager (more than a decade’s worth of employment) was accused of gender discrimination and harassment by a new hire. The reactive way, would have been to deny everything. To tell the intern he was wrong, and that he had no business speaking up against her trusted manager. However, she was mindful and authentic enough to listen, to weigh both sides without bias and to take responsive action against the long-term manager. Was it painful? Yes, of course. The parties reached a level of civility and honesty.
Another example we can offer is the vice president of sales of a major parts manufacturer whose overseas sales office in Europe had an overly aggressive manager accused by the competition of bribing local authorities to gain broader market access. Again, the executive leader could have issued a firm aggressive denial. He didn’t. Instead, he did extensive research and determined a massive bribery scheme that had been covered-up for several years. In that situation, his response was to admit he failed to properly monitor the branch in favor of helping the sales department make its quota. He ultimately left the company “by mutual agreement.”
But the long and the short of it, is that mindfulness stresses moderation. Sometimes being responsive is to acknowledge the situation in its fullest truth. There might be some who would suggest the executives in the two, real-life examples above were fools (“suckers”) to accept the truth. We sharply disagree. The legal actions resulting from sharp denials could have been devastating, ranging in millions of dollars.
Oftentimes, moderation and calm response in the moment far outweighs pompous reaction that can ultimately haunt a company for years. Choose mindfulness.