Leadership is about problem solving and inspiring and empowering others — all qualities that are directly supported by mindfulness practice.

That is, meditation and mindfulness are not sought for our personal benefit alone, and they aren’t achieved solely through individual effort. The same is true of leadership.

TRY THIS: Evaluate the meetings where you work. Whatever your role, how might you incorporate mindfulness and help meetings function better? Ask yourself the following questions.

Is the purpose of each meeting clear? If not, how might you help clarify the purpose?

Are all meetings the same type? How might you vary the types of meetings so each aligns with its purpose?

Do you and your team look forward to meetings? If not, what steps can you take to improve expectations and the experience of meetings?

What are the cultural and behavioral norms in your workplace and in your meetings? What is the level of trust, vulnerability, and joy? What stands in the way of these?

How might you use and integrate mindfulness practices with your meetings to improve any and all of these aspects?

Instead I said, “We don’t do busy. We aspire to work in a way that is focused, engaged, and spacious.

I have seen the consequences of attempting to shortcut this natural process of growth often in the business world, where executives attempt to “buy” a new culture of improved productivity, quality, morale, and customer service with strong speeches, smile training, and external interventions, or through mergers, acquisitions, and friendly or unfriendly takeovers. But they ignore the low-trust climate produced by such manipulations. When these methods don’t work, they look for other Personality Ethic techniques that will—all the time ignoring and violating the natural principles and processes on which a high-trust culture is based.