If gridlock feeds ego and shuts out brainpower
could mindfulness and trust
heal the heart of learning and leading?
The more gridlock images we see flash across media, schools, and our lives, the more innovative, healing, and fun-filled images get lost. To learn and lead mindfully though, takes more than stopping bullies and cynics who keep ego alive by banishing transparency through backdoor deals. It takes healing the very essence of how we marshal and mend vital mental resources. How so? The video below shows six fun namungo ways my students all lead and all learn with their brains more in mind.
Flawed leadership, whether called democracy or dictatorship generates gridlocks that block creative brainpower. Flawed learning shuts down innovation and kills growth just as it obliterates respect for the very diversity that makes us more mindful.
Never before in history have we needed more mindful innovators who rev up mental equipment novelty and lead rich growth opportunities into safer healing places for all.
It’s true that Barak Obama, Bill Gates, Ursula Burns, and Hillary Clinton communicate see-through stories to leave no brain is left behind. Still, leadership openness is rare, takes entire populations, and comes with humility to learn and change problems created by dark money that buys toxic leadership and supports self-serving influences. Easy to change?
After a lifetime leading renewal initiatives – I too feel overwhelmed at times by entrenched systemic barriers to growth! Inner barriers can also churn dangerous toxins that limit our own minds.
One friend and fellow leader Dave Caiazza, put it this way:
Work against the dangerous twins of jealousy and hypocrisy. They come disguised as concern, shrouded in statistics, and hidden behind a smile. When you’re good at something, there will always be someone who wants to undo you. Don’t let them.
Transparency takes brainpower to tackle inner toxins as well as those from cynics who broker backdoor deals, buy favors, or exclude others. How then do we LEAD mindfully in transparent ways that benefit all?
1. Awaken more intrapersonal or introspective intelligence so that others will be led to respond openly to ethics that tend to follow.
2. Respond to confrontations by snipping our amygdala so that others enjoy healing possibilities beyond conflicts.
3. Spot opportunities within broken systems – and others tend to join with like minded willingness to risk riding transparency’s surf.
4. Relate neuro discoveries that resolve conflicts so that more reasonable parts of the brain win over knee-jerk or typical competitive reactions.
5. Offer mental olive branches to people who disagree and they tend to collaborate without forcing narrow views that relate to one side only.
6. Hone brainpower tools for robust peace plans rather than promote war or violent reactions where gridlock battles begin.
7. Suggest simplicity on the other side of complexity – to amp up intelligence and replace mental clutter with clear ethical practices that include dividends for all.
8. Avoid hidden traps of cynicism by building transparent tone to open segues for all to speak up and feel heard.
9. Brainstorm solutions with innovative peers rather than join in with naysayers who toss toxins into the mental mix.
10. Activate, encourage and open communication that sparks innovation, rarely found in tragic traits of a cynic.
Step into any gridlock situation and you’ll spot far more routines, ruts and rituals, than innovative designs can survive. Have you seen it?
Or help build an interactive culture to heal the heart of leading and learning for a new and ethical era forward with benefits for all concerned!
Luckily, newly discovered mental equipment offers tools such as new neuron pathways to dynamic innovation for learners and leaders. So while transparency’s not possible when ego generates gridlock, we can still accomplish things never before accomplished by using parts of the brain never before used. Ready for top adventures designed to unleash more hidden and unused intelligences to heal the heart of learning and leading in a new era?
Find student-ready (no prep required) brain based tools, tasks and games at my TPT site that engage students to heal the heart of learning and leading in any lesson topic.
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Created by Ellen Weber, Brain Based Tasks for Growth Mindset