As a leader, Steve Jobs followed the guidelines of mindfulness...and this was several decades before neuroscience confirmed these positive aspects of mindfulness that we achieve through meditation.
Thirty years ago, there was a mantra in the business world "be greedy" (this was also perfectly illustrated in the movie Wall Street). Greed is not a guiding philosophy of life, but it is a guiding motive in management theory, where it encourages those in leadership positions to pursue self-interest and self-enrichment, but with a higher goal: for the good of humanity.
Steve Jobs thought differently. For him, the driver of human progress was not greed, but awareness. Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs' biography, explains mindfulness this way:
"If you sit down and just observe, you will see how restless your mind is. Trying to calm him down will only make the situation worse. However, the mind calms down after a while, and when it calms down, a space is created where you suddenly see and hear even the more subtle things that surround us... And that's when your intuition comes alive, you see things much more clearly and you're present in the present moment. Then you are able to see much more than you could see before.”
In a period when the entire business world lived according to the principle "greed is good", Steve Jobs lived by the exact opposite principle, the principle of mindfulness. Mindfulness focuses on the inner, on the mystical; and greed for external, material things.
Nine years after the death of Steve Jobs and three decades after this great mind began to act according to the principle of mindfulness, neuroscientists have proven that his path, which he chose to be guided by intuition, was the right one. Brain scans showed that meditation helps to increase mindfulness, which makes leaders significantly more effective and creative.
In the article The Neuroscience of Meditation, published in British Journal of Neuroscience Nursing, researchers say that mindfulness is the result of neurological changes that can increase attention, whereby the anterior prefrontal cortex (an area associated with attention) has shown changes in activity and structure in response to meditation.
In other words, mindfulness meditation can help leaders:
- they can be more focused for longer periods of time;
- remain calm when under pressure;
- better tolerate work-related stress.
Research done at the University of Amsterdam and published in a scientific journal Personal and Social Psychology Bulletin, reveals another aspect of mindfulness: greater creativity.
So, what Steve Jobs discovered a long time ago has now been confirmed by neuroscience: greed is not the right source of motivation for leaders. Leaders should be guided by their ability to find inspiration within themselves, and then transfer that inspiration to others.
