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Workship: A lesson in Mindful Leadership
June 9th, 2011
Workship is the capacity to tend to the task at hand with intense care, service, and devotion (even love!). It involves bringing your whole being to the task at hand—heart and head—all of your intellectual, emotional, physical, and psychological capacities—in an act of service. Robin Sharma’s fable, The Leader who had no Title, is all about workship.
To strengthen this gift, do each of these three items at least once a week:
- Devote all your attention (physical, intellectual, psychological and emotional to a task) – give it your all in an uninterrupted fashion. When finished, reflect both on the quality of the act itself as well as its impact on you (how did doing the work affect you? how do you feel upon reflection on the finished product?). Each of us is an artist, crafting something through our labors each day, workship is what separates the masters from the rest both in terms of product and outlook on life.
- Consider that the work you do is a reflection of you – who you are, what you care about, and how you come across in this world. If something isn’t worthy of your full being, why are you doing it? Can/should you stop it? If not, what would it take to wholeheartedly give yourself to the task at hand? To care is to serve. To serve well, one must care deeply.
- Do a merciless self-audit. How would you rate your service—to the work at hand, to those you lead, to those who employ you, and to those you serve? Talk about a real 360! The real focus isn’t on the behaviors or competencies in your leadership model, but on the attention, care, and devotion you show others. Leadership is a sacred privilege that tenuously lives in the relationship between the leader and the lead.
Dr Phil Kan
June 10, 2011
You do an outstanding job of bringing the latest leadership thinking to life, Rosaria. Workship is a mindful concept worthy of attention from leaders at every organizational level. You make it both understandable and applicable.