Mindful Leadership

Bringing the wisdom of mindfulness meditation into the workplace

“The main business case for meditation is that if you’re fully present on the job, you will be more effective as a leader, you will make better decisions and you will work better with other people. I tend to live a very busy life. This keeps me focused on what’s important.”

–Bill George,  former CEO Medtronic and Harvard Business School Professor

GlobalCoaching Alliance (GCA) has been at the forefront of the Mindful Leadership movement since 2007 with the publishing of “The Mindful Leader – Ten principles for bringing out the best in ourselves and others” (Shambhala Publishing) by GCA Chief Operating Officer Michael Carroll, who has taught and lectured widely on the topic. And since then, more and more emerging business leaders are learning to practice mindfulness-awareness meditation:  

  • The Drucker School of Management, Harvard Business School and Wharton Business School all offer courses for applying mindfulness meditation to the challenges of leading enterprises.
  • Virginia Tech sponsored a conference entitled “Contemplative practices for a technological society” designed for engineers who want to integrate contemplative disciplines into their work.
  • Google offers courses in meditation and provides facilities for employees to practice meditation and yoga.

Aetna, Merck, General Mills – the list goes on – all are exploring how meditation can help their leaders and employees agilely thrive in today’s fast paced business environment. And the benefits are widely publicized: sustained attention span, improved multi-tasking abilities, strengthened immune system, increased emotional intelligence, improved listening skills. And there is science behind such claims. Research is fast concluding that sitting still for defined periods of time is a very healthy thing to do.

And as a thought leader in the field of Mindful Leadership, GCA:

  • Has access to coaches, former executives and trained teachers who are experienced in bringing mindfulness into the workplace.
  • Offers keynotes, training modules and retreats for introducing mindfulness into organizations.
  • Applies the principles of mindful leadership in how we collaborate with partners and conduct our business.