As we prepare for the April workshop From Self to Systems: Leadership for Collective Impact, we’ll be sharing materials and readings that will focus on the various aspects related to leading within collective impact.

Every Friday this month, we will share a few resources, curated by workshop faculty, that can help boost your capacity as well as provide a way to discuss these topics with workshop attendees and CI Forum members.

From Self to Systems curriculum will look at collective impact leadership through multiple lenses: Leading Self (to consider one’s own contribution to the problem and the solution), Leading Others (to catalyze broader leadership in the change process), and Leading Systems (to better understand the complex dynamics that prevent or accelerate progress). Along with examining these areas of leading Self, Others, and Systems, we will also discuss applying the necessary lens of racial equity while doing collective impact work.

Leading Self Resources – Exploring Mindfulness and Presencing

You may be familiar with the term mindfulness. Whether this is a new term or a practice that you are very familiar with, below are a few resources that discuss how mindfulness and presencing can support your understanding of yourself and how you navigate within your leadership role.

1. This excerpt from C. Otto Scharmer’s Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges provides great context on how mindfulness can fit within your work. Download PDF excerpt from the publisher
    
2.  In this short blog post, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh shares about the different ways to practice mindfulness and how it can bring calmness and clarity to your work.

Hungry for more? Find more resources exploring mindfulness below.

• Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity – Interview with Ellen Langer
• What is Mindfulness  - Video with Jon Kabat-Zinn (5 minutes in length)

What do you think?

Have you practiced mindfulness, meditation, or other ways of to make yourself “present” in your work and conversations?

What have you found most useful? What has been most challenging? Do you have any recommendations to share from your own experience?