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- BLI announces a new Access Opportunity
- Barger Leadership Institute is moving!
- BLI Announces New Partnership with The London Idea
- Former Jet Blue CEO donates $10 million to Barger Leadership Institute
- BLI Hires a New Assistant Director
- BLI to Co-Host ‘Extreme by Design’ Film Screening, Discussion
- BLI awards Small Grant for Halfway Hijabi event
- BLI Launches New Capstone Experience
- BLI Launches New Fellows Program Structure
- Keep Calm and Lead On
- BLI Fellow Wins Wolverine Tank Pitch Contest
- BLI Congratulates Mya Haynes
- BLI Alumni Receive 2015-2016 Fulbright Honor
- The 2018 London Ideas Project is Announced
- Congrats to BLI partner Sandra Levitsky for being awarded the Golden Apple!
- Congrats to BLI Fellow and Peer Facilitator Elisabeth Benham
- Tales of Leadership: The Advanced Fellows Journey
- Welcome to the 2018 Capstone Cohort!
- BLI welcomes new director!
- BLI Across the Pond
- BLI Hosts Voting Guru Nancy Thomas
- Ram Mahalingam's award winning film to be screened at two film festivals.
- The Capstone Experience with the Migrant Education Initiative
- The Mindful Leader - Becoming an Engaged Leader
- A Weekend of Mindful Leadership
- Introducing the 2019 Capstone Teams
- The Peer Facilitator Experience
- Dinners with...
- BLI Students Start Small and Dream Big in Detroit
- From Freshman to Senior Year -- Four Years of Leadership Learning
- BLI Speaker Series: Food For Thought
- BLI Director, Ram Mahalingam featured in the Record
- Capstone Bootcamp 2019
- In a Distracted World, Solitude is Practice for Tomorrow’s Leaders
- A Conversation on Mindfulness, Bias and Racial Justice — a podcast with Ram Mahalingam
- The Mindful Leaders Retreat — Laying a Foundation
- Being a good leader is knowing when to practice gratitude
- Channeling Mindfulness
- Compassionate Leadership: Creating a Just, Inclusive and Mindful Society with Mirabai Bush
- Dinners With...
- Announcing Capstone 2020 Teams!
- Meet our 2020 Leadership Lab Teams!
- Leading Mindfully
- A Senior's Reflection on Peer Facilitating
- Expect Challenges
- Reflecting Back and Looking Forward
- From Leadership Lab, to Peer Facilitator, to Program Assistant
- Project Healthy Schools Global
- Learning to be an Effective Leader
- Leading Life with Dignity: A Challenge of Our Time
- Pause, Reflect, and Create
- What's Happening in the Lab?
- Capstone 3D Virtual Gallery
- Announcing the Break Away Podcast!
- BLI Advanced Fellow featured in M-LEAD's Leadership Lens Series!
- Two BLI Advanced Fellows Receive the Renowned MLK Spirit Award
- Stand Against Asian Violence
- BLI Hosts Alumni Panel
- Announcing the BLI's 2021 Capstone Cohort
- BLI Offers COVID-19 Hardship Grants
- ALA 175: Foundations in Leadership
- The Peer Facilitator Leadership Experience
- What's Happening in the Lab
- Capstone Boot Camp 2021
- Mindful Leader Reflection
- Learning to Lead with Compassion: A Mindful Leadership Retreat
- Okanagan Charter
- Foundations in Leadership, a Peer Facilitator Perspective
- Heart-Centered Leadership with Rebecca Irby
- Announcing the 2022 Leadership Certificate Cohort!
- Welcome the 2021-22 Mindful Leader Fellowship cohort!
- BLI Peace Leadership Retreat in Detroit
- BLI director awarded the Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award
- Seithur Sanitation Initiative receives the MLK Spirit Award
- The Michigan Difference Student Leadership Awards
- Feedback is Love
- Deepening the Foundations for Equity and Renewal
- Creating Leaders – Being a Peer Facilitator at the BLI
- M-LEAD Leadership Lens Feature: Kaitlyn Colyer
- M-LEAD Leadership Lens Feature: Mya Harris
- What's Happening in the Lab
- The Leadership Certificate at the University of Michigan: Cohort 1
- Color of Care Reflection
- Mindful Leader Retreat Recap
- Social Transformation, a Passionate Community of Scholars
- The Michigan Difference Student Leadership Awards
- Break Away Podcast
- BLI Weekend in Detroit
- Leadership Lens with Olivia O'Connell
- Leadership Lens with Becky Woolf
- Leadership Philosophy Reflection
- Senior Reflection, Renuka Murthi
- Dignity and Well-being in the Workplace: A French Perspective
- BLI – Year One
- Teaching Leadership, a Senior Reflection
- Archived News
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As the penultimate chapter of my BLI experience, the Mindful Leader Program has been nothing short of fulfilling and has provided me with the tools necessary to continue evolving as a compassionate leader. The program began with a fall retreat that gave us the opportunity to get to know our cohort members and program leaders. It was then that we started our new leadership journey, together.
There were so many reasons I wanted to join this program, and approaching senior year, this was especially so. My introduction to mindfulness actually began with my experience as a Peer Facilitator. During the Leadership Lab, we incorporated aspects of mindfulness into each meeting by challenging students to think critically about their communities, having them complete weekly reflections, and introducing many of them to the philosophy of servant leadership. I found myself looking forward to this part of facilitation and wanted to learn more about these topics as well as cultivate these practices on my own. The draw of creating a mindful organization also excited me. The opportunity to take what I had learned and create something bigger than myself, incorporating my passions as well as my collective academic learnings, was the perfect project to conclude senior year at Michigan.
For many of us, the retreat was the first step in developing the practices of mindfulness. We spent time exploring meditation and its benefits as well as began the first of our many contemplative art creations. In the bimonthly meetings that followed, we built upon our foundation spending longer periods of time meditating together and diving deeper with our own contemplative practice and understanding of what it means to be a mindful leader.
The most transformative aspect of this program for me, came unexpectedly through keeping a journal. Before this year, it would be rare to catch me writing during free time. But as an important component of reflection, journaling was a key part of the program. We spent each week addressing one of the seven features of the mindful mindset (compassion, sympathetic joy, critical intersectional awareness, negative capability, cultural humility, wonder and generosity). It was during this time that I started to unpack what it truly means to embody these characteristics. Of these features, compassion resonated with me the most. As a soon-to-be young professional, I was intrigued by the idea of a compassionate workplace and what it means to be a compassionate leader. Through journaling, I discovered how small acts of care towards those around us can contribute to a culture shift and how it takes a certain amount of vulnerability from a leader to achieve this workplace vision.
As I move forward from college, I am excited to take with me the practices and friends that I have gained during this program. These experiences in the Mindful Leader Program have changed my perspective on leadership philosophy not only making me a better leader, but a better person as well.