In this episode of The Shape of Work podcast, our guest Cyrille Kozyreff shares valuable inputs regarding leadership development which most organizations are unaware of. He also shares a variety of insightful tidbits on energy vs time management and the effective ways to handle a remote team.
Cyrille Kozyreff is a leader in the space of mindful leadership. During his 8 years at McKinsey, which included serving as the global managing partner's chief of staff, he used to look for every opportunity to practice mindfulness meditation, be it for 10 minutes before a progress review, for 5 minutes after a 4-hour night, or for 10 days between two client projects. But it is only 5 years into his stint in India, which started in 2011, that Cyrille found the inflexion point that allowed him to integrate mindfulness and leadership more closely: When Harvard University's Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar asked him to start Potentialife's India office, he started practicing the art of small victories - wherein every day is an opportunity to connect with one's deeper self and to do one small action differently in a way that reflects the deeper self's aspirations. He and his Mumbai-based team leverage this 'inner compounding' way of life as an entry point for cohorts of 10 to 100 leaders to start enjoying inner change, thereby realising that they can easily be leaders of change within their organizations.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
Setting foot into the world of mindful leadership:
Cyrille Kozyreff is a leader in the space of mindful leadership. During his 8 years at McKinsey, which included serving as the global managing partner's chief of staff, he used to look for every opportunity to practice mindfulness meditation, be it for ten minutes before a progress review, for five minutes after a four hour night, or for ten days between two client projects. But it was only five years into his stint in India, which started in 2011, that Cyrille found the inflexion point which allowed him to integrate mindfulness and leadership more closely. When Harvard University's Dr Tal Ben-Shahar asked him to start Potentialife's India office, he started practising the art of small victories - wherein every day is an opportunity to connect with one's deeper self and to do one small action differently in a way that reflects the deeper self's aspirations. Cyrille and his Mumbai-based team leveraged this 'inner compounding' way of life as an entry point for cohorts of 10 to 100 leaders to start enjoying the inner change.
The thing we need to know about leadership development:
Habit formation matters the most in leadership development. Leaders can not grow without forming habits just because of their great thoughts. To be able to stay consistent with your habits, not only do you need a process and a group, but more importantly, you need an agenda that comes completely from within. Hence, forming self-concordant goals. Nurturing the connection with self is an extremely important, yet intuitive process.
Aligning individual and organizational goals
Just like the 100 streams that start from different places in the mountain and progressively converge into a very powerful river, change movement grows organically. When you have that, it's very easy to divert part of the water and irrigate whichever fields you want. The river will be very happy to give that much water.
Likewise, when a group of colleagues accomplish that change momentum, they create new connections at the heart level. They start viewing the growth of empathy and risk-taking as part of their personal journey.
Follow Cyrille Kozyreff on LinkedIn
Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Abhash Kumar