Tools & Insights

This Week's TOP 10

• Google Can Spot Its Highest-Empathy Leaders In 5 Minutes With These 16 Questions
  Inc.
• Meditation and Yoga Could Prevent NYPD Suicides: BP Adams 
  New York Daily News
• Making Joy a Priority at Work
  Harvard Business Review
• When Self-Care Becomes a Weapon
  Psychology Today
• How mindfulness privatised a social problem
  NewsStateman
• 30% OF VETERANS SUFFER FROM PTSD. SCIENCE SAYS YOGA WILL HELP THEM HEAL
  Nation Swell
• Yoga is not a religious practice, though religious leaders would do...

By Scott Shute

LinkedIn’s vision is tocreateeconomicopportunity for every member of the global workforce. You might be surprised that one of the biggest skillsneeded to achieve that vision iscompassion, and especiallycompassioninleadership.

At LinkedIn we believe that compassion is not just a better way to live, it’s a better way to build a team, it’s a better way to build and grow a business.

We recently sponsored The Compassion Award and the Compassion in Leadership...

By Candy Gunther Brown

Most workplace mindfulness programs are positioned as “secular” aids to increase focus, happiness, and productivity. However, some employees may object to participating because they view mindfulness as religious, and specifically Buddhist. Whether or not employers agree with this understanding, they are legally and ethically required to respect it.

Why might some employees object that mindfulness is “religious”?

The term...

Leaders significantly benefit from interoception, the practice of body-sensing. It is used to foster a better understanding of how listening to the messages and subtle cues of the body, increases our capacity for creativity, connection, and empathy. Interoception is a useful tool that helps individuals learn how to act and respond to the world. The increase in empathy and connectedness also allows humans to strengthen their response in difficult situations, and promote healing from past...

This Week's TOP 10

• Conservative legal groups are suing public school yoga and mindfulness programs. This explains why.
  The Washington Post
• Practicing mindfulness can be as simple as taking a walk
  The Columbus Dispatch
• Dalai Lama apologizes for 'attractive' female successor remark
  CNN
• People need better working conditions, not yoga
  Spiked
• You Are A Leader...For Better Or Worse. Mindfulness Cultivates Excellence.
  Forbes
• Can't get yourself to meditate? It could be because you haven't found the right...

By Ronald Purser

Mindfulness helps people face pain with equanimity. But it also conditions us to think about stress in unhelpful ways. First, it says we face an epidemic, which is simply an inevitable part of modern life. Second, since stress is endemic, it is up to us all to get it under control and adapt to these conditions as best we can. It sounds like an empowering tool, but it ignores any source of pain outside our heads, such as the capitalist system, which exerts so much pressure in...

By Wendy Saunders

Nonprofit leaders want to make a difference in the world, and, in many cases, are willing to make less money and get fewer perks than they would receive in the private sector. They often work long hours, carry excessive workloads, and endeavor to meet community needs with limited staffing and other resources.  (For a deeper examination, check out “The Plight of the Overworked Nonprofit Employee” in The Atlantic).  

Nonprofit leaders also often work...

This Week's TOP 10

• When Passion Leads to Burnout
  Harvard Business Review
• Mindfulness is a learned behaviour that is finally being taught to the next generation
  The Globe and Mail 
• The week the internet cancelled the Dalai Lama
  The Guardian 
• Mindfulness Programs Are The Next Big Thing In Business Leadership
  Forbes
• If You Say Yes to Any of These 8 Questions, Your Emotional Intelligence Is Higher Than You Think
  Inc.
• Doing these 3 little things on weekends can help you live a happier and...

Rhonda Magee discusses mindfulness and transformative education, in how to bridge contemplative teaching for learning social justice. She shares how great social justice is possible when people have the tools of transformative and contemplate education, as methods to look within, challenge assumptions, examine the way people participate and shape the world and in having the reflexive space and creating community, to create change. When looking at challenges, contemplate education provides the...

By Jerry Colonna

As often happens, I hit upon the insight I needed when I wasn’t searching for it. A few years back I was pacing the room, thinking about the talk I was about to give. There were thirty people in stiff, uncomfortable chairs. As usual, my T-shirt was mildly sweaty. As usual, I was shoeless—discalced. I was struggling to explain coaching, struggling to explain why it was that, to help people lead well, I was pushing to help themselves know themselves better. 

...

This Week's TOP 10

• Mindfulness master Thich Nhat Hanh honored with global peace prize
  VnEpress International
• Mindfulness appears to diminish depressive symptoms by reducing rumination
  PsyPost
• The US suicide rate is up 33% since 1999, research says
  CNN
• Kindness Meditation May Slow Biological Aging
  Psychology Today
• The Seven Practices Of Mindful Leaders
  Forbes
• LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner on developing compassion in the workplace 
  CBS
• How This Elite Navy SEAL Found Strength and Success Through...

By Mark Mitchnick 

Long before any of the neuroscience was known, Winston Churchill said, “Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.” Although he didn’t know it, Mr. Churchill was actually describing the two separate yet conjoined systems operating in our heads. 

Over the past 15 years, what these two systems look like and how they function has been described in both scientific and general publications. Together, they inform the understanding of our...