The authors base their book on the premise that true leaders must first understand how the brain works. While I initially assumed they would talk in generalities, they spent at least two chapters explaining the structure and workings of the brain. An interest in biology would help the reader here. Fortunately, the narrative then moves forward in a more interesting fashion.

Divided into three primary sections, the first section's three chapters explore not only the workings of the brain, but also how contemporary insights into the brain and intelligence provide leaders an opportunity to inform and rethink their perceptions about leadership.  The section further asserts that leadership must connect to how the brain "enables and exercises intelligence" since goals are achieved through that intelligence. The last chapter in this section proposes a structure and process for leaders to organize and focus on their rapidly evolving knowledge base about the brain.

"Stress makes people stupid."

"If the intelligence capacity of the human brain is challenge motivated and threat inhibited, then the art of leadership is the creation of productive levels of tension." 

If the human brain is a lean, mean, pattern-making machine that physically connects new information patterns to established patterns in neural networks, then leaders would be wise to forego extensive efforts to instruct in favor of providing opportunities for individuals to construct personal knowledge."

"If the human brain is designed to discern meaningful patterns through direct and active experience with information, then a leader should provide opportunity for the members of an organization to write, speak, draw, and otherwise manipulate information they need to understand."

The second section consists of three chapters that make the case for an emerging evolutionary change in leadership practice whereby leaders "cultivate understanding about the nature and nurture of intelligence in self and others". The authors go on to discuss the role of perception in leadership and then outline a framework for "mindful leadership" behavior to nurture "the nature of human capacity to achieve needs."

"Definitive clarity about what leadership is, however, is not a reasonable expectation."

"Leadership is a process, between a leader and followers, involves influence that affects followers, occurs in the context of groups, and involves the attainment of goals."

"Perhaps altering the expression "think outside the box" to "think about the box and adjust it accordingly."

"By practicing "I need more time to think about this before making a decision" ... a leader can ... offer higher quality responses that will not require further fixing down the road."

The book closes with a third section looking at what a mindful leader looks like based on four principles:

The authors provide few concrete examples.

"Mindful leadership promotes physical and mental health wellness, social interaction, cooperation, common vision, inclusive planning, direct and rich access to information, novelty and challenge, metacognition."