Mindfulness is now recognized in Management as a leadership quality. Two eminent management thinkers, Richard Boyatzis and Annie Mckee consider mindfulness as the central component of “Resonant Leadership” and define it as “Mindfulness is the capacity to be fully aware of all that one experiences inside the self - body, mind, heart and to pay full attention to what is happening around us - people, the natural world, our surroundings and event.” Elaborating further on the practical implications of mindfulness, Boyatzis and Mckee, state:

 “Contrary to popular belief cultivating the capacity for mindfulness is not just a nice-to-have or something to be done for private reasons: it is actually essential for sustaining good leadership. It can be one of the most important thins we do, resulting in a stepwise change in our effectiveness as leaders. May be most important, when we attend to ourselves by developing our minds, taking care of our bodies, understanding and using the power of our emotions, and attending to our spirituality, however we choose to do so, we can begin to reach our full potential as people.”(Richard Boyatzis and Annie Mckee, (2005) Resonant Leadership, Harvard Business School Press, p.112, 115.)

The first benefit of mindfulness is that it can lead to a deeper understanding of others. As our awareness becomes more impersonal, objective and detached, through mindfulness, it extends beyond our personal self to embrace others. For a truer and a more complete understanding of others we must be able to identify our consciousness with the consciousness of others and know what are the inner forces which make them act or behave in the way do.

The second benefit is that when the mind becomes fully aware with all its awareness and energy the peace and joy and satisfaction brought by good feelings of kindness, generosity or forgiveness or sincerity, and conversely the opposite states of restlessness, misery, helplessness created by feelings like anger, jealousy, hate¾then it leads to a spontaneous and effortless rejection of negativities and a sincere, whole-hearted aspiration for truth, beauty and goodness.