Inner Leadership Coaching & Mentorship

What are your pain points?

Have you felt stuck or lost your creative edge? Are you sometimes reactive in ways that create unhelpful tension? Are you approaching burnout? Is there anything limiting you that you’d like to let go of? Are you seeking new insights and innovation?

Read about the primary ways mindfulness supports leadership and innovation in my Leader2Leader article.

INNER LEADERSHIP

What is Inner Leadership?

Inner Leadership blends self-awareness, social-emotional intelligence, personal growth, wellbeing, and mindfulness-based action. Inner leadership embodies a deeper understanding of and connection to self and others, enabling values-aligned decisions that drive inspiration, innovation, and impact.

What do I offer?

I guide executives and leaders in their inner development. Rather than focus exclusively on your unique business or management challenge, I go deeper to uncover, catalyze and release your deeper wisdom and capacities. I help you harness the skills necessary for inspired leadership, optimal decision-making, greater creativity, improved resilience, enhanced capacity for diffusing conflict, navigating change, more authentic relationships, and personal meaning.

How do I work?

I work through both short-term, high-intensity, inner work processes, as well as longer-term, custom engagements to support you in moving through personal pain points and recalibrating your leadership style. Depending upon your goals and challenges, we will customize your experience, drawing from a variety of evidence-based and ancient transformation technologies. My experiential methods, detailed below, include mindfulness and resilience practices, breathwork, nature-based engagements, and applied inner leadership skills.

Why does it matter?

I have experienced first-hand, and witnessed in countless others, the transformative impact of mindfulness and deep inner work. As a form of brain training, mindfulness practice builds self-awareness. Experiential inner work can shift what has historically limited us, unleashing new insights and capacities. As we transform what was once unconscious, we understand others with greater humility and compassion. The quality of our relationships improve, fostering trust and respect. We become more adept at setting aside ego and bias to listen. We are more open to diverse perspectives and compromise. Investment in wellbeing mitigates burn-out. Mindfulness encourages learning and curiosity, so that we make decisions with greater clarity. We may see more creative possibilities, fueling innovation. As we invest in our own inner work, we start to lead from within. We are driven by our passion and wisdom, we honor the unique contributions of others, and we can inspire those around us to pursue a common goal with meaning and impact.

Outcomes

Inner development is essential to leaders. I can help you refine these key leadership capacities

• greater presence & self-regulation

• improved wellbeing & reduced stress

• deeper capacity for connection and collaboration

• greater meaning & clarity

• renewed creativity

EXPERTISE

Gretchen’s Inner Leadership coaching is based on 20 years of demonstrated effectiveness working with change leaders globally.

Gretchen Ki Steidle is a serial social entrepreneur, author, speaker, Tuck MBA, former international finance professional, and has more than two decades experience as a breathwork practitioner and mindful leadership teacher. She is the founder of Circles for Conscious Change as well as Global Grassroots, a mindfulness-based social venture incubator for women leaders in East Africa. Since 2004, through her inner leadership training, Global Grassroots was able to support more than 900 change leaders launch 200 ventures, impacting more than 230,000 people. Partners, including the Coca-Cola Company, and independent impact evaluation determined that the mindful leadership work was instrumental to the systemic impact and long-term sustainability of Global Grassroots’ ventures, contributing to a 92% sustainability rate among its clean water infrastructure programs over 15 years.

Gretchen is author of Leading from Within: Conscious Social Change and Mindfulness for Social Innovation (2017 MIT Press). Gretchen is also a producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary film, The Devil Came on Horseback, and co-author of the memoir of the same name (2007 PublicAffairs). She holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a BA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia, where she attended as a Jefferson Scholar. She is a certified Integrative Breathwork Practitioner and a Level 4 certified Breath-Body-Mind Practitioner, which she has utilized for trauma-healing reaching more than 1000 people around the world, including in Haiti, Rwanda, US, and Uganda among natural disaster and violence survivors. She is a TEDx speaker and was host of the Synergos podcast series Cultivate the Soul: Stories of Purpose-Driven Philanthropy. Her core Conscious Social Change and Inner Leadership curriculum was also offered as an accredited graduate and undergraduate course at the University of Virginia for eight years. In 2007, Gretchen was honored by World Business Magazine and Shell as one of the top International 35 Women Under 35. In 2010 she was chosen as a CNN Hero working in Haiti after the earthquake. In 2011 she was chosen one of seven Remarkable Women of the World by New Hampshire Magazine. In 2018 she was named to Inc.’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers. She regularly lectures and offers workshops on mindfulness, leadership and innovation at conferences, wellness institutions, universities, and organizations globally, which have included the Skoll World Forum, Omega Institute, Wellbeing Project, Kripalu Institute, Opportunity Collaboration, and AshokaU Exchange.

TRANSFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES

What modalities are employed?

• Mindfulness Practices: Research is demonstrating that mindfulness practices, especially formal meditation, can change the structure and functioning of our brain over time, which in turn impacts the way we form relationships and solve problems. It also reduces anxiety and rumination, decreases depression, increases emotion regulation and fosters more positive emotions. Gretchen utilizes mindfulness practices for self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy and compassion, stress management, and personal growth and insight.

• Resilience Training: A proactive investment in wellbeing strategies allows leaders to inoculate against burnout and restore resilience, creativity, and meaning for self, teams, and the organization.

• Inner Leadership Skills: When leaders invest in self-awareness and integrate the tools of mindfulness into their relationships, they crack open deeper potential for innovation and longer-term sustainability. Applied mindfulness for inner leadership, also includes:

  • understanding change, resistance, fear, and other challenges from the inside out;

  • examining intentions, unconscious material, reactivity, and default leadership approaches;

  • deeper listening, diffusing conflict and tension;

  • inspiring positive transformation and activating self-sufficiency and insight in others; and

  • engaging mindfully for comprehensive problem diagnosis and solution co-creation.

• Nature-Based Engagements: Inviting a process of learning from the wisdom of the natural world, deepens our relationship with all that is seen and unseen around us, bringing deeper balance and clarity. Gretchen and her colleagues offer guided experiences in the beauty of Washington state’s Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas, across Puget Sound from Seattle.

• Breathwork: In her intensive depth coaching sessions, Gretchen utilizes conscious breathing and holotropic states of consciousness to promote physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual wellbeing towards greater self-realization. Breathwork allows clients to release emotional blockages, heal and integrate unconscious patterns and limiting beliefs, alleviate the impact of stress and trauma, and find deeper personal wisdom.

• Plant Medicine Ceremony: For established clients, Gretchen, an Oregon-licensed psilocybin-assisted therapy practitioner, organizes legal, safe, and sacred ceremonies where psychedelic plants, such as psilocybin mushrooms, are ingested with particular intention in the presence of skilled guides with the potential for deep emotional healing, and profound insights.

EVIDENCED-BASED IMPACT

Our unique approach is based in strong evidence of each modality’s efficacy as a transformation technology.

Mindfulness

A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of the Effects of Meditation on Empathy, Compassion, and Prosocial Behaviors. Luberto, C. M., Shinday, N., Song, R., Philpotts, L. L., Park, E. R., Fricchione, G. L., & Yeh, G. Y. 2018. Mindfulness, 9(3), 708–724. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0841-8 Increased attention has focused on methods to increase empathy, compassion, and pro-social behavior. This analysis of 26 studies explores the increases in prosocial behavior fostered by meditation.

More studies and articles on Mindfulness from our literacy review

Social-Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence. Salovey, P. and Mayer, J.D. 1990. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp.185-211. This article presents a framework for emotional intelligence, a set of skills hypothesized to contribute to the accurate appraisal and expression of emotion in oneself and in others, the effective regulation of emotion in self and others, and the use of feelings to motivate, plan, and achieve in one's life.

More studies and articles on Social-Emotional Intelligence from our literacy review

Wellbeing & Resilience

Wellbeing Inspires Welldoing: How Changemaker’s Inner Wellbeing Influences their Work. Severns & Murphy Johnson / The Wellbeing Project, 2020. The Project conducted a comprehensive multi-round, sector-level Delphi study over six months. The study was conducted with an international group of 300+ changemakers from 55 countries. After focusing on wellbeing, changes happened within individuals, their organizations and even across the sector. We found that wellbeing inspires welldoing.

More studies and articles on Wellbeing & Resilience from our literacy review

Breathwork

Breath Practices for Survivor and Caregiver Stress, Depression, and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: Connection, Co-regulation, Compassion. Patricia L. Gerbarg, Richard P. Brown, Chris C. Streeter, Martin Katzman, Monica Vermani. Open Access: OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine. July 2019, Volume 4, Issue 3, doi: 10.21926/obm.icm.1903045. Mind-body practices, such as Coherent or Resonant Breathing can balance, strengthen, and increase the adaptive flexibility of stress response systems, potentially counteracting the detrimental effects of excess stress, neglect, and trauma on emotion regulation, physical health, and the ability to experience love and compassion.

Measure of Significance of Holotropic Breathwork in the Development of Self-Awareness. Miller, T., & Nielsen, L. 2015. Journal of alternative and complementary medicine, 21(12), 796–803. https://doi.org/10.1089/acm.2014.0297. The theoretical conclusion is that HB can induce very beneficial temperament changes, which can have positive effects on development of character, measured as an increase in self-awareness.

More studies and articles on Breathwork

Nature

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Nature-Based Mindfulness: Effects of Moving Mindfulness Training into an Outdoor Natural Setting. Djernis, D., Lerstrup, I., Poulsen, D., Stigsdotter, U., Dahlgaard, J., & O'Toole, M. 2019. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(17), 3202. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16173202. Research has proven that both mindfulness training and exposure to nature have positive health effects.

Shinrin-Yoku (Forest Bathing) and Nature Therapy: A State-of-the-Art Review. Hansen, M. M., Jones, R., & Tocchini, K. 2017. International journal of environmental research and public health, 14(8), 851. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14080851. Nature therapy as a health-promotion method and potential universal health model is implicated for the reduction of reported modern-day “stress-state” and “technostress.”.

Is There an Ecological Unconscious? Daniel B. Smith. Jan. 27, 2010. New York Times Magazine. There are numerous psychological subfields that, to one degree or another, look at the interplay between human beings and their natural environment. But ecopsychology embraces a more revolutionary paradigm: just as Freud believed that neuroses were the consequences of dismissing our deep-rooted sexual and aggressive instincts, ecopsychologists believe that grief, despair and anxiety are the consequences of dismissing equally deep-rooted ecological instincts.

Plant Medicine

The Meaning-Enhancing Properties of Psychedelics and Their Mediator Role in Psychedelic Therapy, Spirituality, and Creativity. Hartogsohn, Ido. 2018. Frontiers in Neuroscience, Vol 12. doi=10.3389/fnins.2018.00129. This paper examines the existing evidence for the meaning-enhancing properties of psychedelics, and argues that the tendency of these agents to enhance the perception of significance offers valuable clues to explaining their reported ability to stimulate a variety of therapeutic processes, enhance creativity, and instigate mystical-type experiences.

Psychedelics as potential catalysts of scientific creativity and insight. Gandy S, Bonnelle V, Jacobs E, Luke D. 2022; 8. Drug Science, Policy and Law. doi:10.1177/20503245221097649. The psychedelic state may have its own characteristic features making it amenable to creativity enhancement, such as brain hyperconnectivity, meta-cognitive awareness, access to a more dependable and sustained altered state experience, and potential for eliciting sustained shifts in trait openness.

Ego-Dissolution and Psychedelics: Validation of the Ego-Dissolution Inventory (EDI) Nour MM, Evans L, Nutt D and Carhart-Harris RL. 2016. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 10:269. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00269. Our results demonstrate the psychometric structure, internal consistency and construct validity of the EDI. Moreover, we demonstrate the close relationship between ego-dissolution and the psychedelic experience.

Psychedelics and connectedness. Carhart-Harris, Robin & Erritzoe, David & Haijen, Eline & Kaelen, Mendel & Watts, R.. (2017). Psychopharmacology. 235. 10.1007/s00213-017-4701-y. Psychedelic drugs are creating ripples in psychiatry as evidence accumulates of their therapeutic potential. An important question remains unresolved however: how are psychedelics effective? We propose that a sense of connectedness is key, provide some preliminary evidence to support this, and suggest a roadmap for testing it further.