Lektion 1
What Is Mindful Leadership & How Do You Develop It?
This lesson introduced the course and sets out the framework we’ll be working with.
We will learn what mindfulness is – and what it isn’t. We will begin to learn how mindfulness is relevant to the leadership task.
We will do our first mindfulness meditation practice together – just 5-minutes for this first week – and leave the lesson with a better understanding of the value of mindfulness to every leader’s life, at work and at home.
You can find the meditation in Insight Timer's guided meditations library, under the title "Mindful Leadership: 5-Minute Mindfulness Meditation".
Lektion 2
AIM To Lead Well
In this lesson we learn about the AIM Framework that emerged from our Mindful Leader research.
AIM describes three key capacities that the leaders who took part in our research developed as they engaged in our programme.
AIM consists in the capacities for Allowing, Inquiry, and Meta-awareness. This lesson lays out what these are and how each of them applies to leadership today.
We will also undertake our first 10-minute guided meditation practice. You can find the meditation in Insight Timer's guided meditations library, under the title "Mindful Leadership: 10-Minute Mindfulness Meditation".
Lektion 3
Respond More, React Less
It is vital to good leadership that you are better able to respond to people and situations consciously and smartly; that you are less likely simply to unconsciously react.
In this lesson we discover the difference between reactions and more mindful responses and learn how the practices we will do on this course enable us to respond more frequently and become less likely simply to react.
That can be life-changing.
Lektion 4
Self-Awareness Is Key
To lead people, you need to connect with them and be able to influence them. You can only influence them if they trust you and they’ll only trust you if they can really see you.
For people to really be able to see you, you must be somewhat transparent to them and that can only happen if you know yourself. It’s specially important to know how you feel.
In this lesson we discover ways of getting to know ourselves and our own feelings more deeply and clearly.
We will undertake another guided meditation practice. You can find the meditation for this session in Insight Timer's guided meditations library, under the title "Mindful Leadership: Body Scan".
Lektion 5
Engage & Stay Open
Leadership can be tough. Sometimes leaders are called on to make really hard decisions – decisions which can impact the lives of others. It’s easy at times like that to fall back on avoidant strategies – trying to get away from what seems difficult.
In this lesson we learn ways of turning towards difficulty with an attitude of openness, kindness, and curiosity. We will undertake an accompanying guided meditation practice. You can find the meditation for this session in Insight Timer's guided meditations library, under the title "Mindful Leadership: Turning Towards Difficulty Meditation".
Lektion 6
It’s Just A Thought
Leaders are called on to think clearly. But we all of us carry our own habitual biases that bend our thoughts away from clear seeing and thinking.
In this lesson we discover how easy it is to mistake our thoughts for facts and how common biases distort our thinking. We learn to see thoughts for what they are: they are ‘just thoughts’ and we learn ways of choosing whether or not to engage with certain patterns of thinking.
We will undertake a guided meditation practice. You can find the meditation for this session in Insight Timer's guided meditations library, under the title "Mindful Leadership: Sounds & Thoughts Meditation".
Lektion 7
If In Doubt, Be Kind
Part of a leader’s task is compassionately and generously to allow others to shine so that they can realise their own potential and release their energies and creativity in service of a common task.
To perform at their best, people need encouragement, appreciation, and recognition.
The people you lead or aspire to lead need to know and feel that you care for them and want the best for them. They need to know that you’re concerned for their well-being as much as for their performance.
They need to know that you want them to be happy and to do well.
For that to be effective, it must be authentic. In this lesson we discover how to uncover and develop feelings of warmth, concern, and goodwill – feelings of loving-kindness – to others, as well as to ourselves.
We will undertake a guided meditation practice. You can find the meditation for this session in Insight Timer's guided meditations library, under the title "Mindful Leadership: Sounds & Thoughts Loving Kindness -Meditation".
Lektion 8
Trust Is Precious, Values Matter
We’re living through a crisis of trust. Around the world people have seriously lost trust in governments, NGOs, and the media and only 40% of senior business leaders are trusted by their employees.
This matters because there is a direct link between trust and employee engagement and well-being.
We trust people when we see them consistently living and behaving in accordance with a set of values – especially through times of difficulty, where they’re called on to make sacrifices.
That takes courage and determination. Above all, it calls for high levels of integrity.
In this lesson we discover the link between integrity and psychological integration. We learn, amongst other things, how mindfulness practice helps to build that integrity.
Lektion 9
Listen, Listen, Listen
Without being able really to listen to those you aspire to lead, your leadership will keep on crashing.
We all know how frustrating it is at work, not to feel that we’re listened to. In this lesson we discover how our common mental habits get in the way of our ability to really listen to others.
No matter how good a listener you may currently be, there is always room for improvement.
In this lesson we learn how to give the gift our undivided attention more fully to others – especially to those we lead.
We will undertake a guided meditation practice. You can find the meditation for this session in Insight Timer's guided meditations library, under the title "Mindful Leadership: Present Moment Meditation".
Lektion 10
Quieten Your Ego
Apart from a few exceptional saints and sages, we all have an ego.
Sometimes they’re noisier, sometimes they’re quieter.
Leading thinkers who study the ego and what enables it to quieten suggest that mindfulness, a sense of the interdependence of living things (including, of course, people), compassion, and a set of values that support our own and others’ growth and development are crucial in helping the ego to quieten.
Leaders who have learned to quieten their own egos more readily build open, co-operative, and creative communities around them. People in their teams feel safer and more engaged.
In this lesson we learn ways of quietening our egos, and that makes for a more satisfying life – at work and at home.
