Description
Book SynopsisPrincipals, superintendents, teacher leaders, and other school leaders experience considerable stress in this day of accountability and high visibility. This book address that stress level and helps school leaders learn the why, what, and how of mindfulness practice. It also helps to show how to reduce stress through mindfulness, demonstrates how mindfulness is related with effective leadership practice, and reinforces the qualities that equate with leadership legacy.
Trade ReviewMindfulness: How School Leaders Can Reduce Stress and Thrive on the Job by Caryn M. Wells is an excellent primer for mindfulness practices.... In addition to a self-assessment, the book provides practical tips and strategies for honing mindfulness skills. From seeing issues with a beginner's eye to learning from what didn't work, the opportunities to practice mindfulness are varied. * School Administrator *
Finding calm in the middle of a storm most appropriately describes the purpose of this well written treatise on the practice of mindfulness “to be fully present … in the moment… to enter into stillness and calm by mindful moments or meditation…” Through self-assessment, examples and practice, this book provides guidelines to reduce stress and help leaders thrive in the workplace. Pause, take a breath and begin right away to take the time to read this book meant for all leaders, especially school leaders. -- Dr. Rosemary Papa, Del and Jewell Lewis Endowed Chair and professor, Educational Leadership, Northern Arizona University
Caryn Wells writes with the refreshing and authentic voice of experience — including a year in which she ran two 1,500-student high schools in Michigan. She acknowledges a sad truth about school leadership today: It is not a crisis of shortage but a crisis of lacking enough leaders who are equipped to deal with the stressors that are an inevitable part of leading. Far from succumbing to the difficulties of that challenge, Wells shares a hopeful plan of action that every school leader can and should embrace. -- Joan Richardson, editor-in-chief, Phi Delta Kappan
This book explores the path for learning, understanding, challenging, and thinking about oneself. Dr. Wells introduces the reader to mindfulness and then explores the pathways that lead to a balance in one’s life as an educational leader. “That way of being can contribute to an approach that has a different kind of power, the power that supports, influences, and builds capacity in others. -- James Berry, executive director, National Council of Professors of Educational Administration and Professor of Educational Leadership, Eastern Michigan University
This book combines transformation with education. Readers will find the capacity to cultivate their own mindfulness practice while gaining practical skills to become a compassionate, inspiring, and effective school leader. This book has an important voice in helping to cultivate an education system based on healthy hearts and minds. -- Daniel Rechtschaffen, author of, “The Way of Mindful Education: Cultivating Well-Being in Teachers and Students”
If leadership is one of life’s greatest difficulties, being a school leader must be one of life’s greatest impossibilities. There will always be plenty of people to tell you just how wrong you are. It takes courage, patience, empathy…every possible human virtue. Caryn Wells brings years of experience in the trenches to this book, and a keen understanding of how mindfulness can be a practical tool to help a school leader get through some of those very hard days, relieve stress, and make a real difference in the lives of students, teachers, parents, and colleagues. -- Barry Boyce, editor in chief, Mindful magazine and mindful.org
The pressures and responsibilities placed on today’s superintendent are greater than ever before. A well-organized book, ‘Mindfulness’ provides a number of suggestions to encourage school district leaders to reflect on the day-to-day activities and challenges that come with the job in order to create positive outcomes. These concepts can also impact principals, teachers, and business and community leaders. -- Daniel A. Domenech, executive director, AASA, The School Superintendents Association
Table of ContentsGuide for reading this book Survey Preface Introduction PART I: The Art of Mindfulness for Leaders Chapter one: Mindfulness for Leaders Chapter two: Understanding Educational Leadership Chapter three: Problems of Leadership PART II: Practicing Mindfulness for Leaders Chapter four: Turning Inward with Stillness Chapter five: The Challenges of Being Fully Present Chapter six: Mindfulness Constructs Chapter seven- Being Instead of Doing- the Life of a Mindful Leader PART III: Possibilities of Mindfulness for Leaders Chapter eight- Making Time, Not Finding Time Appendix- Sample Mindfulness Practice Resources References Index About the Author
