Leah Weiss: Why A Class On Mindfulness & Self-Mastery Is Now Stanford Business School’s Top Elective

If you have the chops to get accepted into an elite MBA Program at a school like Harvard, Wharton or Yale, you pretty much know that the next two years of your life will be devoted to mastering left-brain coursework – classes in analytics, statistics, accounting, economics, finance and the like.

But a few years ago, top business schools like these started to reassess. Alarmed by rock-bottom employee engagement across the world – not to mention other distressing trends on employee stress, health and well-being – they began to ask themselves whether they were part of the problem.

Faculties and administrators reflected upon how successful they’d historically been in preparing students to manage other human beings in the workplace. And they collectively concluded that their traditional methods of preparing future leaders was entirely deficient and required a massive reinvention.

Fast-forward to today: At Yale’s graduate school of business, students take a mandatory class on “purpose.”  At Harvard, MBA students are being taught groundbreaking science on how to achieve personal happiness. They’re also reading about Chinese Philosophers and how spiritual wisdom can guide their management decisions.  And these same kinds of curriculum changes are happening at Wharton, The University of Michigan – and business schools across the world.

In what proves to be a remarkable & compelling discussion of why all of this is happening in MBA Programs, podcast guest, Stanford University Graduate School of Business Professor, Leah Weiss, shares why a class she teaches called, “Leading With Mindfulness And Compassion” has become the top elective course in her school’s MBA program.

Weiss is the author of the brand new bestseller, “How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity And Embrace The Daily Grind,” and if you want a glimpse into the future of workplace leadership – not to mention fabulous insight into practices and skills that can help you to better “Know Thyself,” listening in will prove invaluable.

By Mark C. Crowley

Mark C. Crowley is the author of Lead From The Heart: Transformational Leadership For The 21st Century which has been taught in 11 American universities. He is a global speaker, leadership consultant and thought leader on the topics of workplace culture and employee engagement.