A Model Exploring Relationships Between Positive Leadership, Meditation, Flow and Task Performance

Sustaining a reputation and delivering on a range of financial and community objectives remain an important goal for all organisations. Managers have the responsibility for making considered and informed decisions that contribute to realising organisational goals. In this context this paper positions meditation as a practice that has the potential to support managers and organisations in meeting their objectives. This paper presents a conceptual model that develops seven propositions highlighting the role of meditation in relation to positive leadership and task performance. It uses meditation as a moderator and flow as a mediator while positive leadership is the independent variable and task performance is the dependent variable. The paper suggests that the conceptualisation developed will be able to throw light upon interrelationships between the four constructs. From the model the article suggests future areas for research to examine and evaluate the effectiveness of meditation in supporting organisational development. Literature Review: The discussion builds on positive psychology and leadership literature, narrowing down to interrelationships between positive leadership, flow, task performance, mindfulness and meditation ultimately identifying four key constructs - positive leadership, flow, task performance and meditation. The literature is drawn from Arch and Craske (2006), Baccarani, Mascherpa and Minozzo (2013), Csikszentmihalyi (2002), Cullen (2011), Demerouti (2006), Elo et al. (2014), Fredrickson and Losada (2005), Fry and Slocum (2008), Kabat-Zinn (2013), Lewis (2011), Luthans and Avolio (2009), Martin (2005), Porkess (2012), Sethi (2009), Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000), Smith, Koppes Bryan and Vodanovich (2012), Van Gordon et al. (2014), and Zbierowski and Gora (2014). The review justifies the need for further studies on these inter-relationships through five rationales. However, the review lacks critical analysis and the model is yet to be tested