In the past few weeks I have been hearing from a variety of PT practice owners about “the Why” of opening their own practice. There are several themes: autonomy, price, purpose, passion.
After all we became healthcare providers to help others in the way we deem “important, valuable, effective” We are focused on doing our own thing, our own way, we are driven to be successful and happy. WE develop mission statements, vision, core values, goals, strategies in hopes of creating the foundation for our success. A culture evolves based on these pillows of your foundation.
But wait… you begin to hit road blocks with growth, scaling up, recruiting, hiring, motivating, …. Things aren’t as smooth as they should be…. So you think!
Why? You’ve all heard about mindset and leadership but how do these go together? Mindset matters: it impacts culture, outcomes, results. Are you positive or negative? Afraid of taking risks? Find yourself multitasking daily? Responding quickly when one of your staff members asks you a question? Afraid to delegate?
Mindset impacts your leadership ability including your influence on others. What really is mindfulness? How can you master it?
Mindfulness is the practice of being aware of mind, body and emotions while giving full attention at any given time. It is a purposeful, non-judgement awareness. While we pride ourselves on being good multitaskers, we can’t be mindful or 100% engaged if we are continuously multitasking. Leadership can be summarized in one sentence and will be discussed at a later date. “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality”
Five Attributes to Applying Mindfulness to Leadership
1.Focus: 100% attention to ONE task at a time. Your Mind is decluttered – creative solutions evolve.
2.Clarity: what is really there, not what you want to see. Without clarity you go into a meeting with preconception about what will happen or how you need to respond. Clarity allows you to go into a meeting, without judgement and see things how they truly are.
3.Creativity- clearing clutter from your brain (brain dump) allows the creative brain to solve your challenges one by one. We are so busy taking care of operational things that we don’t carve out time for the creative / problem solving mind to work.
4.Compassion- not only for others but for yourself. Give yourself a break, don’t beat yourself up for not accomplishing everything in a day or week. Collaboration with staff initiates change, a form of compassion.
5.Optimism- don’t under estimate the power of positive thinking. Thinking positive attracts positive energy. Challenge #1: What works for you to evoke positive thinking? Interactions, situations, conversations, etc. Write them down, see how you can replicate them
Benefits of Mindful Leadership
A leader who demonstrates mindfulness has a profound influence on others. In other words, “mindfulness must begin with YOU before you can have an impact on or influence others.”
You will begin to experience increased: productivity, emotional intelligence, focus, resilience to dealing with stressful work situations
How Do you Develop Mindfulness?
As stated above mindfulness must begin with you before you can influence others. It does take time.
You might find yourself saying,” Im getting enough done’, ‘I don’t have time to do this,” “If I stop addressing all of these things at one time, something will fall through the cracks”.’ My staff expects me to respond quickly”
The key ingredient to begin developing Mindfulness requires investment in you. How is this done?
- Create space to clear your mind – exercise, meditation, etc
- Clarity on what success means to you
- Identify and focus on what makes you happy – create situations that replicate this
Finally, There are 7 Virtues of Mindful Leadership
1. Practice Empathy: your team members are customers too,
Show simple gratitude and respect. “Thanks for taking a few extra minutes to complete this for me”
Listening to others point of view
2. Have a clear vision – employees must be part of the big picture, ask for input and contributions, reflect with them. Writing down ideas together has enormous impact on your success.
3. Create SMART goals (Specific – Measurable – Achievable – Realistic –Timely) done correctly, you’ll identify and remove barriers that impede your progress
4. Assume Positive intent– giving people benefit of doubt
Build your culture of trust – team needs to see your intent is true.
5. Practice powerful pause– create the space in the midst of momentum- when you’re tempted to respond immediately, this becomes reactive, creating space, creates time to respond.
Challenge #2: identify 3 scenarios that trigger your “reactive response” write them down and plan how you might “respond” vs. “react”
6. Be Congruent – know your vision and your values and act in harmony with them. “Walk the talk” “ “practice what you preach”
7. Learn and stay Curious – You don’t know it all- accept it. Your team is not expecting all answers from you. Listen more, talk less and show direction. Some of the best decisions come when other people are talking and you’re listening.
I help PT practice owners identify the root cause of their stress and frustration while trying to grow, expand, and reform their business. Since your staff are your most important asset, I help you recruit, retain, develop, inspire, and engage a rockstar team.
