Silent Leaders

Hardcover Edition • 127 Pages

Many leaders assume that chronic stress is unavoidable, a price that we must pay in a global economy. Silent Leaders challenges this myth, exploring how we might use the relentless pace of our lives as motivation to find greater inner clarity and a deeper calm within. By so doing, we more consistently access creativity and innovation, hone our capacity for vision, increase emotional and intuitive intelligence, and deepen our character. We donate 10% of all profit from printed books towards planting trees. 

Introduction to Silent Leaders

We are living through a complicated, dynamic and unstable time in history. Chronic stress is the baseline state for most. Our relationship to time is fundamentally out of balance. As opposed to nourishing and sustaining us, our cultural values breed anxiety, discontent, and restlessness. Leaders are stretched to the limit, reflected in exhaustion, burn-out, and in the near impossible dilemma of balancing work and home. Many of our organizations are built on pillars not built to last. 

We need leaders in every sector of our society who have the emotional courage and inner clarity to look unflinchingly at the reality of their own lives, and from this placeexamine the institutions that they serve, accessing a vision that rebalances and revitalizes, and that is sustainable over time. 

Change does not begin with external structures but is initiated from within—our inner world is the source of innovation and leadership. If we wish for our organizations to grow, we must evolve as leaders. This requires the strength to deepen self awareness, finding greater balance and vitality in our own lives. 

I wrote this book through the methodology that I unfold in this text. I did not plan, strategize or create an outline. Instead, each time that I sat down to write, I dropped into meditation and silence, accessing a quiet voice within. 

This narrative, in and of itself, is a meditation, a spiral of sorts, turning in on itself, returning to themes, and then moving back out to reveal another layer. It has been an honor to write.

— Jan Birchfield