Marc Lesser: At the Intersection of Spirituality & Business
From a Zen monastery to leadership consulting, Marc Lesser has led a fascinating professional journey. He has worn many hats: he went to business school, launched his own greeting card company, founded a leadership company inside of Google, and even ran the kitchen of a Zen monastery, which is where his Shared Leadership Journey began. Today, Marc is the CEO of ZBA Associates, a company that focuses on mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and culture change. We are proud to call him a key partner, an essential team member, and a long-time friend.
After concluding a decade of service at the San Francisco Zen Center, Marc began to feel a deep sense of both pain and possibility, which expanded his world to the power of shared leadership.
"My mission in life became creating access to life-changing spiritual and leadership practices for individuals and organizations, without sacrificing depth," says Marc.
Since then, Marc has worked with people from many walks of life, including CEOs, social entrepreneurs, and Google engineers—starting as the founder and CEO of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. He developed a series of insights in a book he wrote and published called "Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader."
The first two practices are:
"Love the work, and do the work," reflects Marc.
To be the best leader possible, people must dedicate themselves fully to whatever they are doing to have the most significant potential impact.
"It's important to make a deep commitment to self-awareness," says Marc. "Develop yourself and make an offering to the aspiration to heal and help."
Marc's time operating the greeting card company made him a professional quote collector, he jokes. However, the quotes that he slings during conversations are profound, forcing one to stop and reflect.
"The antidote to exhaustion isn't resting… the antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness", he says, channeling a David White quote. To Marc, humans can be split in several ways, chiefly by practicing doubt and cynicism—and wholeheartedness can break this cycle.
"Cynicism and doubt have their place, but there's something about wholehearted appreciation--- about living a life of healing and service," explains Marc. " Humans need to allow themselves to be broken-hearted, especially as there is so much suffering in the world. When you look at where we are, if your heart's not broken, you're not paying attention. Shared leadership is about creating a culture where people are excited about the possibilities within their culture and come to work in their wholeness, as their full selves, in grief and pain and joy and happiness."
Guiding principles like Wholeheartedness have helped Marc on his own Shared Leadership Journey. He seeks to develop cultures of transparency, empathy, and open communication within his teams and the leaders he supports. And he always finds himself coming back to wholehearted commitment when team dynamics are challenging or when he is not showing up the way he knows he wants to.
"Practice wholeheartedness," Marc reflects. "Be one with your hopes and dreams and relationships… one big human package."
If you and your team are ready to commit to a practice of Wholeheartedness— and other Guiding Principles of The Shared Leadership Framework™ including Sufficiency, Deep Listening & Speaking, Vulnerability, Sharing Power & becoming Equal Learning Partners — we’d love to connect with you. Designed to cultivate healthier relationships and become developmental learning organizations, The Shared Leadership Framework™ is comprised of a set of attitudes, premises, pillars, and principles that influence behaviors, actions, operations, policies, and systems. They can be practiced alone or together, at work and at home, across all sectors, to transform culture & systems. Anywhere a team functions, The Shared Leadership Framework™ can be practiced. Learn more here.