Compassionate Leadership Teacher Training

Applications Now Open

Opening Retreat May 6-9, 2025

Are you feeling the call to lead with heart and humanity during these unprecedented times? What will it take to reimagine outdated, unsustainable systems that are breaking apart right in front of us?

If you are passionate and ready to lead this movement, join us for Compassionate Leadership Teacher Training. Learn the evidence-based tools, practices, and principles that will equip you to train and inspire leaders and changemakers to create lasting shifts. It’s time to bring our innate wisdom and the power of compassion to the forefront of leadership so that individuals, organizations, and systems can thrive.

What You’ll Experience

• A powerful learning journey to deepen your understanding of the science of compassion, proven leadership development practices, and the integration of the two to create more effective teams and work environments.

• A supportive and engaged community of fellow compassionate leaders bringing change to organizations, promoting employee flourishing and creating a better world.

• A concrete framework for architecting cultural change to shape the roles, routines, culture and networks of a given context to create a more successful organization.

• Practices to deepen personal compassion and leadership capacities – both for yourself and those you teach and lead.

• A foundation of self-compassion to lead yourself and others with greater ease and authenticity.

What You’ll Learn

• How to facilitate the Compassionate Leadership Certification Training 8-week program, a 12-hour, research-based training shown to grow self-compassion, compassion for others, compassion at work, and compassion for the greater good

• A deep dive into a compassionate and human-centered approach to creating positive change in organizational contexts. You will learn to embody and teach deeper awareness and compassion and apply it at an individual and organizational level. This includes skills for creating psychological safety, fostering compassionate communication, building environments of deep belonging, and strategies for changing systems for the benefit of all

• How to respond to real world obstacles and challenges that keep individuals and organizations stuck in outmoded forms of leadership. Learn how to build a compelling case to inspire leaders and organizations to adopt compassionate principles and practices in alignment with the organization’s mission.

• Grounding in the fundamentals of scientific research relevant to compassionate leadership, including psychology, neuroscience, and organizational behavior

• Research-based structures & approaches to creating cultures that are both compassionate and effective

• How to create environments of safety, connection, and belonging in your courses and in leadership

• Tools and practices for leading compassionately that you can teach others and use in your own life

Is Our Compassionate Leadership Teacher Training Right For You?

You yearn to have more impact as a champion of compassion that sparks lasting and meaningful change. You are deeply moved to bring solutions in response to widespread suffering and to remove the systemic causes of the suffering all around us. You know in your heart that compassion is the means to lead humanity forward from a world of competition and conflict to one of understanding, cooperation, equity, and justice.

This Compassionate Leadership Teacher Training is for organizational learning and development and human resources professionals, leadership consultants and coaches, as well as leaders who want to create thriving organizations characterized by safety, connection, and belonging. You will be empowered with research-backed principals, tools, skills, expert resources, and community to confidently foster transformation in whatever organizational context you choose to support.

Proven Results Backed by Research

In the Compassionate Leadership Teacher Training, you will learn to share the specific curriculum that 90% of alumni said that they would recommend to their friends and colleagues. Over 70% of alumni interviewed said that they had seen changes in their organization as a result of this compassionate leadership training.

In 2023, the Center for Compassionate Leadership completed an 18 month longitudinal study of the 8-week curriculum by world-class educational evaluators at Claremont Graduate University. They found that participants showed statistically significant increases in:

• Self-compassion

• Compassion for others

• Compassion at work

• Resilience

In addition, research insights uncovered both facilitators of and barriers to organizational compassion. How and where can leaders create impact and lasting change? What are the principles, practices and tools that support shifts in organizational culture and leadership? As part of the Compassionate Leadership Teacher Training cohort, you’ll learn how to successfully apply these important new insights and data to transform organizational and leadership settings.

Program Description

Compassionate Leadership Teacher Training is approximately 8 months in duration, consisting of two phases: Learning & Practice, and the Teaching Practicum.

Learning & Practice Phase (5 months)

• The 3-day, in-person Opening Retreat in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, May 6-9, 2025

  • The beautiful Emory University Conference Center Hotel hosts this powerful kick-off gathering of community, faculty, and mentors to catalyze our teacher training journey

• 5 months of live online training sessions, including sixteen 2-hour classes consisting of

  • 9 full cohort sessions to explore concepts and practices through experiential exercises, lecture, group discussion, and small breakouts

  • 7 teaching pod small group sessions to practice teaching and give and receive feedback

• Membership in a close-knit, supportive community of peers on this journey to bring more compassion into leadership

• Readings and videos to build your familiarity with evidence-based concepts and research

• Special live guest faculty bonus sessions, including Q&A

• Fieldwork assignments with tools to practice compassionate leadership principles in your personal and professional life

• Daily contemplative practices to deepen your embodiment of awareness and compassionate leadership

Teaching Practicum Phase (3 months)

• Teach a full Compassionate Leadership 12-hour training practicum with an audience of your choice

• Coaching and supervision from teacher training faculty and mentors to strengthen and sharpen your teaching skills

• Certification conferred upon successful completion of the Practicum Phase

Extensive Resources and Support

• Access to validated curriculum and presentation materials

• Teacher Facilitation Guide

• Monthly teacher meetings after the Learning and Practice Phase

• Marketing materials and email templates

• Pre- and post-program survey instrument

• Library of practices, including audio recordings and transcripts

• Research bibliographies

• Video library of prior public cohorts taught by Lead Faculty

Teacher Training Lead Faculty

Laura Berland

Laura Berland, Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Compassionate Leadership, serves as Lead Faculty for the Center’s public certification programs, customized training for organizations, and Compassionate Leadership Teacher Training. At the Center for Compassionate Leadership, she has developed a new model for these turbulent times that melds evidence-based principles of modern leadership and the latest scientific research with the wisdom of contemplative practices. Laura has trained over 500 leaders from 44 countries in the Center’s flagship Compassionate Leadership Certification Program.

She has been a weaver of transformative organizations and experiences, as a serial media and tech entrepreneur, Fortune 500 executive, transformational facilitator, nonprofit board member, meditation educator, yoga therapist, and executive advisor. She is an E-RYT500 (accredited educator) from Yoga Alliance, and C-IAYT (certified yoga therapist) from International Association of Yoga Therapists. Laura is an alumna of Cornell University and New York University.

Evan Harrel

Evan Harrel, co-founder of the Center for Compassionate Leadership, serves as Faculty Director and Curriculum Development Lead for the Center’s public certification programs, customized training for organizations, and Compassionate Leadership Teacher Training. He directs the Center’s thought leadership efforts and the integration of scientific and business research into the work of the Center.

Previously, he worked for fifteen years in the nonprofit field, including as an executive director and as a consultant and board member to several nonprofits. Evan has taught about compassion to both nonprofit organizations and for-profit corporate boards.

Prior to beginning work in the nonprofit sector, Evan was an investment manager for over twenty years where he managed a thirty-billion-dollar equity mutual fund. He was awarded a Master of Business Administration degree, with distinction, from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, from Princeton University.

Burrell Poe

Burrell Poe serves as Lead Faculty for our eight-week Compassionate Leadership Certification Trainings as well as for Compassionate Leadership Teacher Training. He is the Director of the Goldin Institute’s Chicago Peace Fellows program where he brings people together as a community of practice, learning and working together to promote peace at a grassroots level. He has been actively involved in his community on the West Side of Chicago since he was 10 years old. 

Burrell is a US Army veteran and has extensive experience as a nonviolence trainer, community organizer, and workshop facilitator. He is passionate about creating social and environmental justice throughout the world and has strengthened peacebuilding, compassion, and reconciliation from Chicago to Colombia and Uganda. He has been a certified Compassion Cultivation Training Instructor since 2015, and has worked with Compassion It, the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago, and the Mikva Challenge in his devotion to creating a more compassionate world. Burrell embodies his environmental justice care through his commitment to biking, gardening, and composting.

Monica C. Worline, PhD

Monica C. Worline, PhD, serves as Lead Faculty for Compassionate Leadership Teacher Training. She is one of the leading voices bringing compassionate practices into organizations, having co-authored the foundational book Awakening Compassion at Work: The Quiet Power that Elevates People and Organizations. Monica is the Faculty Director of the Center for Positive Organizations, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. She is the founder and CEO of EnlivenWork, an organization that partners with thought leaders in the field to help organizations tap into courageous thinking, compassionate leadership, and the curiosity to bring their best work to life. She is also a collaborating research scientist at Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education and Executive Director of CompassionLab, the world’s leading research collaboratory focused on compassion in the workplace.

Founding Faculty

Peter Bonanno, Ed.M.

Peter Bonanno, Ed.M. is a founding faculty member of the Center for Compassionate Leadership's Teacher Training program, advising on curriculum and teacher training. For the past 15 years he has designed training programs in the areas of mindfulness, emotional intelligence, compassion, and leadership, and then has grown these programs to reach large numbers of participants. Peter has designed and taught mindfulness programs around the world for diverse organizations, including the United Nations, Google, US Navy, American Red Cross, the Government of Dubai, Cleveland Clinic, and Stanford University.

Peter has also served as a founding team member of the nonprofit Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. In his role as Director of Program Development, he designed and taught a train-the-trainer program that built a global network of over 800 certified trainers, reaching over 100,000 participants.

He is a founding team member and founding faculty member of Humanize, which offers an innovative online peer-to-peer “daily Dyad” practice to help people reconnect with themselves, others, and humanity.

Peter is currently writing Start Here: A Field Guide to Your Inner Life, a visual introduction to contemplative practices. Peter holds an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and a Master’s degree in Education from Harvard University.

Mentor Faculty

Louise Chester

Louise Chester’s decades of business and contemplative experience have been brought together in the creation of programs that have benefited individuals, organizations, and the greater good worldwide. Following a distinguished and recognized career in finance in the City, she founded Witherdens Hall Organic Retreat in 2005 and Mindfulness at Work in 2010 with the express mission of bringing mindful compassion and purpose to the corporate world. Her evidence-based ‘Inner Game’ training enables others to create value and thrive in the workplace and in all areas of their life.

Louise has shared her wellbeing, purpose, and culture change programs to over 250 organizations and over 150,000 people in the corporate and nonprofit worlds including Cisco, Citigroup, and Unilever. She also supports C-suite leaders in 1:1 coaching relationships. She is a certified Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) teacher, and co-developed a program to bring this work into the UK NHS.

Louise completed a Masters Degree from Edinburgh University, and has written extensively on leadership. She co-authored the regularly cited article, “Power Can Corrupt Leaders. Compassion Can Save Them.” in the Harvard Business Review, and was a contributor to The Mind of a Leader, Wise Compassion, and Conscious Capitalism – the Workbook.

Daniel Stane

Daniel Stane is a leading international facilitator, coach, consultant, and speaker whose practice guides leaders to create a more human, compassionate, inclusive and future-fit approach to business and leadership. He is the founding director of UK based specialist consultancy Inclusion Partners. 

Daniel draws on his committed mindfulness practice and his decades of business leadership experience in his approach to leadership development which includes the integration of mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and potential-oriented psychology. Daniel has consulted and offered keynote presentations to thousands of leaders from FTSE250 / Fortune 500 companies from a diverse range of sectors including consumer goods, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, technology and finance. 

Daniel is fluent in several European languages including English, French, and Czech, and has worked in over thirty countries across the globe, which provide a foundation for his strong ability to connect well in a diverse range of national and cultural contexts. He has written extensively on leadership, team performance, innovation and inclusion. Daniel is also a certified compassionate leadership, mindfulness, inclusion, and emotional intelligence coach and facilitator, and he holds a BA(hons) in International Business, and a DipM in Strategic Marketing. He is also a visiting lecturer at London Business School.

Compassionate Leadership Certified Teachers Network

Upon certification, you’ll officially join the Compassionate Leadership Certified Teacher Network

• Name, bio, and contact information listed on CFCL Website

• Quarterly meetings for teaching support, continued mentorship, and peer inspiration.

• Private Compassionate Leadership Certified Teacher online community

• Use of Compassionate Leadership program slides and resources for teaching your courses, subject to CFCL guidelines for materials usage

• Use of CFCL pre- and post-program surveys to report effectiveness to clients

• Certificates of Completion granted through the Center for Compassionate Leadership for participants in your training programs

• Ongoing support from CFCL faculty and mentors for questions on programs and teaching

• Opportunity for collaborative research within your organization or sector

• Your program participants become eligible to join the Center for Compassionate Leadership Alumni network (monthly live online gatherings, private LinkedIn group)

Ongoing requirements

• Annual certification fee of $500 after the first year to keep your certification active

• Reporting to CFCL on training delivery, including results of CFCL program evaluation

• Agreement to materials usage and rights terms

Admission Requirements

Required:

• Experience leading, teaching, or facilitating groups

• Deep commitment to building a better world through compassionate leadership

• Prior completion of a Compassionate Leadership Certification Training or immersion program

• Regular personal contemplative practice

• Lived experience working in an organizational setting as a leader or contributor

Valued Experience (not required):

• Previous training in compassion practices from courses or retreats (e.g. CCT, MSC, CBCT, meditation training and retreats)

• Certification as a teacher/facilitator in other leadership and/or awareness-based programs (e.g. SIY, MBSR, CCT, MSC, CBCT)

• Coaching certification (e.g. ICF, EMCC)

Certification Requirements

• Attendance at all Learning & Practice Phase sessions. Compassionate Leadership Teacher Training participants may miss up to three live modules and still meet the attendance requirement by completing make-up work.

• Demonstration of readiness in all areas of the Compassionate Leadership Teacher Competency Model:

  • Conceptual Clarity

  • Helping Participants Apply Learning

  • Leading Exercises and Meditations

  • Creating a Container of Connection

  • Embodying Connection and Compassion

• Completion of Practicum Phase, including teaching a full 12-hour course and attendance at mentoring sessions.

Investment

Total tuition for the program is $4,750. Applications submitted before February 28, 2025 receive a $750 early bird discount. Tuition covers the entire Compassionate Leadership Teacher Training program, beginning with the 3-day in-person Opening Retreat, 5-month Learning & Practice Phase with your practice teaching pod, and the 3-month Practicum Phase with guidance, supervision and coaching. Tuition also includes access to all curriculum materials, presentations, practices, marketing materials and email templates, research, and bibliographies.

Program participants will be responsible for the room and board charges of the 3-day Opening Retreat. These fees total $1,200 for single occupancy, $1,025 for double occupancy, and $650 for commuters.

A non-refundable deposit of $500 is due upon acceptance into the program to reserve your place. Payment of the balance is due thirty days after acceptance. Payment plans are available if needed.

Scholarships

A limited number of partial scholarships are available for qualified applicants in need of financial support to bring compassionate leadership where it is so needed in the world. For information on how to apply please contact Abri Holden at cfclteachertraining@gmail.com.

Still Have Questions?

If you’d like more information or have additional questions, please contact Abri Holden at cfclteachertraining@gmail.com.

Would you like to schedule a 20-minute conversation with Laura Berland or Evan Harrel, co-founders of the Center for Compassionate Leadership to discuss your interest in the program and whether it’s a good fit for you? Click here to schedule.