‘Mindful Dis/engagement’: Extending the Constitutive View of Organizational Paradox by Exploring Leaders' Mindfulness, Discursive Consciousness, and More-Than Responses

The purpose of this study is to explore the way mindfulness informs how leaders make sense of and navigate paradoxical tensions that arise in their organizations. This study employs a qualitative research methodology, based on synchronous, semi- structured, in-depth interviews of leaders who hold a personal mindfulness practice. Qualitative interviews illuminate how leaders’ communication about paradoxical tensions (e.g., through metaphorical language) reflects the way they experience those tensions. Findings extend the constitutive approach to paradox by demonstrating the way mindfulness informs awareness, emotion, pausing, and self-care. Specifically, this study (1) empirically illustrates how higher-level, dialogic more-than responses to paradox may be used to accomplish both-and responses to paradox, (2) evidences the way discursive consciousness of emotion may generatively inform paradox management, (3) suggests the appropriateness and use of a new paradox management strategy that I term ‘mindful dis/engagement’, and (4) highlights self-care as an others-centered leadership capability.