The Mindful Manager
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The “mindful manager” is aware of a mixture of unseen characteristics both of his own and of others. Personality, values, beliefs, emotions, needs are examples of these. In order to be able to value what makes people different, thus what makes himself or herself different from employees or people who interact with, the manager needs to reflect on his attitudes and acknowledge the characteristics mentioned earlier. Self-awareness enhances this ability and encourages the continuous self development. Good managers manage effectively, not only by dividing and organizing workload but also by managing emotionally those who are around them. They make people feel comfortable while doing business with them; they promote trust and appreciation on their colleagues personal values. They feel and show empathy targeting to emotional connection with them (Kets de Vries, 2004). Self awareness can be seen as a “learn to learn” approach and according to Thomas Gordon, the founder of Gordon Training International, the learning process passes from a number of stages, some of which are conscious and some happen unconsciously (Gordon website).
The importance of learning it can be assumed that is a given. Senge (1990:139) says that “Organisations learn only through individuals who learn. Individual learning does not guarantee organisational learning. But without it no organizational learning occurs”. Any organization who seeks a successful future, needs to invest into learning. Sense said that the only competitive advantage is the ability to learn faster than the competitors (ibid).
Decision-making process of a manager involves people. Manager needs to look things from the employees or generally from others perspective. Intelligence quotient (IQ) does not form a good and able manager. Emotional Intelligence (EI) is what distinguishes the excellent managers from the rest. In the 21st century, the good manager leaves from the old management style when knowledge on e.g. finance was the basic essential requirement. Today, EI seems to be twice important (Goleman, 1995). Learning, is a vicious circle and managers need to identify that if they are proactive, it will be beneficial for them in finding areas in which they could get developed, improved. Megginson and Pedler (1992) talk about self-development which enables the capability to “learn to learn” (as discussed earlier). On the other hand, Kolbs (1974) learning cycle is divided into four stages, linked between them. Experience, reflection on the experience, analysis and testing of new concepts implications. It emphasizes on the processes that an individual can take (consciously or unconsciously) in order to analyze and understand experience and finally to learn from each experience. Some years later, Goleman (1998) repeated his first thoughts and in his articles entitled “What makes a Leader” in Harvard Business Review