Mindful Leadership

By Wendy Quan, guest contributor

Many people who have discovered that mindfulness has positively impacted their lives often develop a desire to compassionately help others discover and practice mindfulness too.

Though this is a virtuous desire, it takes knowledge and skill to do this successfully. 

How does someone make the transition from having a personal practice to leading this in the workplace? It may seem like a daunting task for some.  

There are many elements to becoming a skilled mi…

By Art Kleiner, Jeffrey Schwartz, and Josie Thomson, guest contributors

Have you ever had a difficult executive decision to make? This is the kind of choice where the best options aren’t obvious, the consequences aren’t crystal-clear, and the outcome could affect hundreds of people or more. Maybe you’re a leader of a company, contemplating a round of layoffs; or an up-and-coming entrepreneur offered a lucrative deal that doesn’t seem right.

The tension you feel is between an expedient choice –…

By Tyler McCune, guest contributor

Life is complex, communication is too

For most of human history, communication has been between small groups that share similar cultural ideals. 

Yes, there were scrolls of papyrus, chiseled steles, and hieroglyphs adorning blocks of stone. But until the advent and subsequent takeover of the printing press, the vast majority of people couldn’t read, which meant that one-to-one or one-to-a-few communication was the norm. 

Now we’ve created vast webs of inter…

By Ilona Balagula, Kalina Kourdova, Roxanne Moslehi, José Ramos, and Jeremy Scharf, guest contributors

As MBA students at MIT Sloan School of Management, the five of us are exposed to an immense array of opportunities outside the classroom. From finance groups to consulting clubs to an endless number of industry treks, how we choose to spend our time is perhaps the biggest decision we must make at school. Despite so many offerings at our fingertips, we have found that we rarely participate in p…

By Laura Berland, guest contributor

This year’s Sixth Annual Mindful Leadership Summit in Washington, DC brought a fresh set of voices and perspectives to honestly assess the current state of mindfulness in leadership. The rich presentations, conversations, and connections all contributed to a stellar experience of new learning, ideas, and practices. Read our main takeaways from the conference below.

Commitment from the top is necessary for organizational impacts. Or is it?
There were a number …

How do you foster the advancement of mindfulness and compassion in the workplace?  The benefits can be immeasurable, as many people learned this weekend at the sixth annual Mindful Leadership Summit. The summit kicked off in downtown Washington, DC at the Grand Hyatt with a diverse array of speakers and attendees.  Hundreds of attendees came from all over the world for the experience and the chance to learn about workplace leadership and community. 

The four-day summit, held November 14th-17th,…

By Karen Alexander, guest contributor

Student levels of stress and depression have been climbing at an alarming rate, and science is showing the negative effects of such states of mind and emotions on learning. With a persistent national achievement gap, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) affecting almost half of US children, and a staggering 52% national rise in adolescent major depressive episodes from 2005 to 2017, more states and school districts are recognizing the need for a holistic view…

By Steven Cohen, guest contributor

As more people meditate regularly, we are seeing the benefits more clearly. Can meditation make you more effective at work? Absolutely.

Core leadership traits such as self-awareness, focus, creativity, listening, relationship development, influence, grit and having a growth mindset can be developed through meditation, thus improving professional performance. These fundamental leadership traits can be grouped into four foundational pillars: Awareness, Connecti…

By Kathryn Goldman Schuyler, guest contributor

As the use of what is called “mindfulness” expands in the workplace, I have been reflecting on what mindfulness has meant over the centuries. Although mindfulness-based practices can be used to reduce stress, they have long been intended for more profound purposes. Rather than becoming a “technology” of stress relief, such practices can develop an understanding of interdependence and impermanence. This, in turn, generates compassionate connections …

By Marc Brackett, guest contributor

As we all know, our best attempts at calm, thoughtful reflection work only when we feel in control of our emotions. If you’re raging with resentment or crushed by disappointment, you’re probably not capable of the reasoning required to see a situation in a new light. You first need to bring down your emotional temperature, lower your activation, and give yourself the space required for rational thought. Maybe you take a few deep breaths, a few steps back, a w…