A new catch phrase that is starting to become more prevalent is today’s business environment is Mindful Leadership. Up until a few weeks ago I wasn’t exactly sure what this meant but after reaching a little out of my comfort zone, I have a much better understanding and now look forward to continuing my exploration. I encourage you to read on to learn more, take a chance and give it a try.
The essence of Mindful Leadership is to take time to reflect, allow your mind to quite, focus on a specific topic and be fully present in everything you do. This is more important than ever in our increasingly fast paced world where it never seems like we have enough time to get done with our task list let alone take time away to think about the future and reflect on the past. I had a chance to start my journey toward this goal and spend a few days at an innovative conference with the University of Minnesota’s Center Spirituality and Healing on Mindful Leadership.
The key driver for me attending this event was that Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, was one of two people leading this retreat and participants would get a chance to spend two days with him. Mr. George is a great leader who I have had the pleasure of meeting in the past and who now teaches at Harvard Business School, provides commentary on many business issues for major cable news networks and is a best-selling author. If you are looking for a great business book I strongly recommend his book titled True North.
The innovation of this conference was that it focused on bringing together Eastern and Western philosophies to work together. Bill George shared his research on leadership development and Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche shared his wisdom from an Eastern perspective. It was amazing how well the two worked together to weave the various practices into a toolkit that participants could use going forward. The sessions included leadership development principles, meditation and very powerful combined dialogs where both men carried on a discussion about a specific related topic and took questions from those gathered. I encourage you to read Mr. George’s reflections on the retreat and review the material that was presented over the two days.
Everyone involved within the community or in a leadership role struggles with the question of balance and how to get today’s tasks done while also thinking about the future. Mindful Leadership isn’t the one thing that will solve all problems and give the perfect answers, but I do believe it can play a role in helping. I am just beginning my journey and ask you to consider following some of the links above and stepping outside your comfort zone in the future to learn more about Mindful Leadership. The next stage in my journey is to participate in a Mindful Leadership series that my company started a number of years ago and which many of our senior executives have completed. I encourage you to watch for opportunities in your life to learn more about Mindful Leadership and start your own journey.
Timely! Thanks Tim, this resonates with me as I’ve been involved in a leadership development seminar focused on emotional intelligence, based on the work of Daniel Goleman http://www.danielgoleman.info/ Jean Hammink, a long-time leader in the nonprofit and public sectors has a great process for developing more mindful leadership techniques as well. I highly recommend checking it out: http://www.insideoutcomes.biz/
Thanks for a great post. Another outstanding resource into the “how-to” of minfulness is the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, who is a medical pioneer in the healing power of meditation and related practices. I have benefitted greatly from these techniques myself, and have integrated them into the curricula of some of Ethical Leaders in Action programs.