Gordon B. Spence
To date the workplace mindfulness literature has been dominated by questions related to the role of mindfulness in the successful management of work stress, the cultivation of adaptive coping, and the enhancement of well‐being (Aikens et al., 2014; Brown & Ryan, 2003; Michel, Bosch, & Rexroth, 2014; Reb, Narayanan, & Ho, 2013; Shonin, Van Gordon, Dunn, Singh, & Griffiths, 2014; van Berkel, Boot, Proper, Bongers, & van der Beek, 2014; van Gordon, Shonin, Zangeneh, & Griffiths, 2014; Vindholmen, Høigaard, Espnes, & Seiler, 2014). The positive impact of mindfulness on working adults is now being confirmed by meta‐analytic studies, such as Sharma and Rush (2014) and Virgili (2015). Extending beyond work stress, researchers are also examining the relationship between mindfulness and work performance (Dane, 2010; Dane & Brummel, 2014; Reb et al., 2013; Shonin et al., 2014; Van Gordon et al., 2014), its impact on team dynamics and interpersonal relationships (Krishnakumar & Robinson, 2015; Vallabh & Singhal, 2014), as well as its implications for leadership (Reb, Narayanan, & Chaturvedi, 2014; Roche & Haar, 2013; Roche, Haar, & Luthans, 2014).
This chapter will focus on the contribution that this emerging work is making to the current understanding of mindfulness at work. It will begin by acknowledging that scholarly work in the area has been strongly influenced by an “epidemic” of work stress (Wainwright & Calnan, 2002) and the desire to find systematic ways to ameliorate its harmful effects. After presenting some work‐oriented definitions of the construct, the focus will shift to summarizing what is known about the beneficial effects of mindfulness. Here particular attention will be paid to well‐being and work‐related outcomes for working adults, along with collective and social effects. At this point the discussion will turn to an examination of how socio‐cultural factors might influence the cultivation, and maintenance, of mindfulness and work. Self‐determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985) will be used to theoretically anchor this part of the discussion and argue that employee mindfulness can be powerfully influenced by the extent to which managers (and organizations more broadly) provide support for basic psychological needs. The discussion is then extended to consider the question: Do workers in unsupportive environments derive different benefits from mindfulness than workers in supportive environments? The chapter concludes by recommending that some empirical attention be given to this question, along with several others, as directions for future research.
In a dynamic, unpredictable and complex world, the modern workplace is a reliable source of constant and unrelenting stress. Despite the many positive properties of work (Dutton, Roberts, & Bednar, 2010), the “violence” of modern work has long been noted (e.g., Terkel, 1974) and large numbers of employees seem to experience it in a profoundly negative way (Nixon, Mazzola, Bauer, Krueger, & Spector, 2011; Wainwright & Calnan, 2002). It is easy to bring to mind stressors that profoundly challenge business leaders, managers, and employees. Simple examples include the frustration felt by a CEO upon reviewing a fourth consecutive quarter of declining sales; the dread felt by a Human Resources manager before giving a salesperson a “poor” performance rating; the confusion felt by that salesperson upon receiving it. It is natural to conclude that these scenarios are all “negative” insofar as they would most likely result in strong reactive responses for those involved (e.g., fury for the CEO; passivity for the manager; demotivation for the salesperson).
Transactional models of stress and coping (e.g., Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) suggest that our responses to stressors are mediated by how they are appraised. As such, viewing a negative work outcome as a personal failure, as opposed to a personal challenge, is likely to result in two different responses. Critically it is the transaction between the objective environmental stressor (e.g., the performance rating) and the subjective personal appraisal (e.g., challenge or failure) that determines the quality of the coping response (Garland, 2007; Garland, Gaylord, & Fredrickson, 2011). This, for many Western scholars and practitioners, is the starting point for discussions about mindfulness. Indeed, Mindfulness‐Based Stress Reduction (MBSR; Kabat‐Zinn, 1990), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999), and other formalized, structured mindfulness programs (e.g., Linehan, Cochran, & Kehrer, 2001; Teasdale, 2004) all seek to change the way people relate to a variety of life stressors, such that they are able to generate healthy, adaptive coping responses.
These programs tend to promote the idea that difficult experiences become more manageable when a person can: (1) appraise stressors with a vivid awareness of the prevailing context, (2) be open to perceiving and reframing events in different ways, and (3) fully attend to his or her own reactions as they unfold moment by moment. For the CEO confronted with poor performance, this could mean: (1) acknowledging the constraints of broader market factors, (2) searching for signs of recovery amid a disappointing outcome, and (3) noticing feelings of frustration and signs of possible ego‐involvement. As this example suggests, mindfulness can be helpful for changing how one relates to life events by fundamentally altering the way one views them.
The rapid growth in mindfulness research over the past 15 years has been accompanied by a deepening of the definitional debate that surrounds the construct, with heightened scholarly interest doing little to improve conceptual clarity (Mikulas, 2011). Rather, considerable confusion seems to have arisen because authors have not adequately distinguished different understandings of mindfulness, which vary from its presentation as a state, trait, attentional process, mode of being, or committed lifestyle choice (Cavanagh & Spence, 2013; Reb et al., 2013). According to Brown, Ryan and Creswell (2007), much of the confusion is related to the prevailing concerns of Western clinicians, whose applied interests (in cultivating mindfulness for clients) have resulted in conceptualizations that include attitudinal qualities (Shapiro, Carlson, Astini, & Feedman, 2006), labeling of thoughts (Baer, 2003), purposeful attention (Kabat‐Zinn, 1990), and goal‐directedness (Rapgay & Bystrisky, 2009). For proponents of more parsimonious definitions (e.g., Brown & Ryan, 2003; Mikulas, 2011), infusing the construct with a mixture of attitudes, cognitive operations, and personal intentions is incompatible with the core experience of mindfulness (something more akin to bare awareness). One such definition is offered by Niemiec et al. (2010) who state that mindfulness is “a receptive state of mind wherein attention, informed by awareness of present experience, simply observes what is taking place” (p. 345). Leaving aside conceptual variations, Dane (2010) has noted that most definitions refer to mindfulness being (1) a mental state, focused on (2) present‐moment realities, which may be (3) internal and/or external nature.
While the search for a consensual definition of mindfulness is sure to continue, recent theorizing has begun to address how the concept occurs within work and organizational contexts. For example, Dane and Brummel (2014) introduced the term workplace mindfulness to reflect the different degrees to which employees are mindful on the job. In doing so they also made three observations. First, that some individuals are predisposed toward greater levels of mindfulness than others (by virtue of their generic endowment and environmental influences). Second, despite its trait‐like qualities, all people possess the ability to cultivate mindfulness through committed training and practice. Third, mindful attention is profoundly influenced by the working environment. According to this view, any consideration of mindfulness at work should encompass a combination of dispositional, experiential, and contextual factors.
While mindfulness is usually construed as an intrapersonal, individual‐level phenomenon, it is not always conceived of in this way. For example, constructs like organizational mindfulness (OM; Ray, Baker, & Plowman, 2011) and mindful organizing (MO; Vogus & Sutcliffe, 2007; Vogus & Sutcliffe, 2012) construe mindfulness at work to be more of an interpersonal and collective‐level construct. According to Vogus and Sutcliffe (2012), OM and MO are complementary constructs that exist at different levels of abstraction. Unlike most definitions of mindfulness, they are not construed as an intrapsychic process of individuals or collectives. Rather, they are understood as being an attribute of an organization (OM) and an active social process (MO). A notable feature of these constructs is that they are generally framed in terms of organizational survival. For Weick and Sutcliffe (2001), OM is a hallmark of a “high‐reliability organisation,” or an organization capable of functioning consistently well in risky, highly complex environments. As shown in Table 8.1, it is akin to a form of collective attunement to the success of an organization, one where the actions of managers and employees are galvanized by their tendency: (1) to be preoccupied with failure, (2) to be reluctant to simplify, (3) to be sensitive to operations, (4) to be committed to resilience, and (5) to show deference to expertise. According to its proponents, this form of mindfulness is top‐down, with its five facets endorsed and embodied at the highest levels of authority (i.e., CEO, senior leaders), thereby creating a context for adaptive thought and action throughout all layers of the organization (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001).
Table 8.1 Definitions, characteristics, and examples of organizational mindfulness and mindful organizing.
Source: Definitions in this table are composites derived from Ray, Baker, & Plowman (2011), Vogus & Sutcliffe (2012), and Weick & Sutcliffe (2001).
| Definition | Characteristics | Practical examples | |
| Organizational mindfulness (OM) | Strategic and attitudinal. A top‐down, enduring capability of an organization to foster acute awareness of discriminatory detail about emerging threats, along with the capacity to respond appropriately. Creates a context for adaptive thought and action on the “front line.” |
A set of shared attitudes that shapes organizational culture through valuing:
|
Examples of
|
| Mindful organizing (MO) | Operational and behavioral. An operational state that emerges (bottom‐up) when organizational members consistently act upon information about emerging threats. “Front‐line” action supported by the context that Organizational Mindfulness creates. |
Emerges from the collective action of organizational members, whose behavior displays a:
|
In contrast, MO is a state that emerges through the enactment of the collective attunement just outlined. Stated differently, it emerges out of the accumulated actions of organizational members, most noticeably when they are (1) openly discussing problems (i.e., showing a preoccupation with failure), (2) seeking out divergent views (i.e., being reluctant to simplify), (3) paying close attention to work processes (i.e., showing sensitivity to operations), (4) taking prompt action to recover from errors (i.e., being committed to resilience), and (5) seeking task‐relevant information or resources from those with the most knowledge, rather than those with the most power (i.e., showing deference to expertise).
The conceptual contributions outlined in this section should help to further research into mindfulness at work. However, due to the time‐lagged nature of the empirical process, it is likely to be a while before the research agenda proposed by Vogus and Sutcliffe (2012) is converted into published work. Nonetheless, the scientific investigation of mindfulness continues to advance in many domains of life (including work and organizations) and will now be briefly reviewed.
Mindfulness has received a considerable amount of research attention in the past decade and led to the development of a vast literature. Indeed, the literature now boasts numerous meta‐analytic and systematic reviews on the use of mindfulness within an array of contexts. Table 8.2 presents a sample of these studies, with key findings noted for each. Given that much of this work has been published since 2010, the empirical literature has been developing at a pace. However, as noted by Dane and Brummel (2014), the study of mindfulness in work contexts has lagged well behind the level of research interest displayed in other domains, such as those listed in Table 8.2. Of the work‐related research that has been conducted, most has tended to focus on the effect of mindfulness on individual‐level outcomes, using an array of well‐being and work‐related variables.
Table 8.2 Systematic reviews and meta‐analyses published in the mindfulness literature.
Source: Author.
| Area of Investigation | Author | Type | N | Key findings |
| Substance abuse and addiction | Zgierska et al. (2009) | SR | 25 | Evidence supporting general efficacy of meditation‐based interventions for SUDs although significant methodological limitations noted (e.g., small sample sizes). |
| Chiesa & Serretti (2014) | SR | 24 | Evidence suggests MBIs reduce substance consumption (e.g., alcohol, cocaine) compared to controls, while also reducing craving and increasing mindfulness. | |
| Mental health and psychotherapy | Khoury et al. (2013) | MA | 209 | MBTs effective for a variety of psychological problems (especially anxiety, depression and stress); did not significantly differ from CBT or drug treatments. |
| Strauss, Cavanagh, Oliver, & Pettman (2014) | MA | 12 | MBIs lowered depressive symptom severity (but not anxiety). Effects also noted in MBCT studies (but not MBSR) and studies with inactive (but not active) controls. | |
| Children and adolescents | Black (2015) | SR | 41 | High‐quality evidence for MBI use with youth is sparse but is strengthening in areas like executive function and aspects of mental and physical health. |
| Zoogman, Goldberg, Hoyt, & Miller (2014) | MA | 20 | Small to moderate effect sizes found for MBIs over active controls, with larger effect sizes for psychological symptoms and clinical samples. | |
| Health behavior modification | Godfrey, Gallo, & Afari (2015) | SR/MA | 19 | Medium to large effect sizes found for MBIs on binge eating, although findings were limited due to substantial heterogeneity observed across the study sample. |
| Olson & Emery (2015) | SR | 19 | Significant weight loss was observed in 13 out of 19 studies, although studies could not assign a causal role to changes in mindfulness. | |
| Clinical conditions: | ||||
| multiple sclerosis (MS) | Simpson et al. (2014) | SR | 3 | MBIs may benefit some MS patients in terms of quality of life, mental health, and some physical health measures. |
| HIV/AIDS | Riley & Kalichman (2015) | SR | 11 | MBSR found to produce small to moderate effect sizes for emotional distress, with mixed effects for disease progression. |
| fibromyalgia | Lauche, Cramer, Dobos, Langhorst, & Schmidt (2013) | SR/MA | 6 | Weak evidence found for MBSR as an approach with fibromyalgia syndrome, with short‐term improvements noted for quality of life and pain. |
| sleep disturbance | Winbush, Gross, & Kreitzer (2007) | SR | 38 | Some evidence to suggest that MBSR is associated with improved sleep and a decrease in sleep‐interfering cognitive processes. |
| gastrointestinal disorders | Aucoin, Lalonde‐Parsi, & Cooley (2014) | MA | 7 | Weak evidence found for efficacy of MBT to reduce symptom severity of irritable bowel syndrome and improve quality of life. |
| vascular disease | Abbott et al. (2014) | SR/MA | 8 | Whilst MBSR/MBCT interventions appear to produce a range of psychological benefits, studies have yet to clarify their effects on physical aspect of disease. |
| cancer (various) | Piet, Wurtzen, & Zachariae (2012) | SR/MA | 22 | Good‐quality evidence was found that MBT improves mindfulness skills and reduces anxiety and depression in adult cancer patients and survivors. |
Note: SR = systematic review; MA = meta‐analysis; SUD = substance use disorders; MBI = mindfulness‐based interventions; MBT = mindfulness‐based therapy; CBT = cognitive‐behavioral therapy; MBCT = Mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy; MBSR = mindfulness‐based stress reduction.
Mindfulness is increasingly associated with a range of beneficial outcomes in samples of working adults. For example, the use of mindfulness‐based interventions (MBIs) have been found to increase dispositional mindfulness in employees (Aikens et al., 2014; Flook, Goldberg, Pinger, Bonus, & Davidson, 2013; Malarkey, Jarjoura, & Klatt, 2013), successfully lower levels of work‐related stress, depression, and burnout (e.g., Flook et al., 2013; Geary & Rosenthal, 2011; Gold et al., 2010; Kang, Choi, & Ryu, 2009; Krasner et al., 2009; Manocha, Black, Sarris, & Stough, 2011; Spence, Cavanagh, & Grant, 2008; Warnecke, Quinn, Ogden, Towle, & Nelson, 2011), as well as increasing levels of resiliency and vigor (Aikens et al., 2014), work–life satisfaction and psychological detachment from work (Michel et al., 2014), general health (Bazarko, Cate, Azocar, & Kreitzer, 2013; Foureur, Besley, Burton, Yu, & Crisp, 2013), self‐compassion (Flook et al., 2013), while also assisting workers in emotionally demanding roles (like health care) to maintain high levels of service quality (Krasner et al., 2009).
Other studies have added more depth to the workplace mindfulness literature by investigating how trait mindfulness relates to work recovery processes. In one study, Allen and Kiburz (2012) found that mindfulness correlated with work–life balance and vitality levels for employed individuals. Interestingly, trait mindfulness and sleep quality were also found to be positively related (Allen & Kiburz, 2012), a relationship that Hülsheger et al. (2014) later found was mediated by psychological detachment after work. In a subsequent study, Hülsheger, Feinholdt, and Nübold (2015) reported that a simple, “low‐dose” mindfulness intervention positively impacted both sleep quality and sleep duration, but not psychological detachment.
As always, care should be taken when considering these findings. While a meta‐analysis of 19 studies found support for the use of MBIs within organizational settings (Virgili, 2015), it was also noted that they were no more effective than other stress management interventions (such as relaxation and yoga). In addition, MBIs do not always result in the outcomes expected. For example, in a controlled study van Berkel et al. (2014) investigated the impact of a worksite MBI and assessed its impact on lifestyle behaviors (such as physical activity and fruit intake). Despite being provided with eight weeks of in‐company sponsored mindfulness training, health foods and e‐coaching (to embed new behaviors), no significant pre/post differences were found in either lifestyle behaviors or the determinants of such behaviors (e.g., intention to act; perceived barriers to action). As such, some doubt has been cast over the efficacy of formal, structured workplace interventions and more research is still needed to tease out their unique impact and contribution (Virgili, 2015).
Organizations and businesses are interested in what employees can do, not just in how well they feel. Not surprisingly then, organizational scholars (like Dane & Brummel, 2014) are showing increasing interest in the relationship between mindfulness and an array of work‐related variables (such as job performance). However, as work performance cannot sensibly be decoupled from its subjective determinants (e.g., self‐efficacy), these strands of enquiry are likely to occur in tandem, such as studies that have examined variables related to both mindfulness and sleep (i.e., Allen & Kiburz, 2012; Hülsheger et al., 2014; Hülsheger et al., 2015).
From the perspective of work outcomes, findings that mindfulness impacts the quality and duration of sleep are interesting because of the strong empirical links that exist between sleep and work performance (Pilcher & Huffcutt, 1996; Swanson et al., 2011). Until research begins to clarify the links between mindfulness and work‐outcome variables, researchers and practitioners may need to rely upon the robustness of other strands of research (e.g., sleep and performance) for making claims about the impact that mindfulness may have on performance in the workplace.
These observations notwithstanding, more direct explorations into the mindfulness–performance relationship have been reported. In one of the first studies, Shao and Skarlicki (2009) investigated the academic performance of 149 MBA students and found that mindfulness interacted with gender to predict performance for women (but not for men). While this was not a workplace study per se, the data was collected from adults with a strong work orientation (i.e., MBA students) and showed no direct relationship between mindfulness and performance. However, given the complex relationship that is likely to exist between mindfulness and performance, such a finding does not seem unsurprising. Fortunately, several recent theoretical contributions have advanced scholarship in the area (e.g., Dane, 2010; Rees, Breen, Cusack, & Hegney, 2015; Vallabh & Singhal, 2014). For example, Dane (2010) argues that mindfulness may not always be useful for workplace performance. Rather, its value should be dependent upon the type of environment that one is working within (i.e., dynamic or static) and/or what level of task expertise one has (i.e., expert or novice). In amongst several theoretical propositions, Dane argues that the “wide attentional breadth” conferred by mindfulness should facilitate task performance in dynamic environments, but inhibit it in static environments (Proposition 1; Dane, 2010, p. 1007). He also argues that it should facilitate task performance for those with high task expertise, while inhibiting it for task novices (Proposition 2, p. 1009). Such propositions are useful because they introduce context into considerations about the utility of mindfulness for performance.
In a test of Dane’s (2010) first proposition, Dane and Brummel (2014) studied restaurant workers and found support for the hypothesis that workplace mindfulness was positively related to job performance in a dynamic customer service environment. They concluded that (in the pressurized reality of a busy restaurant) highly mindful staff did better than less mindful colleagues, because they could attend to an array of competing stimuli and still situate their minds in present‐moment time. While only a few other studies have explored similar links (Ho, 2011; Shonin et al., 2014), the testing of research hypotheses derived from theoretical proposals such as Dane’s (2010) seem a useful empirical pathway to explore.
As outlined earlier, mindfulness has been defined in ways that extend it beyond simply being a quality of individual consciousness. While articulating facets of organizational mindfulness and mindful organizing (Ray et al., 2011; Vogus & Sutcliffe, 2012) opens up new opportunities for researching mindfulness in work settings, these opportunities have yet to translate into empirical publications. Nonetheless, the conceptual value of constructs like organizational mindfulness continues to be explored in relation to a broad range of collective‐level outcomes and behaviors. Examples include its role in the global market performance of firms (Nwankpa & Roumani, 2014), its influence as an antecedent of enterprise resource planning system use (Bayraktar & Oly Ndubisi, 2014), and its role in the emergence (or non‐emergence) of bandwagoning decision‐making (Fiol & O’Connor, 2003).
Other strands of mindfulness research focus on outcomes that are more sociocultural in nature (using individual‐level measures). For example, in a study of hostile work behaviors, Krishnakumar and Robinson (2015) found that mindful people were less Machiavellian and engaged in less counterproductive work behavior. According to the authors, this represented further evidence that mindfulness operates like a protective factor for organizations, by allowing people to circumvent strong feelings before they occur. Similar conclusions have been drawn from studies that have investigated leader/manager mindfulness (Roche et al., 2014) and the impact of supervisor mindfulness on employee well‐being and performance (Reb et al., 2014).
While this review of the workplace mindfulness literature has revealed some substantial theorizing on what mindfulness is within the domain of work, there does not appear to have been much discussion about what helps to support workplace mindfulness, beyond advocacy for MBIs that rely primarily on meditation as the major agent of change. In the next section the focus switches to an examination of the sociocultural forces that exist within organizations and that are likely to powerfully shape both individual and collective mindfulness at work.
Several authors have argued recently that individual mindfulness is influenced by cultural or environmental factors (Reb et al., 2013; Wolff, 2014). For example, Dane and Brummel (2014) suggest that:
The contextual elements of one’s workplace may exert a rather profound influence on how one behaves at work and, indeed, how one focuses attention within one’s work setting. It is therefore possible that, for some individuals, certain features of the work environment “cue” mindfulness. (p. 108)
The suggestion that employee mindfulness is triggered by cultural or environmental forces raises questions about the role that leaders and managers play in this process. Two recent studies reported by Reb and colleagues offer some guidance. In the first study, Reb et al. (2013) found that supervisor support predicted self‐awareness amongst employees. As self‐awareness is central to most definitions of mindfulness (Baer, 2003), this study suggests that employee mindfulness may indeed be enhanced by the presence of a supportive authority figure. In the other study, Reb et al. (2014) found that the trait mindfulness of leaders was negatively related to employee deviance and emotional exhaustion, and positively related to work–life balance and employee performance. In addition, these authors also found that basic psychological need satisfaction (i.e., autonomy, competence, relatedness) meditated the relationship between leader mindfulness and work outcomes. From this it was concluded that “leaders who are fully present when interacting with subordinates may derive a better understanding of their employees’ needs [allowing] them to more effectively support employees” (p. 43) and generate positive work‐related outcomes.
From an attentional perspective, the findings reported by Reb et al. (2014) make some sense. That is, employees who consistently enjoy support for their basic needs (enabled by levels of leader mindfulness) will be unlikely to direct much attention toward having their views and opinions acknowledged (autonomy), their worthiness and value confirmed (competence), or seeking more secure, nourishing connections (relatedness). Put differently, with these psychological prerequisites met, employees should be free to fully deploy attentional resources toward work tasks and responsibilities.
As mentioned several times in the preceding review, the study of mindfulness at work has focused primarily on its ability to counteract the harmful effects of an array of cognitive, affective, and behavioral dysfunctions. Indeed, much of the published research has concentrated on the beneficial effects of MBIs for individuals, most particularly the intrapersonal changes they seem to produce. However, as research reviewed in the previous section suggests, there is a social psychology associated with mindfulness that warrants attention. This involves the observation that sociocultural factors, such as manager behaviors, have the power to either sharpen or dull the conscious experience of workers and, with it, their levels of psychological well‐being and productive performance. A useful theory for exploring this aspect of mindfulness at work is SDT (Deci & Ryan, 1985) because it provides an explanation of how social contexts effect the emergence of mindfulness in people, while also proposing a link between mindfulness and motivational phenomena that are salient to work settings (principally autonomous motivation).
SDT (Deci & Ryan, 1985) is a macro‐theory of human motivation and personality development. Whilst the six mini‐theories that comprise SDT address different aspects of motivational and personality processes (for a summary, see Spence & Deci, 2013, p. 91), at its core is the proposition that human beings have a set of universal, fundamental psychological needs, the satisfaction of which are essential for healthy development, vital engagement, effective behaving, and psychological well‐being. More specifically, the theory proposes that a person’s level of functioning and well‐being depends upon the degree of satisfaction of three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 2008). It predicts that people will do well and feel their best when the sociocultural conditions of their lives (i.e., family relationships, friendships, workplace culture, political systems, cultural norms) support the inherent needs for experiencing their behavior as owned and choiceful (i.e., autonomy), producing valued outcomes through the use of their strengths and abilities (i.e., competence), and feeling closely and securely connected to significant others (i.e., relatedness).
SDT asserts the importance of differentiating between types of motivation for understanding and predicting different qualities of human behavior and psychological well‐being. A primary distinction is made between autonomous motivation and controlled motivation. Autonomous motivation involves acting with a full sense of choice, willingness, and volition. When autonomous, people concur with that which they are doing, and they are more likely to experience positive affect, endorsement, and satisfaction. Autonomous motivation comprises two specific types of motivation – intrinsic motivation and well‐internalized extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation means engaging in an activity because the activity itself is interesting and enjoyable. Intrinsic motivation is the prototype of autonomous motivation (e.g., children at play), where the motivation is internal and inherent, and the satisfaction most significant. By contrast, extrinsic motivation refers to acting in order to get some separate consequence. As will shortly be explored, mindfulness seems to play a role in the internalization of extrinsic motivation, which represents a movement toward greater levels of autonomous motivation.
According to Deci and Ryan (2008) internalization refers to the process whereby people “take in” an external value or regulation but may or may not accept it as their own. The process of organismic integration, which is the fundamental developmental process, involves fuller internalization in which people accept the value and regulation of an extrinsically motivated behavior and integrate it with their own sense of self. More specifically, there are four types of extrinsic motivation that vary in the degree of internalization and in the degree of autonomy of resulting behaviors (see Table 8.3).
Table 8.3 Varying levels of integration and ownership associated with extrinsic motivation.
Source: Adapted from Deci and Ryan (2000).
| Reason | Type | Motivation | Example |
| External | Controlled | Striving because somebody else wants you to and you’ll get some reward for doing it or get into trouble for not. | “I’ll mentor my staff because it’ll help my chances of promotion.” |
| Introjected | Controlled | Striving because you would feel ashamed, guilty, or anxious if you didn’t, or self‐aggrandized if you did. You strive for this because you think you should and use internal sanctions to motivate the striving. | “I’ll mentor my staff because that’s what a good manager should do.” |
| Identified | Autonomous | Striving because you personally accept the value of the behavior for yourself. Although the behavior or goal may have been acquired from others, you now endorse its utility for your own needs and goals. | “I’ll mentor my staff because it’s a good, inexpensive way to develop potential.” |
| Integrated | Autonomous | Striving because of the importance of the behavior as an integrated aspect of who you are. This motivation is not about the activity being interesting or fun, but rather about it being deeply important for behaving with integrity and respect. | “I’ll mentor my staff because it means a lot to me to see other people develop.” |
As previously mentioned, external regulation is extrinsic motivation for which there has been no internalization of the regulation and no value ascribed to an activity or task. Rather, people are impelled into action through the presence of an inducement (e.g., financial incentive) or some coercive factor (e.g., the threat of reprimand). Introjection results when people take in a controlling contingency (i.e., “I must help or others will see me as a lazy person”) and maintain it in a similar form such that they are then using it to control themselves. Within SDT the terms “self‐control” and “internal control” refer to pressuring oneself to behave with ego‐involved contingencies of self‐esteem and guilt. This is very different from true self‐regulation in which one acts with volition and choice rather than pressure and tension. Thus, and importantly, introjected regulation is not autonomous but is one of the two types of controlled motivation, the other being external regulation.
According to SDT, people can internalize a regulation more fully by identifying with its importance for their own needs and self‐selected goals. When this has occurred, they have accepted the regulation as their own and are relatively autonomous when enacting it. This type of extrinsic motivation is referred to as identified regulation. Finally, when people take this one step further and integrate an identification into their sense of self, the extrinsic motivation is referred to as integrated regulation, which is the most mature form of extrinsic motivation and successful type of socialization. As shown in Table 8.3, identified regulation and integrated regulation are both considered types of autonomous motivation. It should be noted that fully internalized extrinsic motivation is different from intrinsic motivation because intrinsic motivation is about people’s inherent interest in behaviors. In contrast, integrated regulation is about the internalized importance of the behaviors for their plans, goals, or values.
As indicated in the examples presented in Table 8.3, the same activity or goal can be underpinned by quite different motivations. Importantly SDT stipulates that all motivations would be present (to varying degrees) in the goal striving of workers. It also argues that the strength of these motives will be influenced by the presence of appropriately supportive sociocultural conditions. Within the present discussion this means that sources of organizational need support (e.g., managers, mentors, coaches) can assist individuals to move toward more autonomous (identified and integrated) goal selection, to the extent that those supports facilitate the satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. As will shortly be explained, this is more likely to occur when high levels of mindfulness are present in the manager, mentor, coach or other salient people in the social network of workers.
As mentioned, the SDT perspective views humans as proactive and growth‐oriented, manifest in their intrinsic motivation and organismic integration. From that perspective, the self is viewed as an active processor of experience, a set of dynamic psychic processes and structures that continuously seeks to make meaning of the myriad internal and external events that comprise a person’s life and to integrate them into a coherent, unified sense of self. As such it represents an inherently positive view of human nature. Nonetheless, SDT explicitly acknowledges, and focuses much of its empirical attention, on the organismic dialectic of human experience (Deci and Ryan, 1985). Simply put, a dialectic is the juxtaposition of conflicting forces or ideas. The dialectic that is central to SDT is the conflict that exists between people’s natural orientation toward growth and development in interaction with the potentially disruptive power of various socio‐contextual forces (e.g., parental control, peer pressure, restrictive legislation) that can block, impair, or stall these positive developmental tendencies and autonomous motivations.
Internalization and integration, which represent one aspect of the organismic dialectic, are developmental processes that can be either helped or hindered by the presence of different sociocultural conditions (the other aspect of the dialectic). It is this nexus where the basic psychological needs once again become salient. An enormous body of SDT research confirms that the satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness serves to maintain intrinsic motivation and to facilitate internalization and integration of extrinsic motivation (e.g., Baard, Deci, & Ryan, 2004; Deci, Eghrari, Patrick, & Leone, 1994). This implies that social agents (such as managers) who in some way supervise, advise, or guide others (such as employees) are likely to more effectively motivate others to the degree that they can facilitate the satisfaction of basic psychological needs. Accordingly, SDT research examines the degree to which individuals experience their environments as satisfying or thwarting of these basic needs. To the degree that their basic needs are thwarted, the darker side of the human experience becomes evident in the form of negative affect, aggressive behaviors, and/or, more specifically in the workplace, active employee disengagement.
Consistent with these core SDT predictions, several studies have reported on the importance of need‐supportive environments for surfacing autonomous motivation in employees (Gillet, Gagné, Sauvagère, & Fouquereau, 2013; Hardre & Reeve, 2009; Schultz, Ryan, Niemiec, Legate, & Williams, 2014). Also known as “autonomy‐supportive social contexts” (Schultz et al., 2014, p. 4), these contexts are powerfully shaped in the workplace by the actions and behaviors of managers and leaders (Gillet et al., 2013; Roche & Haar, 2013). These behaviors include the provision of meaningful rationales (for work tasks), the use of non‐controlling language, the provision of real choice (when it exists), the encouragement of self‐initiation, and most fundamentally, the willingness to engage, and genuinely acknowledge, employee perspectives (such as a negative reaction to a work decision, or a creative idea for service improvement).
For Hardre and Reeve (2009) these behaviors reflect the motivating style of a manager, which is defined as “the characteristic way that a manager seeks to motivate employees in the workplace” (p. 167). In an intervention study designed to examine this subset of management style, the researchers found evidence for the overall malleability of motivating styles, while noting that some behaviors were easier to change than others. In particular they noted that managers were generally successful at becoming less controlling (by using more non‐controlling language, providing rationales for action, and acknowledging negative affect), but not necessarily at becoming highly autonomy supportive (by better nurturing employees’ inner motivational resources). Based on their data, Hardre and Reeve (2009) concluded that this facet of autonomy support seems to require extensive training because it involves becoming aware of employee interests, values, and preferences, and then finding ways to align these inner resources to their workplace roles and responsibilities.
A manager’s capacity for mindfulness seems central to being able to nurture the inner motivational resources of employees. This is simply because it is extremely difficult to develop a decent understanding of others if one does not have a decent understanding of oneself. To do this, one must develop a secure attachment to oneself (Bruce, Manber, Shapiro, & Constantino, 2010), which involves maintaining an open, curious stance toward the full range of personal experience. Cavanagh and Spence (2013) elaborate this point via the observation that “the security afforded by an affirming and curious relationship with oneself enables the individual to engage with their ongoing experience and derive important insights from it. This leads to better self‐understanding and, ultimately, better understanding of others” (p. 121). Stated differently, intrapersonal attunement seems to play an important role in interpersonal attunement (Bruce et al., 2010), which Cavanagh and Spence (2013) argue are first‐order and second‐order effects that flow from the development of mindfulness (see Figure 7.2, p. 120 and Figure 7.4, p. 126).
While mindfulness would seem to enhance employee autonomy support through better manager–employee relations, it is likely to assist in at least two other important ways. First, as summarized by Schultz et al. (2014), the non‐evaluative nature of mindfulness enhances emotional regulation by helping troublesome thoughts and feelings to be seen for what they are (impermanent), while its enhanced awareness provides individuals with “a small interval of time” (Martin, 1997) that enables them to choose from a range of possible responses. Put differently, mindfulness lowers behavioral reactivity by creating a psychological “space” between one’s appraisals and ensuing reactions, which increases personal reflectivity and softens the impact of negative stimuli (Schultz et al., 2014). Second, the cultivation of reflective capacity helps individuals become more sensitive to important aspects of the self (e.g., values, interests, intuitions) and more likely to select behaviors that accord well with them (Brown & Ryan, 2015). From this a sense of choicefulness and self‐direction can emerge, forming the basis of authentic personality development.
The preceding discussion has suggested that high levels of mindfulness are closely related to self‐understanding, interpersonal attunement, and low behavioral reactivity. When well represented within a workplace, these qualities are likely to result in the emergence of a proactive, supportive environment that seeks to work in the best interests of the organization and those that comprise it.
As suggested in the preceding review, the effects of mindfulness on individual workers would appear to depend upon the quality of the work climate they are working within. This prompts the question: do workers in unsupportive environments derive different benefits from mindfulness than workers in supportive environments? Recent empirical evidence suggests they might, with Schultz et al. (2014) reporting that highly mindful workers experienced less basic psychological need frustration in controlling environments, compared to those that were less mindful. Contrary to other SDT studies reviewed so far, this study is notable because it examined perceptions of active need thwarting (or frustration) in the workplace, rather than perceptions of the relative presence or absence of need support. See Table 8.4 for a description of these different workplace perceptions.
Table 8.4 Features of need‐satisfying and need‐frustrating workplaces.
Source: Adapted from Chen et al. (2015).
| Need‐satisfying | Need‐frustrating | |
| Autonomy | Promotes self‐initiation and subjective ownership of work goals by acknowledging the perspective of workers, providing choice (where it exists) and rationales for requested tasks. | Seeks to control and/or manipulate employee activity levels by employing a variety of reinforcements, punishments or other coercive tactics (e.g., ultimatums). |
| Competence | Provides workers with an array of support for effective action such as information‐rich feedback, recognition of effort and achievements, and good working conditions. | Engenders a sense of hopelessness and/or failure in workers via either an absence of feedback, constant criticism, lack of appreciation or inadequate resourcing. |
| Relatedness | Creates interpersonal context in which workers are able to communicate openly, can trust (and feel trusted), and experience warm, genuine relationships with work colleagues. | Creates interpersonal context in which workers are disinclined to communicate freely and/or experience relational exclusion or ostracism within their work role. |
Prompted by the findings published by Schultz et al. (2014), some consideration of the interaction between mindfulness and work climate seem warranted. Accordingly, Table 8.5 speculates on the impact that high and low levels of employee mindfulness might have within unsupportive and supportive work climates. Each will now be briefly described.
Table 8.5 The interaction of mindfulness and work climate for individual workers.
Source: Author.
| Unsupportive work climate | Supportive work climate | |
| High mindfulness |
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| Low mindfulness |
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Unsupportive work climate/High mindfulness: In line with findings reported by Schultz et al. (2014), high levels of mindfulness are likely to have protective qualities for workers in unsupportive work climates. Given that the frustration of autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs tends to predict an array of negative outcomes (including stress biomarkers; Bartholomew, Ntoumanis, Ryan, Bosch, & Thøgersen‐Ntoumani, 2011), it is useful to know that mindfulness helps to mitigate the costs associated with exposure to toxic workplaces (Roche et al., 2014) and reassuring to have several evidence‐based MBIs available for use (Virgili, 2015).
Unsupportive work climate/Low mindfulness: In contrast, employees with low levels of mindfulness are likely to cope poorly in situations where there has been a break in the psychological contract, either due to toxic organizational principles (e.g., profits before people), poor work conditions, or intra‐office conflicts (Harder, Rash, & Wagner, 2014). Faced with a constant dissatisfaction or frustration of basic needs, these employees will feel under relentless psychological attack but lack the self‐awareness and self‐understanding to make sense of their experiences or respond adaptively to them. As such they will be most likely to experience acute psychological distress, struggle to maintain healthy social connections, and be very reactive, responding to stressors in ways that vary from overt aggression to passive withdrawal.
Supportive work climate/Low mindfulness: In supportive work climates, employees with low levels of mindfulness are likely to have a satisfactory experience but may well be a source of great frustration to others. This is because these individuals will lack the metacognitive skills needed to optimize the opportunities these environments will afford them (potentially resulting in significant unrealized potential). For example, a junior manager purposefully avoids delivering a board presentation (because of performance anxiety), despite having the full support and backing of her department head. Whilst these employees are likely to show a strong disinclination to take on any personally challenging work tasks or assignments, research reviewed earlier (e.g., Reb et al., 2014; Reb et al., 2013) suggests that the presence of a highly mindful manager can influence the employees’ own levels of mindfulness (through support for basic needs, role modeling, etc.).
Supportive work climate/High mindfulness: For employees with high levels of self‐awareness and self‐understanding, a work environment that honors the psychological contract (Harder et al., 2014) is likely to provide a context that promotes optimal functioning (Spence & Deci, 2013) and flourishing mental health (see Grant & Spence, 2010). In these environments, employees are likely to approach (rather than avoid) their professional challenges because they (1) will be encouraged to do so by their immediate manager(s) and other contextual supports (such as “safe‐to‐fail” experiments or psychologically safe environments; Edmondson, 2011), and (2) will feel able to manage the psychological reactions associated with extending themselves.
In this chapter a variety of conceptualizations of mindfulness have been considered, with a particular focus given to workplace mindfulness (Dane & Brummel, 2014; Vogus & Sutcliffe, 2012). These have been accompanied by an exploration of sociocultural factors (elucidated by SDT) that may explain how mindfulness at work can be cultivated and maintained outside the use of standard MBIs. Some final thoughts will now be offered on how these concepts are related.
As previously outlined in Table 8.1, organizational mindfulness (OM) and mindful organizing (MO) are complementary constructs insofar as one, OM, represents an attitude and general preoccupation with collective success that is endorsed at the highest levels of management and creates a context for adaptive thought and action throughout the entire organization. The other, MO, is an emergent property of the system, one that stems from the accumulated action of employees who are working to safeguard the best interests of the organization.
At the core of these constructs is a fundamental concern that the organization function reliably and sustainably. The key to this, its proponents suggest, is to attune acutely to how the organization is operating and, when problems arise, think expansively about them and respond promptly using all available sources of expert knowledge (Vogus & Sutcliffe, 2012). From an SDT perspective, these qualities reflect a high degree of work proactivity, a level one could expect to see from autonomously motivated employees. As has been indicated many times already, the support and satisfaction of basic psychological needs is intimately tied to autonomous motivation and the extent to which employees freely engage in work tasks and activities. As Schultz et al. (2014) illustrate:
When a manager takes an employee’s perspective, that employee is likely to feel competent, as his/her opinions matter, feel connected with the manager, and experience greater volition, given the manager is listening to his/her opinion or seeing things through his/her frame of reference rather than pressuring him/her to a particular outcome. (pp. 4–5)
Given that autonomy support in the workplace directly involves canvassing and understanding alternative viewpoints (autonomy/reluctance to simplify), accessing tacit knowledge and latent abilities (competence/deference to expertise), and seeking collective solutions to problems (relatedness/commitment to resilience), it would seem to have a vital role to play in both the establishment of collective forms of mindfulness. That is, autonomy support may provide the foundational mindset for OM, one that can be embodied by senior leaders and that helps to create the “context for thinking and action on the front line” (Vogus & Sutcliffe, 2012, p. 724). In contrast, autonomy support may help to scaffold the social process that underpins MO, which relies on “continuous real time communication and interactions that occur in briefings, meetings, updates, and in teams’ ongoing work” (Vogus & Sutcliffe, 2012, pp. 724–725). Given the untested nature of these speculations, future research will be needed to confirm such relationships.
As just outlined, one avenue for future research would be to investigate whether autonomy support is an important contributor to collective‐level mindfulness, using constructs such as OM and MO. If such a relationship were to be established (using cross‐sectional designs), attention would naturally be drawn toward seeking to understand how, and to what extent, the support of basic psychological needs within workplaces impacts mindfulness within those environments.
As reviewed earlier, research into the link between mindfulness and work performance is still developing and requires more attention (Dane & Brummel, 2014). An interesting focal point for future research would be the link between mindfulness, sleep, and performance, given emerging evidence of a link between mindfulness and sleep quality and duration (Hülsheger et al., 2015), and the more well‐established links between sleep and several aspects of human performance (Pilcher & Huffcutt, 1996; Swanson et al., 2011). Research designs that permit simultaneous testing of these variables (using structural equation modeling or mediation/moderation analyses) would be helpful for teasing out the combined, and relative, contributions of mindfulness and sleep to performance at work.
Finally, the research reported in this chapter on manager motivating style (Hardre & Reeve, 2009) seems worthy of further attention. One approach would be to assess whether the use of formal, structured mindfulness training for managers leads to greater autonomous motivation in their employees. More specifically, this link could be examined through the mechanism identified by Hardre and Reeve (2009) – a manger’s capacity to nurture employees’ inner motivational resources. As reasoned earlier, nurturing the inner motivational resources of others requires a capacity to understand others, which is extremely difficult without an understanding of oneself. Studies of this type would both help to illuminate little‐known linkages between mindfulness and work outcomes, and may provide managers and leaders with compelling reasons to engage in professional development practices (e.g., MBIs) that could benefit their employees, their organizations, and, ultimately, themselves.
Theoretical and empirical investigations into mindfulness at work have tended to focus disproportionately on the use of MBIs for managing stress and a range of occupational dysfunctions. While numerous studies have confirmed the utility of mindfulness training for such purposes, other studies indicate that MBIs may not be as effective as widely believed (Virgili, 2015). When considered in the context of complex modern workplaces, such findings seem unsurprising. This is because most workplace stressors are socially and culturally derived, and MBIs may be insufficient for helping employees to psychologically adjust to their effects.
In this chapter, SDT has been used to present a sociocultural account of mindfulness at work. In effect it has argued that, from a stress management perspective, autonomy supportive management and organizational practices may render MBIs largely irrelevant for many workers. This is because worker outcomes seem to depend as much on one’s sociocultural circumstances (e.g., need satisfaction or need frustration), as one’s intrapersonal circumstances (e.g., the ability to maintain a state of decentered awareness). As such, the ability to create a mindful workplace would seem to require more attention to organizational, cultural‐level interventions than personal, individual‐level interventions.