The Mindful Leader: Joyful Leadership

Whether you were at a street party over the bank holiday Jubilee weekend, enjoying time with friends, or partaking of a pint of beer at 1952 prices, (or was that only the Duke of Monmouth in Oxford!), there was a real sense of joy in the air. Not least because at last, we were able to congregate together and enjoy the company of strangers in a national celebration.

 Liz Williams in her blog https://www.empoweringleadership.co.uk/blog shares how tuning into joy as part of her practice of compassionate leadership has been so important to her.

‘Doing that which brings us joy, as part of our practice of self-compassion really struck me. I’ve got into the habit – reinforced by the pandemic – of just ‘working on work’ as I call it, policies, programmes, and papers. I now think – right, I have to pick myself up and have a walk around school and go into early years and talk to the children. That’s the joy of the job and it was good to be reminded to bring that back to the forefront of everything we do.’

Cultivating joy is important for our leadership. It builds relationships, strengthens our sense of belonging as a staff team and has a positive impact on our resilience.

In ‘The Art of Happiness at work’ by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu we are reminded that love and joy is our natural state. We don’t need to develop it, we have it already; we just need to give ourselves the space to orientate towards it or and it’s essential: ‘Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.’

Start by making time for that which brings you joy

Joyful school leaders practice appreciation

They start the day, even before they get out of the car, thinking what it is about the school that they appreciate and are grateful for. At end of the day, they reflect on what has lifted their spirits today and what could have made today even better. It means we go away from work, feeling a sense of accomplishment, rather than dwelling on all the things that didn’t go well, and all the ‘to do list’ tasks left undone.

Once a month or so they spend time reflecting on all the people who make the school the vibrant place it is. They spent time thinking about the network of individuals who spent time cooking, cleaning, repairing, recording, teaching, nurturing etc. They make sure they thank them, specifically, for the contribution they uniquely make. This builds a sense of belonging across the community and doesn’t go unnoticed.  It’s such an obvious act but in the busyness of the school day, week and year, it’s easy to forget. When did you last do this?

Joyful school leaders are ‘energy creators’

They lean into and savour those parts of their day that bring them energy, make them feel alive and connected with their core purpose. Even when they are dealing with tasks that drain them, they explore how they can do them more mindfully, letting go of resentment, doing them with full attention, until they are done.

They look to generate more energy in others. When I was at NCSL I always asked two questions in performance management meetings:

• ‘What brings you alive at work and how can we enable you to have more moments when you feel alive?’
• ‘Are we getting the best of you, what does the ‘best of you’ look like, and how can we have more of it?’

Joyful school leaders are ‘joy multipliers’

An essential part of developing resilience is strengthening positive qualities in our hearts and minds.  Resilience is grown through positive human connection. When we can connect to the happiness of others, authentically and positively our own joy is enhanced and we experience a moment of renewal. In Buddhism this quality of taking joy in the happiness of others is called ‘mutida’ and it’s is a particularly potent quality for resilience.

As leaders, how we respond to the happiness and joy of others is significant and can sometimes be a ‘make or break’ in our relationships. Knowing how important it is to savour joy, we can support others to relish the moment when they are telling us good news, by being curious about it asking; ‘tell me more, who else was there, how did you feel?’ Our response to the success and wellbeing of others can sometimes be tainted with envy, we can contract a little. The practice of ‘appreciative joy’ is simple – when we feel this ‘contraction’ in ourselves, perhaps thinking ‘why them and not me, where did I go wrong’, we can simply tune into a simple phrase ‘I’m happy because you’re happy, may your happiness increase’.

It’s worth practising. It’s a skill of resonant leaders and doesn’t go unnoticed. It’s not about being ‘nice’, or about personality. It goes much deeper than that. It’s a practice of keeping our heart open, even when we feel envy and jealousy, so rather than being depleted by another’s joy, we build a positive connection with it. We are renewed.

The Dalai Lama has said that when you count other people’s happiness as your own, your chances for happiness increase by 6 billion to 1. So why not make joy a core part of your leadership and be a joy multiplier?

But is it just a ‘nice to have?’

You may be thinking ‘this joy stuff is all well and good, but my focus has to be all about increasing standards and getting results’. But it’s not an either or choice. Research by Lyubomirsky, King and Deiner has shown that the happier we are, the more success we have, and in particular that happy people are more likely to stretch themselves to keep pursuing goals.

 

The UNESCO Happy Schools Programme launched in 2021, shows that prioritising happiness and well-being contributes significantly to better learning outcomes. It also promotes skills and competencies, such as communication, creativity, collaboration, leadership, equality, respect for diversity, tolerance and respect. It helps cultivate schools as part of sustainable, inclusive and peaceful societies.

Finding joy in the every-day is in no way dismissing the troubling and difficult days we can have.  But it does mean they don’t define us. We don’t turn cynical. We retain our passion and purpose. We get up and do it all again tomorrow.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu knew this when he said: discovering joy does not, I am sorry to say, save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that enobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreak without being broken.’

Maggie Farrar is a leadership consultant working on mindfulness approaches to leadership and formerly a Director at the National College Of School Leadership.

You can find out more about her work and join a global community of school leaders who are cultivating the practice of mindful leadership and  ‘leadership presence’ here https://www.empoweringleadership.co.uk/. You can also sign up for a fortnightly newsletter of practical leadership guidance if you are interested.