What are your organisational values? Can you list them immediately, or do you have to pause and think for a minute? If you’re like most of the leaders I’ve worked with, it takes a while to remember your stated values. And if you can’t remember them off the top of...
Self-awareness does more than improve leader-employee relations. According to research by Korn Ferry, the world’s largest executive search firm, there is a direct correlation between leaders’ self-awareness and company profitability. The company analysed almost 7000...
A professor of Buddhism once visited a Japanese Zen master. After listening to the professor’s impressive level of intellectual knowledge of Zen, the master served tea. When his visitor’s cup was full, the master kept pouring. Tea spilled out of the cup and over the...
Mindfulness teaches us the principle of “right livelihood,” meaning the commitment to a vocation that is not harmful to humans or nature and which contributes to the wellbeing of all beings on earth. Right livelihood can be difficult to implement in organisational...
The story is told in ancient Buddhist literature of a pampered princess who was walking barefoot in her father’s kingdom when she stepped on a thorn. In pain, she demanded of her father’s advisers that the entire kingdom be carpeted. One adviser made her a pair of...
Of all leadership essentials, taking personal accountability is among the most important. Accepting accountability for ourselves can be confronting on the best of days. If we follow up those moments of self-honesty with harsh self-judgement, it becomes a real...
During my years of leadership consulting I have met far too many leaders who are acting either from a fear-based niceness or with a heartless “professional” aggression. They have not mastered mindful compassion, nor are they enabling others to act in a way that is...
For leaders, gratitude is a catalyst for recognition. It makes us constantly look for the good in people and feeds our desire to share our gratitude for a job well done. It is a light we carry with us that people are drawn to because they feel good about themselves...
Mindfulness is the methodology by which we mentally stay in the present moment. By doing so, we’re able to manage our behaviour in real time—a critical skill for mindful leaders. The first and simplest step to developing genuine presence is to tune in to the senses....
Great leaders view the world through “beginner’s mind,” seeing things much like a child does with curiosity and wonder and no fixed point of view. Beginner’s mind means to view the world and our experiences with an innocent mind devoid of preconceptions, expectations,...
