Big results come from small steps.
Written with school leaders in mind, this inspirational yet practical handbook teaches you how to add mindfulness into your day, bit by bit, whether you are sitting in your office or walking down the hall. With mindfulness, you will get better at managing meetings, responding creatively to complex situations, and achieving resilience—you will become a more effective leader and a more positive force for your staff and students. Features include:
- Real-life profiles of mindful school leaders
- Practice exercises to try right away
- Guidance so you know if you are “doing it right”
- Hard-to-find resources, including mindfulness apps
Valerie Brown, JD, MA, PCC, transformed her high-pressure, twenty-year career as a lawyer lobbyist, representing educational institutions and nonprofits, to human-scale work with leaders and teams to foster trustworthy, compassionate, and authentic connections. She is an accredited leadership coach, international retreat leader, writer, and Chief Mindfulness Officer of Lead Smart Coaching, LLC (www.leadsmartcoaching.com), specializing in application and integration of mindfulness and leadership, and is a Co-Director of Georgetown’s Institute for Transformational Leadership.
She holds the following degrees: Juris Doctorate, Master of Arts, and Bachelor of Arts.
Her books include The Road that Teaches: Lessons in Transformation through Travel (QuakerBridge Media, 2012) and the highly acclaimed, The Mindful School Leader: Practices to Transform Your Leadership and School (Corwin, 2014).
Valerie’s received extensive training from the Center for Courage & Renewal and Parker J. Palmer; the Institute for Transformational Leadership at Georgetown University; the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, & Society; the Center for Compassion Focused Therapy; the Ojai Foundation; the C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology (NYC); Chestnut Hill College (PA) Certificate in Holistic Spirituality; The Leadership Circle Profile™; and Transformational Educational Leadership. Valerie is an ordained Dharma Teacher in the Plum Village tradition founded by Thich Nhat Hanh and a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). As a certified kundalini yoga teacher, she helps leaders discover the wisdom of the body. She leads an annual transformational pilgrimage to El Camino de Santiago, Spain, to celebrate the power of sacred places.
Kirsten Olson is Chief Listening Officer at Old Sow Coaching and Consulting, where she works with education and learning-sector leaders nationally and internationally. She received a masters and doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and is also the author Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing Up To Old School Culture (Teachers College Press, 2009) and Schools as Colonizers (Verlag, 2008). Kirsten is a founding board member of the Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA), a national not-for-profit organized to create greater educational equity, social justice, and to foster passionate learning.
