Mindful leadership and organisational resilience post COVID-19: The case of environmental SMEs governance

This study investigates the impact of mindful leadership on organizational resilience in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam’s environmental technology sector. SMEs are central to sustainable development but remain vulnerable to shocks, resource constraints, and market volatility, particularly in the post-COVID-19 era (Erdiaw-Kwasie et al., 2023). Mindful leadership, emphasizing self-awareness, compassion, and situational understanding, offers a promising pathway but has been underexplored in emerging economies (Zheng et al., 2022). The purpose of this research is to examine how mindful leadership influences two dimensions of resilience: situation awareness and adaptive capacity. A quantitative design was employed, with data collected through an online survey of employees and mid-level managers in environmental technology SMEs in Hanoi. Our findings reveal that compassion has a significant positive effect on both situation awareness and adaptive capacity, while self-awareness has a weaker influence, significant only for situation awareness. These results highlight compassion’s critical role in fostering trust, cohesion, and adaptability. The study extends mindful leadership research to Vietnamese SMEs and offers practical implications for managers seeking to strengthen resilience in dynamic environments.