Happiness isn't just a nice extra. Study after study has shown that contented employees are productive employees. So how do you ensure your team members are in their best possible mood?
You can try buying your people perks, but that approach is costly and often falls flat. Another alternative is focusing on the latest in motivation science or wellness-boosting initiatives. All of which probably can't hurt, but a pair of new studies suggests that there's something even simpler that managers can do themselves to boost the well-being of their teams--just become more mindful.
There have been plenty of studies on the benefits of cultivating mindfulness for individuals, but this new research published in the journal Mindfulness, take a slightly different tack, looking at the effects of mindfulness training not on the person herself, but on the people she leads.
More Mindful Leaders Have Happier Employees
To get at the link between a supervisor's level of mindfulness and the employees' well-being, the researchers first looked at 96 managers, gauging both their own ability to be present in the moment and their team's level of job performance, emotional exhaustion, and work-life balance. As UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center writeup of the results reports, more mindfulness among leaders led only to good things among their direct reports.