Big results come from small steps. If you think you don’t have time for mindfulness, think again. This handbook, named a Best Courageous Book of 2014 by The Center for Courage and Renewal, was written with school leaders in mind—your responsibilities, your stress, and your schedule. When you add mindfulness into your day, bit by bit, you’ll become a more effective leader and a more positive force for your staff and students. With the help of this inspirational yet practical guide, you’ll start fitting pieces of practice into your busy home and work life, whether you are sitting in your office or walking down the hall. Features include Real-life profiles of mindful school leaders Practice exercises to try right away Guidance so you know if you are "doing it right" Hard-to-find resources, including mindfulness apps Mindful school leaders are better at managing meetings, responding creatively to complex situations, and achieving resilience at work and at home. Take the first steps to transform your life—and your school. "This inspiring book makes a strong case for school leaders to include mindfulness in their personal and professional lives. Based on solid research and enhanced by compelling examples of real people, it shows how school leaders can feel more grounded, connected, clear and focused. Mindfulness makes leaders more effective with relatively little effort, but be advised that the benefits can be contagious, transforming your school from the inside out." Christopher Germer, Clinical Instructor Harvard Medical School "In The Mindful School Leader, Brown and Olson offer with remarkable clarity and depth a thorough introduction to the practice of meditation, the science behind its benefits, and many firsthand accounts of lives and work situations transformed through this practice. Although this book was written for those in leadership roles in education, it will be inspiring for anyone interested in understanding their own minds and finding more ease in life and work." Joseph Goldstein, Co-Founder Insight Meditation Society

Become a true leader through Mindfulness If you thought leading a team or organization meant simply creating and implementing a financial plan, delegating responsibility, and watching the bottom line, well, you're only partly right. True leadership comes from within, a place of deep calm and focus, that allows you to respond to any situation as it arises. In Mindful Leadership, you'll learn how to draw on those inner reserves through Mindfulness Meditation, a tool you can use to achieve focus and clarity, reduce stress, and develop the presence of mind to meet any number of challenges. The book opens up a world of meditation exercises that can be done anywhere, anytime (no chanting or patchouli required!) and that are the gateway to improved judgment and decision making, improved time management, enhanced team effectiveness, greater productivity, and more on-the-job inspiration and innovation. Details the nine ways in which leaders can incorporate Mindfulness into every aspect of their lives Illustrates how meditation and business actually do mix Essential for anyone interested in anticipating and serving client needs The author coaches executives throughout North America and is quoted widely in the media Offering essential skills for both life and work, Mindful Leadership shows how it's possible to successfully lead a team, an entire organization—or just yourself.

Where are we now? Where are we going? : preparing our students for an uncertain future / Patricia A. Jennings, Anthony A. DeMauro, and Polina P. Mischenko -- A selective review of mindfulness training programs for children and adolescents in school settings / Rebecca N. Baelen, Michael V. Esposito, and Brian M. Galla -- Turn and listen : strengthening compassion and leadership in the adult community in schools / Pamela Seigle, Chip Wood, and Lisa Sankowski -- Modeling mindfulness : principal leadership and development for personal and organizational growth / Eleanor Drago-Severson and Jessica Blum-DeStefano -- Embodied teacher mindfulness in the classroom : the calm, clear, kind framework / Cynthia Taylor, Patricia A. Jennings, Alexis Harris, Deborah L. Schussler, and Robert W. Roeser -- Cultivating passion for practicing and teaching mindfulness : a multiple-case study of compassionate school project teachers / Polina P. Mischenko and Patricia A. Jennings -- The school counselor : change agent and collaborator for holistic student well-being / Rebecca L. Tadlock-Marlo and Meghan Damler -- Creating mindful and compassionate schools : including parents as partners / J. Douglas Coatsworth, Melissa Ward George, and Aimee Kleisner Walker -- Finding peace in chaos : mindfully prepared public school teachers / Richard C. Brown and Elizabeth Grassi -- Being in school transformation : toward equity and social justice / Velma L. Cobb.

The ultimate guide to becoming an extraordinary leader – while finding happiness, gaining authenticity, and banishing stress Integrating proven mindfulness practices and world-class leadership theory, The Mindful Leader is the essential guide for self-aware leadership. The book simplifies mindfulness principles and links them solidly to business benefits. It provides a practically-grounded template for leaders to develop unprecedented levels of self awareness, wellbeing and effectiveness. Research findings throughout the book detail the positive impact of mindfulness from the perspectives of brain science, psychology and leadership. International case studies from a variety of industries illustrate the everyday implementation of mindful leadership. You'll learn easy mindfulness practices that you can implement today and a practical framework for everyday mindful leadership. You'll also be given access to online resources for vision reflections, values clarification, mindfulness practices and more. Mindful leadership is a hot topic – but it's not as simple as "when you become mindful, great leadership will spontaneously happen." This book serves as both mindfulness training and leadership training, clarifying the parallel while guiding you through the many points of intersection. Improve your leadership skills via context-specific mindfulness practices Learn mindfulness from a practical perspective, with real workplace skills Discover how leaders from around the world practice mindful leadership every day Understand the neuroscience link between mindfulness and great leadership Learn practices that deliver a deeper sense of integrity, authenticity, fulfillment and bottom-line results improvement Mindfulness provides real, practical tools for self-awareness, mental wellbeing, stress reduction and more. When practiced through a leadership lens, it becomes much more than just another leadership guide. Mindfulness transforms leadership as a whole, delivering real, lasting change that transcends typical leadership training. For a clear, concise framework of mindfulness at work, The Mindful Leader is the ideal guide for those serious about effective, sustainable leadership.

What would your work and your life look like if you knew how to stay focused yet flexible, if you got more of the right things done, and if you were helping to create a more peaceful world at the same time? “A mindful leader makes the work environment a generative social field in which compassion, connection, and creativity thrive. The seven accessible practices in this book can teach you how to become just such a leader.” — from the foreword by Daniel J. Siegel, MD, executive director of Mindsight Institute Today’s leaders are grappling with the pace and complexity of change, the challenge of supporting healthy collaboration and alignment among teams, and the resulting stress and burnout. The practice of mindful leadership may be one of the most important competencies in business today if leaders are to move beyond fear, anxiety, nagging self-doubt, and the feeling of constant overwhelm. Marc Lesser has taught his proven seven-step method to leaders at Google, Genentech, SAP, Facebook, and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies for over twenty years and has distilled a lifetime of mindfulness and business experience into these chapters. This incredibly practical yet accessible book draws on Marc’s experience as a CEO of three companies, as cofounder of the world-renowned Search Inside Yourself (SIY) program within Google, and as a longtime Zen practitioner. The principles in this book can be applied to leadership at any level, providing readers with the tools they need to shift awareness, enhance communication, build trust, eliminate fear and self-doubt, and minimize unnecessary workplace drama. Embracing any one of the seven practices alone can be life-changing. When used together, they support a path of well-being, productivity, and positive influence. Practicing mindful leadership will allow you to achieve results — with more energy, clarity, meaning, and connection. Your intentions and actions will be more aligned. You will accomplish more with less wasted effort. After reading this book, you’ll understand why some of the world’s most successful companies routinely incorporate the Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader, integrating mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and business savvy to create great corporate cultures, and even a better world.

The complexity and relentless pace of our world places exceptional demands on leaders today. They work incredibly hard and yet feel that they are not meeting their own expectations of excellence. They feel disconnected from their own values and overburdened. By the thousands, they seek out books on leadership skills, time management, and “getting things done,” but the techniques these volumes offer, useful as they are, don't often don't speak to the leader's fundamental sense that something is missing. Janice Marturano, a senior executive with decades of experience in Fortune 500 corporations, explains how Mindful Leadership training integrates the practice of mindfulness-meditation and self-awareness-with the practical tools of management, enabling leaders to bring a wider range of their capacities to the challenges at hand. We already know from scientific research that mindfulness practices enhance mental health and improve clarity and focus. FINDING THE SPACE shows how this training has specific value for leaders. This is not a new “leadership system” to add to the burden of already overworked people. It brings the concepts of mindfulness into the everyday life of anyone in a leadership role, through specific exercises that address practical issues-the calendar, schedule, phone usage, meetings, to-do list, and strategic planning, as well as interpersonal challenges such as listening and working with difficult colleagues. Leaders who have experienced mindfulness training report that it provides a “transformative experience” with significant improvements in innovation, self-awareness, listening, and making better decisions. In FINDING THE SPACE TO LEAD, Marturano masterfully lays out her proven techniques for promoting mindfulness in the busy executive's working life.

The world today needs mindful leaders who care for the holistic well-being of their students and staff, and to inspire all to renew schools with compassion, creativity and courage. But what is mindful leadership, and how can leaders create and sustain mindful schools? Mindful Leadership for Schools: Wisdom from Confucius draws on the educational thought of Confucius and explores how Confucian Mindful Leadership (CML) can offer a solution. The various chapters show how CML revolves around influencing others towards the achievement of a common goal through R|E|S|T. The acronym R|E|S|T stands for Respectful mindfulness, Exemplary living, Serving others and Transforming society. Each component is encapsulated by a key Confucian concept: R | Respectful mindfulness E | Exemplary living S | Serving others T | Transforming society This book explains how a Confucian mindful leader is one who attends to self, people, things and events respectfully, and promotes the virtues of humanity, empathy and social justice through personal cultivation, role-modelling, community-building, coaching and the initiation of reforms. By describing how CML strengthens school administration and supervision, Tan offers a novel and practical leadership approach that combines ancient wisdom and modern educational research.

Build a thriving school community that creates healthy, resilient, and successful students. A companion to Mindfulness Practices, this research-backed guide outlines how to teach self-regulation by fostering the five Cs of social-emotional learning and mindfulness: consciousness, compassion, confidence, courage, and community. The authors provide a wealth of practical exercises, strategies, and tools to bring this scientifically proven approach to life across grade levels and subject areas. Use this resource to foster the well-being of every learner: Benefit from exercises that infuse social-emotional concepts and 21st century skills into academic curriculum across subjects and grade levels. Discover ideas for incorporating historical examples of consciousness, compassion, confidence, courage, and community into classwork. Learn ways to assess the five Cs elements, including the research-based S-CCATE tool, to provide evidence for what might seem unquantifiable. Become familiar with different ways educators have implemented Heart Centered LearningTM in the real world. Work with numerous activities and mindsets that foster a mixture of vulnerability and strength and ameliorate trauma. Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: Heart Centered Learning Chapter 2: Heart Physiology and Heart-Mind Connections Chapter 3: Consciousness Chapter 4: Compassion Chapter 5: Confidence Chapter 6: Courage Chapter 7: Community Chapter 8: Conscious Leadership Epilogue: Taking Heart, Having Heart—Looking to Our Future Appendix: S-CCATE—A Visioning and Assessment Tool to Create Heart Centered Communities References and Resources Index

Drawing on the ancient tradition of the bodhisattva warrior, a Buddhist model for enlightened leadership, Carroll explains what mindfulness is and how to develop it in the hectic and often stressful environment of the 21st-century workplace.

The one habit that can improve almost every leadership skill There is a simple practice that can improve nearly every component of leadership excellence and it doesn't require adding anything to your busy schedule. In The Mindfulness Edge, you'll discover how a subtle inner shift, called mindfulness, can transform things that you already do every day into opportunities to become a better leader. Author Matt Tenney has trained leaders around the world in the practice of mindfulness. In this book, he partners with neuroscientist Tim Gard, PhD, to offer step-by-step, practical guidance for quickly and seamlessly integrating mindfulness training into your daily life—rewiring your brain in ways that improve both the ‘hard' and ‘soft' skills of leadership. In this book, you'll learn how mindfulness training helps you: Quickly improve business acumen and your impact on the bottom line Become more innovative and attract/retain innovative team members Develop the emotional intelligence essential for creating and sustaining a winning culture Realize the extraordinary leadership presence that inspires greatness in others The authors make a compelling case for why mindfulness training may be the 'ultimate success habit.' In addition to helping you improve the most essential elements of highly effective leadership, mindfulness training can help you discover unconditional happiness and realize incredible meaning—professionally and personally.