How do people thrive in a climate where 65% of us are stressed at work and two-thirds of the workforce feels disengaged?
At the recent Well-Being at Work conference, Rich Fernandez, co-founder and president of Wisdom Labs, a company bringing mindfulness to businesses like Starbucks and Google, discussed how mindfulness programs at work can counter some of the current burnout trends.
Fernandez gave a nod to current research on how mindfulness helps regulate emotions and boost focus. For the workplace, he suggests there’s room for another benefit: wise and compassionate leadership. While compassion might seem secondary to mental focus, Fernandez argues that there’s no greater way to impact the quality of decision-making in a “fast-paced, ever-expanding world”:
“Wise and compassionate leadership: Not necessarily words you hear in the workplace or in business settings but I think that needs to change and is starting to change because what do we know about wisdom and compassion? If you think about wisdom it’s really the deep understanding of what’s good and true coupled with optimal judgement as to action. So it’s decision quality based on what’s good and true. And we know that compassion is about reducing suffering, serving…
