Mindful Leadership for Schools: Wisdom from Confucius

The world today needs mindful leaders who care for the holistic well-being of their students and staff, and to inspire all to renew schools with compassion, creativity and courage. But what is mindful leadership, and how can leaders create and sustain mindful schools?

Mindful Leadership for Schools: Wisdom from Confucius draws on the educational thought of Confucius and explores how Confucian Mindful Leadership (CML) can offer a solution. The various chapters show how CML revolves around influencing others towards the achievement of a common goal through REST. The acronym REST stands for Respectful mindfulness, Exemplary living, Serving others and Transforming society. Each component is encapsulated by a key Confucian concept:

R Respectful mindfulness
E Exemplary living
S Serving others
T Transforming society

This book explains how a Confucian mindful leader is one who attends to self, people, things and events respectfully, and promotes the virtues of humanity, empathy and social justice through personal cultivation, role-modelling, community-building, coaching and the initiation of reforms. By describing how CML strengthens school administration and supervision, Tan offers a novel and practical leadership approach that combines ancient wisdom and modern educational research.

Charlene Tan is Professor in Educational Policy and Leadership in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.