mindful
leadership

Working with Maya was the perfect decision to help us with this work, and its such a rewarding partnership. She is a genius when it comes to pulling all the layers needed for Leadership in todays world. Layers such as mindfulness, resilience, intentional planning, self-awareness, empathy and the list goes on. As one of our participants recently said, “this is the real work” of leadership, and I couldn’t agree more.

I've had the privilege of working with Maya twice now, and taking part in workshops she's provided for peer support workers and managers at Tautoko Tāne | Male Survivors Aotearoa.

Maya has the ability to both support and gently challenge people to grow and heal. In her most recent workshop with us, she kept a group of nearly 30 mostly male survivors of sexual violence engaged and inspired for over three hours, through a conversational approach that deepened profoundly as the afternoon went on. She was well attuned to the group energy and adapted her plan in response in a seamlessly organic way.

I am particularly impressed with how she leads mindfulness practices in a trauma-informed way, making sure that people have choices as to how they can enter safely into self-reflection whilst in a large group. She also took the time to understand the intentions for the other workshops around hers and to liaise with presenters to make sure her content and approach complemented theirs without duplicating it.

If you are looking for new perspectives and to reconnect with your own inner wisdom and fortitude, I thoroughly recommend spending some time with Maya.

We have been working as a SLT with Maya since about 18 months now. We have been focussed on improving the way we work together as a team, getting to know each other better, be human and building trust, learning how have proper debates and really listening to each other's points of view, being committed, holding each other accountable and confronting difficult issues and focus together on outcomes (including celebrating these)!. Maya has been using a variety of tools with us and also uses mindfulness as a main technique (I have recently even taken on yoga and meditation as a result of working with Maya!).

Maya has a great way of moderating our sessions, she also provides individual coaching sessions to team members which are invaluable and knows how to get the best out of people. I am immensely grateful for the support Maya has provided to us and can't wait to start incorporating our managers in our learnings too. I highly recommend Maya as a leadership coach!

Maya is nothing short of phenomenally fantastic! We have worked with her a number of times at Lotto New Zealand head office and she delivers excellent seminars for our people including resilience, mindfulness, general wellness principles, leadership and beyond. Maya is an absolute breath of fresh air and has an energy that is second to none, Her sessions always result in a sense of calm, rejuvenation and motivation for our people. I could not recommend her services highly enough!

Maya has been our Senior Leadership Team Program Provider for the past two years. When I arrived in NESTLE New Zealand as a newly appointed CEO I needed to shift the old team dynamic and to integrate two new team players. We were also facing a lot of challenges on the regional level. I decided to apply some disruptive leadership and bring in the practice of Mindfulness to create a cohesive team. The practice of mindfulness helped us a lot, as we were dealing with huge challenges at the time. Very quickly it became natural and there was a recognition within the team that this is something we needed and were benefiting from on many levels.

As a result of Mindful leadership training and coaching the old dynamic has shifted and two new team players were integrated. As a team, we became more open, honest and accountable with one another and were more able to set our priorities and to deal with difficult questions, listen deeply and think clearly. The team became more accustomed to deep and honest reflection and able to share it with our employees. As the result of mindfulness training I have also noticed the individual team members changing patterns of behaviour; interestingly the most reluctant players seemed to receive the most benefit from the training and I noticed the whole team aligning and really taking the responsibility. I don’t see the disengaged passive attitude any more.

For the past four months, Maya has worked with our small team at Auckland City Council. As the Council was going through its transition process there was a great deal of stress, anxiety and uncertainty in and around our team. We embarked on a journey together to continue to maintain a sense of pride, camaraderie and show leadership despite the stresses around us. One of our strategies was to commit to a Mindfulness Programme run by Maya Nova of Mindbalance.

These sessions gave us a confident moment in time to relax into being ourselves, talk through some achievements and voice some frustrations. It made us more aware of our own feelings, sensitivities and enjoyments. Above all, it kept us engaged throughout a most unsettling time and added peace and understanding to us as a team and individually.

Maya has been invaluable to me on my leadership journey. She takes a holistic approach which is centred around integration of all aspects of the person not just the job. Nga mihi Maya, you reminded me of my pou.

"I am making a conscious effort to be mindful, step back, pause and also spend time on developing myself while I am on my own business development journey.

This was a great session with Maya Nova, lots of learnings on Mindful Leadership and some great tools and models. Both new ones and also refreshing and reinforcing some of the tools I already use in my Leadership Sessions. My three key takeaways...and I love great analogies and acronyms ..were...

1. S.TO.P - Stop, Take a Breath, Observe, Proceed
2. "Consuming" and "Creating" are like Oil and Water
3. The art of "Simplicity" is to push "Pause"

I especially loved the data backing up the session and the fabulous quotes, as well as the relaxed inclusive style Maya has in the classroom."

A great session ♡