Mindfulness More And More A Part Of The Leadership Conversation: Tim Peek, Founding Member, The Conscious Leadership Group

Tim Peek, founding member of the Conscious Leadership Group and a CLG master coach is a four-time Emmy Award winner. Peek spent 35 years working in news media where he was the principal prime-time breaking news producer and the executive producer for transformation. 

Presently as a coach and consultant to leaders in startups, legacy companies and nonprofits around the world, Tim supports executives through challenging transitions, radical shifts, and regular coaching sessions to help leaders create a culture within their organization that embraces the skills required to thrive in today’s economy.

For Tim emotional intelligence, body intelligence, and vulnerability are the new moves that create successful leaders and teams in the new millennium. In a conversation with BW Businessworld, Tim Peek shared his views on Leadership and Mindfulness.

What are the essential values of a good leader according to you, and what is lacking in corporate leadership today?

Much of the focus in organizations today is, rightly, on results — after all, that is why we come together in businesses or NGOs or teams: to create something, meet some goals and bring some vision into reality. Problem is, many leaders are so focused on results that they neglect the key to achieving those results: Specifically, many leaders today do not put enough focus on relationships. The way we motivate people, work through problems and create better solutions is through relationships. Humans are relational animals. If we ignore that aspect of leadership, we give up the opportunity to get the best out of people and instead create frustration, drama, hurt feelings, etc. Results are important, but the way we get the results is through the quality of our relationships.

Is mindfulness a part of your coaching? And according to you, are mindful people better leaders?

Mindfulness is a key leadership skill because it allows us to release our attachment to our thoughts more easily. Mindfulness also allows us to better develop our witness perspective so we gain self-awareness. Mindfulness also allows us to create stability and perspective within ourselves at any point rather than getting carried away at the moment by the swirl of events around us. All of these are key skills for steady leadership that stay in connection with people rather than alienating them through reactivity and blame.

I ask all my coaching clients to start a mindfulness practice because it builds self-awareness, which is a key to conscious leadership.

What are the methods you use to hone the leadership skills of people?

My leadership coaching revolves around the work of the Conscious Leadership Group, whose founders I worked with when I was a corporate executive looking for a better way to lead. The work I do with leaders is based on 15 core ideas and practices that we have found excellent leaders employ. It’s well summarized in the book “The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.”

I invite people to experience the world as creators rather than victims. This means that whenever they find themselves blaming or complaining they instead ask themselves how they are creating the situation they are complaining about. This is a cornerstone of my work, because if people are not willing to claim their creator power, then I am merely going to be trying to make them more comfortable in their dysfunction, which can help them feel better but doesn’t really resolve the core issue.

Another cornerstone of my work is teaching people the Karpman Drama Triangle, a model for understanding how humans get wrapped up in drama. This helps my clients spot drama as it unfolds and that self-awareness allows them to end the drama.

Are leaders today making an attempt to increase their mindfulness?

In the tech sector, mindfulness is growing quickly as a core practice for leaders. A standout here is leadership team at Asana, which uses mindfulness in their own leadership practices and encourages its use throughout the company. In the finance sector, Blackrock investments and Goldman Sachs both have strong and growing mindfulness communities. I find mindfulness more and more a part of the leadership conversation wherever I go.

What are the top 5 things you would recommend to a leader to deal with stress?

Here’s what I tell my clients about dealing with stress:

1. Practice mindfulness meditation daily
2. Become a student of your own stress response so that you can quickly tell when you are feeling stressed out and then act to resolve it.
3. Breathe! I teach my clients a simple technique called 4X4 breathing.
4. Pay attention to diet and exercise so you are taking excellent care of your physical body.
5. Question the thoughts that cause you stress; almost always stress is caused by feeling boxed in by limited options or stress-inducing thoughts which generally are changeable and completely under your control.