Mindful rumination aids high performance leadership in the workplace

Abstract

In the forever changing business environment, the need for high performing leaders is critical for organisational success. High performance leadership, established in the current study by self-reported recall of performance under pressure and actual level of leadership, matters when functioning within highly complex, dynamic, and pressured environments. These environments, however, can cause leaders to perform poorly, despite having high motivation and incentives for success; a phenomenon sometimes referred to as choking. Drawing on 119 corporate individuals, the current study assesses the role of mindfulness in pressure situations and introduces the notion of decision reinvestment, a psychological concept associated with performance failure under pressure due to conscious control of actions, into Organisational Psychology literature. Results support research examining mindfulness and the positive role that mindfulness plays in performance, particularly at higher levels of organisational functioning. Moderation analyses suggest that mindfulness and reinvestment function together, suggesting that in the organisational setting, and particularly for leaders under pressure, some level of reinvestment (particularly the rumination dimension) in decision making is beneficial, provided mindfulness is also present. This new finding has been termed mindful rumination.