Diane Dreher quotes:

Regular meditation not only restores our inner harmony and vital energy, but provides us with an actual experience of the peace we seek.

As a good gardener prepares the soil, so a wise leader creates an environment that promotes community. ... community involves a common place, a common time, and a common purpose. Just getting people in the same place at the same time does not produce a team. Community requires a common vision.

Any group has a sense of who it is and what is values, but this sense often remains beneath the surface. A wise leader can discern these unspoken beliefs and articulate them.

A judgmental attitude helps neither ourselves nor others. Arguing or preaching rarely changes other people. Even if our opinions are justified, criticizing others usually makes them wary and defensive. And it takes our attention away from our own lives, which we can change.

To be at peace in any endeavour, we must release our need to control the outcome.

Gardening can become a spiritual exercise, teaching us discernment as we eliminate the weeds from our lives, giving what we value room to grow.

Wise leaders know that if an individual doesn't count, the institution doesn't count for much either. Put mathematically, if the individual is a zero, together a lot of zeros add up to a whole lot of nothing.

Remember the importance of small actions. They're the building blocks in the architecture of your life, the quiet victories you win for yourself each day.

When confronted by conflict and confusion, another practice is to take a deep breath, pause and ask: 'Where is the gift in this?

Micromanaging erodes people's confidence, making them overly dependennt on their leaders. Well-meaning leaders inadvertently sabotage their teams by rushing to the rescue and offering too much help. A leader needs to balance assistance with wu wei, backing off long enough to let people learn from their mistakes and develop competence.

Successful leaders develop effective strategies for maintaining their boundaries. ... Most time bandits don't know any better. And being a time bandit is a matter of context. One person's time bandit is another person's pleasant diversion. ... Instead of gritting our teeth to be polite and resenting the time bandit for holding us up, the best choice is to be honest. We cannot expect another person to honor our needs unless we affirm them ourselves.

Where another person sees problems, a leader sees possibilities. ... Leaders must have the courage to follow their vision, to believe in the invisible, to work for something that's still only a possibility, while others often wring their hands in despair.

In nature everything is valuable, everything has its place. The rose, the daisy, the lark, the squirrel, each is different but beautiful. Each has its own expression. Each flower its' own fragrance. Each bird its' own song. So you too have your own unique melody.

Leaders are not buffeted about by circumstance. They make what is into what might be, transforming challenging situations by means of courage and insight.

An effective leader is willing to think about what's happening and how to understand what's going on. Facilitating flow and making others more conscious of it, the leader communicates an awareness of process to the group, making them more aware of their energies and options. One important principle is to keep track of who has not spoken. ... It's also important to notice when people do speak out but are not heard. Effective leaders practice patience, reminding themselves to wait and observe, remembering that there's always more going on in a group than we're consciously aware of.

Our greatest natural resources are our hearts and minds, together with those of the people around us.