Coaching World Issue 19: Science of Coaching | Page 22

Moving Toward Mindfulness
Mindfulness is an essential quality of an effective leader.
It’s also often severely misunderstood, not least because so
many people have jumped on the bandwagon, confusing it,
for example, with teaching people meditation techniques. The
word “mindful” doesn’t help: Having our minds constantly full
and preoccupied is the problem the approach aims to solve, not
the solution. Equally, being mindful is not about emptying the
mind of thought—that’s mindlessness.

Shutterstock.com/Kitja Kitja

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Coaching World

David Clutterbuck

David is one of the early pioneers
of developmental coaching and
mentoring and co-founder of the
European Mentoring and Coaching
Council. The author of more than 60
books, including the first evidencebased titles on coaching culture and
team coaching, he is visiting professor
at three business schools and parttime faculty at Ashridge. He leads a
global network of specialist mentoring
and coaching consultants, Coaching
and Mentoring International.