City Research Online

Abstract

Project complexity research has established that structural, socio-political, and emergent complexities require different response capabilities, yet little is known about how project leaders enact these responses in practice. Drawing on practice theory and strategy-as-practice, this study examines how project leaders mobilise mindfulness as a multi-level metacognitive practice to address project complexity. We analyse qualitative data from a flagship UK government Project Leadership Programme, including open-ended survey responses (n = 58) and semi-structured interviews (n = 10) with senior project leaders. Our findings show that mindfulness is enacted at individual, team, and organisational levels to operationalise planning and control, relationship-building, and flexibility responses. Mindfulness functions both as relief, enabling leaders to regulate stress and reactivity, and as engagement, supporting sustained attention, psychologically safe dialogue, and adaptive sensemaking. We contribute to theory by extending project complexity research from identifying effective responses to explaining how response capabilities are enacted across organisational levels through socially embedded metacognitive practice. We contribute to practice by offering a scalable and context-sensitive repertoire of mindfulness practices that project leaders can embed in leadership development, governance routines, and team interactions to build sustained capability for navigating structural, socio-political, and emergent project complexity.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher Keywords:	Mindfulness, Project leadership, Project management, Project complexity, Public-sector projects, Practice theory, Metacognition, Metacognitive practice
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Department of Psychology & Neuroscience
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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