Transcendental Meditation for Peak Performance in Management

Leadership, Peak Performance and Transcendental Meditation - new research

United Kingdom, July 2009 - Peak performers have significantly higher degrees of brain and psychological development than the average population, according to a new study of brain functioning and measures of psychological development.

Subjects in the study included world champion athletes, top-level managers, and leaders in a variety of fields, who were compared with average-performing control groups.

The study, entitled, Higher Development, Brain Integration, and Excellence in Leadership, was published in the recent issue of Management Decision [(2009, Volume: 47, Issue: 6)], a leading management journal published by UK based Emerald Group Publishing.

Management Decision is well established in its field with a 46 year history and presents high quality management research and provocative content highlighting current management practice.

The study was a collaboration between Oslo University College, the Norwegian School for Sport Sciences, and Norwegian Olympic Preparatory Centre, and Maharishi University of Management (MUM) in the USA.

In addition, the study found that the characteristics of brain integration and psychological development measured in peak performers could also be systematically developed through the practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique (TM.org). This confirms previous research that Transcendental Meditation develops what the psychologist Abraham Maslow described as self-actualisation.

Harald S. Harung, Ph.D., associate professor at Oslo University College, was the lead author of the article. There is a growing agreement among researchers that leadership development is, in essence, self-development. The primary dimension in developing leadership is to develop the personality, the consciousness of the potential leader, said Dr. Harung

Dr. Harung said the study also found that subjects who have been practicing the TM technique for less than seven years had a similar level of brain integration as peak performers, while the control group of meditators practicing the TM technique for at least 20 years had significantly higher measures than the world-class performers and leaders.

The qualities that we find in world-class performers are those that develop with the Transcendental Meditation, both individually and collectively, said Dr. Harung.

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