Finding the Space to Lead: A Practical Guide to Mindful Leadership

After a week-long mindfulness workshop with Jon Kabat-Zinn, Marturano—then a General Mills executive, now founder and executive director of the Institute for Mindful Leadership—changed her entire view on what it takes to be an effective and calm leader, and changed her strategy accordingly. This book is the result. Her fundamentals of leadership excellence are focused on getting readers out of the endless rat race, and re-orienting themselves towards doing real, meaningful work. Constant movement keeps us reacting, rather than innovating. Change means learning how to give your full attention to what you’re doing, and making sure others know they have your undivided attention while talking. Learned practices such as meditations are effective, as are reflections and purposeful pauses. Marturano provides exercises for meditation practices for leaders to create a useful and self-directed daily routine. Readers are likely to find her thoughtful discussion of multitasking useful, and will appreciate her suggestions regarding leading by inspiration, the role of emotion in leadership, and compassion and kindness in the workplace. While the content can become repetitive, readers looking to find ways to retrain their brains to pay better attention will find this helpful. Agent: Stephanie Tade, Stephanie Tade Agency. (Jan.)