PROGRAM OVERVIEW:
A Deep Practice for Leaders Ready to Go Beyond Tactics
The Zen of Leadership Year-Long Program is an intimate, one-to-one mentorship for CEOs, senior leaders, and anyone ready to go genuinely deep — not just in their leadership, but in their life.
Over the course of a year, you will work directly with Marc Lesser — Zen teacher, former CEO, and one of the architects of Google’s Search Inside Yourself program — in a sustained, deepening inquiry into what it means to lead, live, and show up.
This is the work that group programs, leadership retreats, and short courses cannot do. It requires time, trust, and the kind of sustained attention that only comes from one person fully committed to another’s growth.
WHo is this for?
- CEOs, founders, and senior leaders navigating complexity or transition
- Executives seeking alignment between how they lead and who they want to be
- Leaders who have done trainings and retreats but still feel something essential remains untouched
- Practitioners ready for sustained inner work, regardless of title
- Individuals seeking depth, presence, and a more awake relationship with their life
What You’ll Work On & What You’ll Gain
By the end of the year, you will have something that no group program or short course can give you: a practice that is genuinely yours, a presence that has been tested and refined through sustained inquiry, and a relationship with a teacher and guide who has seen you clearly over time.
Inner Work
- A stable, personal meditation and mindfulness practice
- Clarity around values, purpose, and direction
- A deeper relationship with presence, not‑knowing, and beginner’s mind
- Awareness of limiting assumptions, fears, and habits
- Greater spaciousness in how you relate to time, pressure, and uncertainty
Leadership Outcomes
- A leadership presence grounded in authenticity rather than performance
- The ability to hold complexity and paradox with steadiness
- More courageous, clear decision‑making
- Integration of inner practice with outer leadership — vision, values, strategy
- A way of leading that is distinctly yours and sustainable beyond the year
Structure of the Year
A rolling, year-long program is built around regular one-to-one sessions with Marc, supplemented by readings, practice assignments, and reflection between sessions. The rhythm is tailored to your needs and schedule — typically twice monthly — with flexibility for more intensive periods when the work calls for it.
Each session draws on whatever is most alive for you: a leadership challenge, an organizational decision, a relationship under strain, a question arising from your practice, or a place where you feel stuck, called to grow, or simply curious. Marc brings the full range of his experience — as a Zen teacher, CEO, executive coach, and author — to meet you exactly where you are.
The program is not a fixed curriculum. It is a living inquiry, shaped by you and deepened over time.
The year tends to move through recognizable terrain over a simple arc:
Foundation
Establishing or deepening your practice. Examining assumptions. Beginning the shift from doing to being.
Depth
Exploring edges, patterns, and the deeper questions beneath your leadership challenges.
Integration
Bringing everything together into a way of leading and living that is grounded, authentic, and fully yours.
Sessions typically occur twice monthly, supported by readings, practices, and reflection between sessions. The rhythm adapts to your needs and the work as it unfolds.
Your Guide: Marc Lesser
Integrating Leadership, Presence, and Purpose
Marc Lesser is a rare kind of mentor—one who moves seamlessly between the worlds of business and inner life. A former CEO, longtime Zen teacher, executive coach, and pioneer in bringing mindfulness into the heart of leadership.
Marc Lesser is a Zen teacher, former CEO, executive coach, and author of five books. He helped develop Google’s Search Inside Yourself program and served as founding CEO of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. He spent ten years in residence at the San Francisco Zen Center and has spent three decades teaching, coaching, and leading at the intersection of mindfulness and leadership.
“I often say I’m part business coach, part Zen teacher, and part therapist. I care deeply about how we show up — and how we use our work as a place to grow and contribute.”
A Note from Marc
Working one-to-one with someone over a year is not something I take lightly.
I have spent thirty years at the intersection of Zen practice, business leadership, and human development. I have sat in the monastery and in the boardroom. I have founded companies and faced failure. I have coached leaders through their most difficult moments and their most significant transitions.
What I have learned is that the most important work is always the inner work — and that the inner work, done seriously, changes everything on the outside.
If you feel called to this, I hope you will reach out. I would love to meet you — and to find out together what this year might make possible.
Investment & Next Steps
This program is offered to a small number of participants each year on a rolling basis. Pricing is available upon inquiry.
The best place to begin is a single conversation — an opportunity to meet each other, explore where you are and where you want to go, and determine together whether this is the right fit and the right time.
Ready to Enroll
Click below to secure your spot. Registration and payment will be completed on the next page.