The Importance Of Leadership Practice

Throughout the first whole term in ISAK, in Health, Mindful Self-Discipline class, as well as leadership workshop during orientation week and project week, I have learnt a lot about leadership practice. Leadership practices more detailed and complex than I thought it was at first. Leadership practice is not only the practice of how to lead the group of people. It is more than that, and there are many sub-topics including in this practice. The topics that we have talked about so far is recognising what is most important, what shows up, attention training and mindfulness, brain science, and self regulation. However, what we talked about these topics in class is the general ideas, so we don’t really know how to apply it in real life and don’t

According to the book, “Thinking Fast and Slow”, by Daniel Kaneman, there are two systems working in the brain, which are System 1 (fast thinking) and system 2 (slow thinking). System 1 is an automatic process, which processes in a short period of time and does not require a lot of effort or energy, such as solving easy mathematic calculation or doing easy non challenging stuffs (Kahneman 22). In contrast, System 2 is the slow controlled process, which requires a lot of effort, thinking, focus and attention. Some examples of system 2 are calculating complex equations, making serious decisions or filling out important forms (Kahneman 24). Understanding how our brain working in two systems is really useful in our lives. It can expand our opportunities and choices, by helping us find more logical and reasonable solutions to the problems or how we should react to the a certain situation. Also, we will be able to know our limitations of each system of processing, and make better decisions. For example, if you are working on a difficult essay that use system 2 of thinking, they would know that they need to be really focused, because it is the imitation of System 2. Therefore, understanding this concept, we will be more conscious and pay more attention to the tasks that requires system 2 thinking, the tasks will turn out well, and in the end, it will

In the perspective of buddhism, attention training is described in Buddhist term as calm-abiding or “shamatha” (Dorjee 49). It includes attention ability in shifting the attention to where we want to and staying focused with less distraction, as well as developing a nonjudgmental mind, acceptance, and compassionate. As for Western side, according to Jon Kabat-Zinn’s, the founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, the definition of mindfulness is, “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; On purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” On purpose in this case means what we should be aware of, in the present moment means we should be focused at what you are doing now, and nonjudgmentally means not judging if the event is good or bad. We just notice it, experience it and let go ("What Is Mindfulness?”). From here, we can see that both Buddhist and Western side have kind of a similar definition towards attention or mindfulness training. Most research has mainly focus on the benefits from practicing mindfulness and attention from meditation. The first common benefit is stress reduction. Stress is caused because when Amygdala, a part of the brain, triggers the flight or flight response of the nervous system. What being mindful training does is that it will calm our nervous system down from flight or flight