Is Mindfulness a Key Characteristic of a Jugaad Leader?

Title

Is Mindfulness a Key Characteristic of a Jugaad Leader?

Creator

Sathiyaseelan A.; Balasundaram S.; Zirkler M.

Description

The practice of mindfulness has its roots in Eastern religions. Both Hinduism and Buddhism emphasize the need to be calm and to focus on the present moment. This concentration is called mindfulness. In the Indian subcontinent, there is a specific tradition for innovation and creativity that produces the best possible results, even among resources that are often sparse. This approach is called Jugaad. It is increasingly being used as a management technique. Companies in South Asia are adopting Jugaad as a practice to reduce research and development costs and use unconventional approaches to maximize resources for a company and its stakeholders. Tang (The leaders guide to mindfulness. Pearson UK, Harlow, 2018) noted that mindfulness from a context of jugaad creativity or innovation allows individuals to enter a childlike state of creativity. Mindfulness promotes a directed awareness and allows one to look at problems or issues from different perspectives-not only from a clients or customers perspective, but also from that of a child-encouraging further reflection. A mindfulness approach calms the mind before a creative or brainstorming session, which can foster insight and clear the mind for an aha moment in the jugaad innovation process. Often, a successful jugaad creative process requires breaking down psychological barriers in a team-e.g., fear of doing something wrong, fear of ideas being stolen by others. A mindful approach to such issues helps team members meditate and relax, creating a safer space for creative exploration, as these exercises can teach listening and acknowledgement of each individual. Also, the associated creativity and innovation process helps to understand the problem to be solved and generate ideas from it. The mindfulness approach promotes the flexibility and clarity needed for a jugaad approach (Tang, The leaders guide to mindfulness. Pearson UK, Harlow, 2018). The following are the results of the Jugaad leadership survey conducted among managers in India. Managers felt that Jugaad leadership involves leading by example, appreciation and recognition. Also fundamental is leading with humility, openness to receiving feedback, and awareness of ones own thoughts and emotions. Mindfulness also includes language and behavior, the ability to recognize peoples needs, and an intuition in situations that require change. All of these characteristics make it clear that the Jugaad leader is a mindful person and also show that he or she practices mindfulness while guiding, interacting with, and motivating his or her team members. The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Source

Mindful Leadership in Practice: Tradition Leads to the Future, pp. 57-73.

Date

2022-01-01

Publisher

Springer International Publishing

Coverage

Sathiyaseelan A., Department of Psychology, Christ University, Bangalore, India; Balasundaram S., School of Business and Management, Christ University, Bangalore, India; Zirkler M., School of Applied Psychology, University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), Zurich, Switzerland

Rights

Restricted Access

Relation

ISBN: 978-303097311-7; 978-303097310-0

Format

Online

Language

English

Type

Book chapter

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97311-7_5

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85160137280&doi=10.1007%2f978-3-030-97311-7_5&partnerID=40&md5=fdc1ab2aa354a1fabb2d100bc76f022f