Fortunately my team experiences to date, in work and socially, have been largely positive and I have seen quite a few instances of very good compasionate leadership. One that stands out in my mind was a manager I had at a part time job during my university studies. My manager came from a background in teaching which I believe gave him a real advantage when it came to empathising with others, particularly younger students. This showed in the effort he made to understand his staff and create an environment to motivate us to succeed by being open and communicative rather than simply setting rigid targets to achieve.
The meditative practice of "multiplying goodness" described in "Search Inside Yourself" involves focusing your attention firstly on your own
positive and compasionate qualities and to visualise these being compounded within yourself and then projected out to the world.
Then to visualise these same qualities in others and to imagine taking their good intentions into ourselves and reflecting on them.
I found this exercise to be quite a soothing experience, positivity naturally breeds positivity so of course focusing attention on
this would enhance your own feeling of wellness. What surprised me however was the lasting effect of this, I found that having done
this exercise it was much easier to maintain this perspective of positivity and this had a very real effect on the cognitive and
affective qualities of my interactions with others.
The Tonglen meditation on the other hand did prove to be a much more challenging exercise but equally rewarding. Meditating on darkness
and suffering seems like a dangerous idea however applying the earlier practices described in the book of feeling these emotions without
grasping onto them was a good way I found to not become overwhelmed by them. Then the process of visualising these being transformed
within you, while initially feeling a little artificial to me, was actually quite a euphoric experience. I definitely felt that this
practice helped to strengthen my emotional resilience.
Reflecting on my own experience of learning to date I can certainly see how aspects of the SCARF model have had a strong influence
on my behaviour. Mastery of a skill as a status reward is one that I find strongly motivates me, being aware of this is important too
as when trying to learn a lot in a short period of time it's important to keep this under control and not pursue this too intently.
Autonomy is another aspect that I really identify with, since there are so many resources for self teaching and extension in this
field it definitely feels like your own success and accomplishment comes entirely down to your effort which I think is a very positive
thought.
Moving on soon to working in a collaborative working environment I can see that being mindful of the effect these drivers have on the
behaviour of others in the group will be important to understanding how we can help push each other forward and create the conditions
for everyone to succeed.