How To Rewire Your Brain To Be A More Effective Leader

This week brings the new book, The Mindfulness Edge, a fascinating manual that teaches you how through mindfulness training you can become a better leader.

The science of neuroplasticity shows that you can learn the practice of mindfulness training that results in physical changes to the structure of your brain -- in some cases as quickly as eight weeks -- that can be linked to better leadership skills.

Matt Tenney

Most importantly, intentional mindfulness training helps you to develop self-awareness and mental agility that are the keys to better business acumen and the foundation for developing the emotional and social intelligence that allow you to serve and care for the people on your teams more effectively.

"Mindfulness training also helps leaders to make decisions that have better impacts on gross margins and expenses," explains the book's author Tenney.

Additionally, Tenney shows how mindfulness training also helps you develop the mental agility that allows you to move out of your comfort zone and make decisions that are vastly different from what you would typically do.

Self-awareness impacts nearly every aspect of leadership. And, part of becoming self aware is to become both emotionally and socially self-aware.

Emotional and social intelligence are what close the gap between wanting to serve and care for team members -- and thereby creating a positive emotional climate and a sustainable, high-performance culture -- and actually doing it.

Emotionally self-aware leaders are able to recognize even their own very subtle emotions, understand why they occur and how they are affecting performance, know their strengths and limits, and be open to feedback to how to improve.
Socially self-aware leaders listen well and understand the perspectives and emotional states of others.

In addition to reading the book, if you have any questions about the practice of mindfulness, you can reach out to the author at TheMindfulnessEdge.

Tenney is a social entrepreneur and has been teaching mindfulness in various capacities since 2002.

Tim Gard, PhD, who co-authored the book, is affiliated with the Lazar lab for neuroscience of mindfulness research at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.

Thanks to the book's publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

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