“In early 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 41.5% of U.S. adults exhibited symptoms of anxiety or depression. Fortunately, many companies are responding to this unfortunate trend by promoting mindfulness in the workplace. But what is mindfulness, and does it help alleviate these feelings of burnout?”
~Caroline Catrilon, Forbes magazine
It’s been a few years since we have collectively viewed executive mental health through the lens of mindfulness and compassion.
As we can all recall in painful detail, in addition to 2020 and 2021 being “the Covid years,” the national dialog was also often focused on mental health. Indeed, whole hashtags and other social media constructs were devoted to mindfulness.
What has happened since then? Treasured components of mindfulness such as workplace authenticity, compassion and being present, have not experienced a remarkable rebirth. In fact, it is often the opposite.
Psychology Spot
The online magazine Psychology Spot noted (2023):
“The more the world pushes us in one direction or another, the more the word authenticity resonates. However, its use has been prostituted, becoming a term as popular as it is misunderstood and often misinterpreted, even being used as an excuse to justify rudeness or lack of empathy.”
The above interpretation of what has been occurring in the world of mindfulness is hardly limited to one author.
In her 2024 article, “Compassion is making a comeback in America,” author Jamil Zaki noted that in 2011, a major study showed empathy among college students had plummeted. However, the bright spot from the dismal study was that compassion, authenticity and mindfulness were not fixed traits.
The author asked why professionals and executive leaders aren’t celebrating trends such as increases in charitable giving, social work projects and volunteerism? Her question may have been answered by another study detailed by Sigal Samuel (2023):
“Researchers recently amassed surveys in which nearly 600,000 people were asked how humanity in the modern era compared to years past. Across dozens of countries and several decades, people agreed: Human beings were less honest, kind, and moral than they had been before.”
The conclusions of such studies are that while professionals and executive leaders aren’t unkind or unmindful, but there is a strong belief among them that they are less kind and mindful than in the past. You might say that many of them have been following negative hashtags and in not being able to achieve perfection, they have given up or resort to fixed and/or mean-spirited or canned reactions.
Pulling these strings together, though executive leaders all have the capacity to be more mindful, authentic, compassionate and in the present moment, many of them have seemingly abandoned the pursuit of greater mindfulness. Sadly, many rely on whatever is popularly trending or posing as authenticity to be their guide.
The students who have participated in the earlier studies are now obviously ensconced in the workplace. Though all the studies show they have the capacity to be more mindful in their various professions many have thrown up their hands. The result, unhappily, is that many of their subordinates are walking off jobs.
Try a different path
The path toward greater authenticity and mindfulness in the workplace cannot be gained by following hashtags, sound-bytes or quick-fix courses. It requires introspection, self-discovery and patience. The best executive leaders follow this path. Is it “work” to get to know oneself? Perhaps. However, the alternative is often pessimism, ineffectual leadership and poorly functioning teams.
“Hashtags” will come and go, authenticity endures.