Resonant Partners

Sherwood occasionally asks others to contribute articles for our e-newsletter. Several of us have been inspired by the 'mindfulness' work done by Michael Chaskalson . Here are his thoughts on resonant leadership.

If you've ever worked for or under a good partner you'll know how satisfying that can be. Good partners make work enjoyable, however demanding it is. They inspire their teams to give of their best, skilfully drawing on the talents and temperaments of their subordinates. In other words, they create “resonance”, drawing out and amplifying the qualities of those around them. Dissonant partners, by contrast, drain the enthusiasm of teams and firms, lowering morale and making those around them unhappy.

What are the qualities that separate resonant from dissonant partners, and are people simply born with these qualities or can they be learned?

Richard Boyatzis, professor of organizational behaviour at the Weatherhead School of Management, specialises in the study of leadership and coaching leaders. In his latest book, Resonant Leadership , Boyatzis and his co-author Annie McKee investigate what the attributes of effective leadership are and how these attributes may be developed and maintained.

Good leaders, they say, attain resonance with those around them by using the skills of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. But the demands of leadership produce “power stress”, a side-effect of being in a position of power and influence that can leave even the best leaders physically and emotionally drained. From the neuroscientific perspective, the sympathetic nervous system that governs the fight-or-flight response is over-stimulated by the demands of power stress and so resonance easily turns into dissonance, with the leader shutting down emotionally and losing touch with his or her team, colleagues, clients or customers. This occurs so often that for most leaders dissonance is their most frequent state of mind.

The good news, however, is that leaders can maintain resonance by actively engaging in a process of renewal. This involves undertaking activities that stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system that institutes a process of mental and emotional renewal. There are three key elements to this:

• Mindfulness, or living in a state of full awareness of oneself, others and the environment
• Hope, or the belief in an attainable future
• Compassion, the understanding of people's needs and desires and the motivation to act on that.

The interaction among these qualities sparks positive emotions, enabling leaders to maintain resonant relationships even in times of great stress. The logic of Resonant Leadership can be summed up in four statements.

1. Great leaders are those who move us through forming resonant relationships with the people around them.

2. People who establish resonant relationships do it through the experiences of mindfulness, hope and compassion.

3. Leadership is stressful, with all the negative effects of stress of diminishing learning ability and lowering your immune system, and threatening the effectiveness of everyone around you.

4. Leaders can renew themselves through the same three things that enable them to form resonant relationships, namely, the experiences of mindfulness, hope and compassion.

The pressures to pull managers into dissonance are increasing. This is fed by a number of issues. Firstly, time compression – we're all moving faster than before. Then there is multitasking. People go to a personal event, like a dinner, and keep checking their e-mail or their phone messages. Finally there is the post 9/11 feeling that the world is increasingly unsafe. These are huge pulls toward dissonant experiences.

To be effective with other people, intentionally work towards resonant relationships. That means training yourself in mindfulness, hope and compassion as part of those relationships. Do that, and both emotionally and physiologically you'll discover a degree of self-renewal that will lead you to greater effectiveness and satisfaction.

Michael Chaskalson has an MA with distinction in the clinical applications of mindfulness and a thirty year personal practice of mindfulness and related disciplines. He is an honorary research fellow at the University of Wales, Bangor, where he teaches an MA module in the Department of Psychology. A member of the core team at the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice in Bangor, Michael's teaching is both theoretical and practical. Drawing on the latest scientific research, including studies from the field of brain science, his approach fuses that with the ancient art of meditative practice. He can be contacted at michael@mbsr.co.uk

For further information please contact Tony Reiss