Mindful Leadership: Why Your Nervous System Is Shaping Your Team’s Performance

About this episode

Julia Felton discusses the impact of mindfulness on leadership and team performance with expert Kelly Corbett.

In this Impactful Teamwork episode, Julia Felton talks with neuroscience-based mindfulness expert Kelly Corbett about the inner game of leadership and how mindfulness improves presence, connection, creativity, and decision-making. Kelly explains “beginner’s mind” as approaching meetings without labels or fixed assumptions, and shares evidence that mindfulness/meditation strengthens the prefrontal cortex and executive function. She describes how reframing problems can unlock innovation, including a company that replaced harmful chemicals with water by rethinking industry standards. Practical tactics include mindful breathing—especially the “cyclic sigh” technique—to calm the nervous system, plus walking meditation and time in nature (shinrin-yoku/forest bathing) to reduce cortisol and boost natural killer cells. They discuss leader “entrainment,” gratitude practices, and how Aetna saw reduced healthcare costs and improved retention from meditation programs, with resources available at kellycorbett.com . 00:45 Meet Kelly Corbett 02:53 Mindfulness and Beginners Mind 04:30 Science and Creativity Wins 07:07 Leading With Openness 09:36 Breathwork for Calm 10:49 Cyclic Sigh Demo 14:33…

People in this episode

Host: Julia Felton

Guest: Kelly Corbett

Topics covered

• mindfulness
• leadership
• neuroscience
• team performance
• creativity
• decision-making

Keywords

• mindful leadership
• nervous system
• mindfulness techniques
• creativity
• team performance
• breathwork
• gratitude practices

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Aetna, kellycorbett.com

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