Mindful Leadership

By Mary Linda McBride, guest contributor

The pace of our work lives is unrelenting. Cognitive, emotional, and social demands are feverishly delivered by devices – ringing, pinging, and chiming at us all day long.

Markets shift overnight. Expectations and preferences change with the advent of a new technology. A tweet can instantly precipitate a public relations nightmare.

It’s overwhelming.

Mindful leaders work to safeguard themselves and their colleagues from being hijacked by the crisis …

By Emily Lane, guest contributor

Aligned Leadership is grounded in self-mastery. Functioning at the highest level of authentic power requires both strategic and daily practices of self-connection, as well as the moment-to-moment practice of mindfulness.

Treating self-relationship as a practice and investing time in it gives the individual access to profound internal resources. These are the difference between good leadership and great leadership - resources like energy, grace, courage, inspi…

By Seth Hickerson and Zach Morton, guest contributors

Meditation is NOT hard.  Learning to meditate is hard.

The mind of a Navy SEAL is an amazing tool. The mind controls the body, and it takes training to control the mind. When it comes to individuals needing to have complete control of both body and mind, the tip of the spear is the U.S. military special operations community. The strength of the U.S. military has always been dependent upon the strength of the soldiers within its ranks. The s…

By Dr. Karlyn Borysenko, guest contributor

There's not a leader out there who would tell you their goal is to create less productive employees, and yet data shows us that is precisely what many of them end up doing. About two-thirds of employees in the United States and Canada self-report that they are unengaged at work, 79% of employees do not see professional growth opportunities in their current organization, and 79% of employees who quit their job credit a "lack of appreciation" as their re…

By Fleet Maull, PhD, CMT-P, guest contributor

No matter what type of leadership role you are in, you need to be able to connect with others while also staying connected with yourself, so that you can be a driving force for positivity.

Mindful leadership is an approach and set of skills and practices that can be developed and mastered in order to effectively lead, manage, and influence in today’s world, ensuring that you optimize your abilities as a leader within a business, a non-profit organi…

By John J. Murphy, guest contributor

You are a business leader about to give a keynote address. You are a student about to take an exam. You are a job seeker about to go into an interview. You are a basketball player about to shoot a game winning free throw. You are a mother caring for a sick child or elderly parent. How do you feel? Poised and confident? Relaxed and at ease? Or, nervous, anxious and stressed?

It doesn’t matter which scenario you find yourself in. We all face challenges in lif…

By Wendy Saunders, guest contributor

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
–Excerpt of “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

It can feel rather lonely sometimes when leading mindfulness programs or endeavoring to gather the support needed to start, sustain, or expand these programs in the workplace. This has been my experience at points during the …

Shared Resources and Tools

• How to Read Nature, book by Tristan Gooley

• Mindful Magazine

• Center for Mindfulness, UMass

• Hotline to Peace: 360-385-2200 x2238

• eNaropa: Mindful at Work, 8-week online course (also free 7-day course)

• Mindfulness-Based Emotional Intelligence Facilitator’s Guide

• Becoming a Resonant Leader, book by McKee, Boyatzis, Johnston

• The Mind of the Leader, book by Hougaard and Carter

• Awakening Compassion at Work, book by Worline and D…

Summary Report 

This document captures key questions and insights that arose during a weekend deep dive retreat hosted by Mindful Leader and the Garrison Institute in August 2018. The participants were all internal champions of mindfulness within medium to large organizations (100+ employees). Our objective was to provide a forum where these peers could share best practices and lessons learned, bond, and find meaningful ways to support the continued growth of mindfulness in America.

Being an i…

By Wendy Quan, guest contributor 

Organizations struggle with constant change. Or, rather, it’s the employees who struggle with the relentless changes that disrupts their lives and mounts their stress. The problem is there is never enough change management resource to truly help our employees.

The responsibility of helping people through change, or ‘change management’ tends to fall upon leaders, change managers, project managers or human resources. However, generally whatever little time there…