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Off The Mat, Into The Office: How A Regular Yoga Practice Transformed Eight Corporate Leaders And Their Leadership, Pamela Kay Smith

Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership Theses

We live in a time of constant change and challenging conditions for business leaders (Benson, 2005). Leaders must develop behaviors and skills to adapt and respond in healthy ways to stressful environments and ongoing change in order to lead others toward positive change effectively. This study examines how leaders in corporate America feel a regular Yoga practice has influenced their leadership, in essence taking Yoga "off the mat" and into the workplace. Heifetz's adaptive leadership theory was used to identify ways that leaders take Yoga off the mat and demonstrate adaptive leadership. The findings highlight that a regular Yoga practice …