Our greatest natural resources are our hearts and minds, together with those of the people around us.
–Diane Dreher, The Tao of Personal Leadership
We live in a world challenged by climate change, social and technological upheaval, political polarization and violence. Yet our world also offers us new possibilities for creativity, joy, and personal growth.
In today’s world, the old top-down, command and control model of leadership has become obsolete, producing only mindless polarization, short-term solutions, suffering, and stagnation. We need leaders with a new vision to see through the problems that divide us to discover the possibilities that unite us. The complex challenges of our time call us all to be leaders, mindful men and women who can create new synergies out of the experiences and situations around us.
The mindful leader does not dictate policy, does not pretend to know all the answers; rather, he or she is someone who is always in discovery, bringing greater clarity, cultivating trust, and building community, finding new solutions by drawing upon the talents of everyone involved.
The good news is that we can all become mindful leaders by leading a contemplative life and cultivating virtues such as clarity, courage, compassion, creativity, and community. Taking time to listen to ourselves and others, we can move forward mindfully, learning from daily challenges, building a world of greater harmony, cooperation, and understanding.
In our blog, we’ll be drawing upon centuries of wisdom from diverse spiritual traditions along with our own real-life experience, cultivating a vision of mindful, contemplative leadership for our world today.
We invite you to join us on this journey through your own mindful practice and journal writing.
To begin, try this exercise:
- Take a few minutes to center yourself. Think about your day. What is one challenge you faced?
- How did you deal with it?
- Given your experience today, what could you have done differently? Or would you react in the same way?
- Meditate for a few moments. Then write down your own list of virtues that will allow you to become a mindful leader at work, in your family, in your community and the world.
Namaste,
Diane and Juan