Skip to main content

From India to Leeds

His Holiness the Dalai Lama gives students the key to compassionate leadership.


Photo of students holding a CU Boulder flag and posing with the CU Boulder hand sign

 

Last spring, the Leeds Dalai Lama Fellows participated in a once-in-a-lifetime trip to India—facilitated by CU’s Renee Crown Wellness Institute—to learn about compassionate leadership with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

“I don’t really think I knew what compassion meant until these talks,” said Nikki Bechtold (Mktg’24), one of the attendees. “I took away that if I’m dealing with a conflict as a leader, I want to keep that mindset. Compassion is such an important thing that can often be overlooked in leadership. Because as the Dalai Lama mentioned, hierarchies can be really detrimental to compassion.”

Bringing the Program to Leeds

The trip attendees were part of Renee Crown Wellness Institute’s Dalai Lama Fellows (DLF) program, a one-year leadership program offered to Leeds students, who learn techniques for building compassion and strengthening empathy. Fellows implement their learnings through an applied project in their local communities.

In 2021, the Crown Institute at CU entered into a partnership with the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia to offer the Dalai Lama Fellows program, also present on the campus of Stanford University. Thanks to a donation from Paralel CEO and Leeds alumnus Jeremy May (Acctg’92), the program expanded in 2023 to include Leeds students for a three-year pilot.

“The Crown Institute has been delighted to partner with the Leeds School of Business because our shared work exemplifies how compassionate leadership can be woven into the fabric of business education, preparing students to navigate complex global challenges with care,” said Sona Dimidjian, director and founding faculty fellow of the institute. “Our hope is that the message from these conversations and the Dalai Lama Fellows program will ripple out across the world, generating compassionate action and a more caring and just future for our world.”

May, who serves on the Crown Institute advisory board, strives to integrate compassionate leadership into his own work. His personal connection to Leeds made it the logical choice for a pilot program.

“When the Dalai Lama Fellows got connected with Crown, we started talking about how we bring these types of practices into the business world,” he said. “It’s been something I’ve tried to do personally, and to bring these conversations into the Leeds school was a natural fit for me.”

Tandean Rustandy Endowed Dean Vijay Khatri stated that the program “can significantly contribute to advancing and embodying Leeds’ core values,” including social responsibility, global perspective and holistic student development.

Collage of images from India

Unforgettable Lessons

Even within the program’s scope, meeting the Dalai Lama was special. For the event, titled “Compassion in Action: A Conversation About Leadership With His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” fellows submitted questions for the Dalai Lama.

One student asked about maintaining compassion as a leader when feeling frustrated.

“If we were to keep the basic sense of affection that we received from our mother alive, there’d be no reason to quarrel with anyone,” the Dalai Lama responded. “However, instead of thinking about what we have in common with other people, we tend to focus on the differences between us.”

This insight resonated with Bechtold.

“If I can become a leader someday and a manager and all these things, I’ll remember how important being compassionate is,” she said. “In the society that we have right now, sometimes it can be hard to be compassionate in all circumstances.”

Khatri also attended the trip, calling the experience “transformational.”

“I am filled with inspiration and gratitude after witnessing young social innovators who are creatively addressing global challenges in ways that are tailored to their local communities, all the while fostering the well-being of our planet,” he said.

Khatri noted that trip attendees received instruction not only in compassion but also in interconnectedness and ethical leadership.

“By integrating these lessons, students can contribute to creating more compassionate, mindful and cohesive communities, both at Leeds and beyond,” Khatri said.

During their fellowship year, participants expand their empathy and self-awareness. Meghan Fall (Mktg’26), one of the 2023–24 fellows, runs Good Grief, a grief support group for students. Since visiting Dharamsala, she has been collaborating with Khatri and Birdie Reznicek, associate dean for culture and community, to establish a community grief group specifically for Leeds faculty, staff and students. Her DLF year allowed her to do “the internal work I needed to do the external work this year.”

“The fellowship itself was definitely a holistic experience for developing myself—my ability to have compassion with people and my ability to regulate myself in really hard emotional situations,” she said.

May called the DLF program’s teachings “the future of leadership” and stressed that the program’s impact will expand beyond the fellows themselves.

“This is an exponential thing,” he said. “When you can observe somebody applying these practices, then that’s the exponential impact we have here.”