Mindfulness and its role in leader development

Abstract

Developing leaders and leadership capacity is more important than ever before, and as mindfulness begins to gain attention among organisational psychology and behaviour scholars (Allen & Kiburz, 2011), there is immense value in examining mindfulness and its contributions to leader development (Murphy & Johnson, 2011). Organisations are placing more focus on leader development approaches that are alike and similar to mindfulness (Baron & Cayer, 2011; MacDermott, Kidney & Flood, 2013). Yet there is limited theory on the impact mindfulness has on leaders and their development (Dane, 2011), despite the plethora of growing research on the subject (Roche, Luthans & Haar, 2014; Hall, 2013; Leroy, Anseel, Dimitrova & Sles, 2013). Research on the role mindfulness plays on leader development is therefore useful and will contribute meaningfully to the progress of theory in leader development. To explore the question of mindfulness and its role in leader development in South Africa, twelve transcribed interviews with leaders in the private sector were studied adopting a thematic analysis that generated results presented in the form of six themes. These results suggest that there is a lack of a clear definition of mindfulness; that mindfulness has a profound impact on the perceived development of leaders, and that mindfulness could play a role in developing leaders in South Africa.