Mindfulness & Social-Emotional Intelligence

Mindfulness is being fully present in the moment and aware of your feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations. It’s a space of clarity that opens consciousness. A mindful leader embodies focus, clarity, and empathy with interactions with others in the present moment. The practice of mindfulness involves tools that apply to all aspects of life, personal and professional. It teachers you to pay attention to the present moment, recognize emotions, and maintain control of emotions, especially in stressful situations.

Social + Emotional Intelligence, also known as Emotional Intelligence, is a form of intelligence that drives success in work, in life, and in our relationships with others. It involves being aware of ourselves and others, in the moment, and using that awareness to manage ourselves (our behavior, our responses to stressful or challenging situations), and manage our relationships with others. It involves stress management, mental resilience, productive conflict management, the power of influence, change management, teamwork, collaboration, trust building and much more.

Research (Mindfulness & Social + Emotional Intelligence)

Positively impacts human functioning and interpersonal behavior
Helps provide greater empathy and compassion
Improves relationships by providing greater empathy and compassion
Optimization of mental health
Positively impacts on the brain and immune system
Help with chronic pain, blood pressure, and insomnia
Helps improve the quality of attention, cognition, emotion, and physiology

Individual Impact:

In a study on the impacts of mindfulness on the psychological and physical health of obese or overweight adults, researchers found that mindfulness helped participants lose weight, improve their eating behaviors and attitudes, and decrease depression and anxiety (Rogers, Ferrari, Mosely, Lang, & Brennan, 2017)
Mindfulness has been positively linked with lower blood pressure, especially when the practitioner is skilled in non-judging and non-reactivity (Tomfohr, Pung, Mills, & Edwards, 2015)
10-minute daily practice can result in more efficient cognition and better self-regulation (Moore, Gruber, Derose, &
Malinowski, 2012)
Elementary students who practice mindfulness exhibit greater prosocial behaviors, emotion regulation, and academic performance (Harpin, Rossi, Kim, & Swanson, 2016)
Teenagers studying for a general education certificate who participated in a mindfulness program experienced lower depression and anxiety, which contributed to improved academic attainment (Bennett & Dorjee, 2016)
Children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who participated in a five-week mindfulness program reported decreased stress, allowing them to focus on school (Costello & Lawler, 2014)
Resilience is a very effective skill for children to cope with daily struggles and develop emotionally, psychologically, and academically. Mindfulness training has been shown to boost resilience in children and help them understand and regulate their own emotions (Coholic, 2011; Coholic, Eys, & Lougheed, 2012).

Workplace Impact:

Leaders who practice mindfulness for at least 10 minutes daily exhibit higher levels of resilience, collaboration, and the ability to energize their teams in the midst of complex situations, based on a study from Harvard Business Review.
Social + Emotional Intelligence is scientifically proven to boost sales, increase profits, reduce turnover, and transform organization culture
Office employees who participated in an eight-week mindfulness intervention experienced lower levels of work-related stress, greater job satisfaction, and, ultimately, enhanced job performance as rated by their employers (Shonin, Van Gordon, Dunn, Singh, & Griffiths, 2014)
Huang, Li, Huang, and Tang (2015) also found that mindfulness reduces stress, fatigue, and psychological distress, especially for employees struggling with poor mental health
A study of public sector employees showed that this group was also able to benefit from the mental health effects of mindfulness. These employees reported less stress, reduced psychological distress, and improved social functioning and quality of life (Bartlett, Lovell, Otahal, Sanderson, & Tasmania, 2016)
Dane and Brummel (2014) study also discovered an inverse relationship between mindfulness and turnover intention, meaning that employees who are higher in mindfulness are less likely to leave their jobs for any reason.
Further research on mindfulness at work showed that mindfulness can act as a buffer for unsupportive work environments, enhancing well-being at work and contributing to lower levels of burnout for employees from a range of careers (Schultz, Ryan, Niemiec, Legate, & Williams, 2015).