Professional & Spiritual Background

Clint Sidle is the former and founding director of the Roy H. Park Leadership Fellows Program at the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. His nationally recognized leadership programs focused on servant leadership and discovering one’s basic goodness as the basis for doing well by doing good in the world. He argues that leading from such a place is not only the pinnacle of the authentic self but also ensures personal effectiveness – what makes you happy also makes you successful. 

As a consultant, Clint has worked with Fortune 500 companies, state, and local educational systems, and some of the nation’s leading non-profits and universities. His efforts at SUNY, CUNY, Penn State, U. of Arizona among others including programs for department chairs, academic executives, and future presidents. For nearly a decade he also co-facilitated the Advanced Leadership Program, one of the flagship offerings of Academic Impressions, a major consulting firm in higher education.

Clint’s professional work was informed and shaped by his forty plus years as a practicing Buddhist. Beginning with his first teacher, Sri S. N. Goenka, he practiced seventeen years in the Hinayana tradition attending annual week-long Shamata Vipassana retreats, many of them at Insight Meditation Society. His teachers included Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzburg, and Anarika Munindra. He followed that with Shambhala Training, the Terma teachings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and a dathun in the same tradition. Since 1998 he has studied and practiced the Vajrayana with Tibetan Buddhist masters Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, Kenchen Palden Rinpoche, Khenpo Tsewang Rinpoche, and Tulku Sang-nyak Rinpoche, all within the Nyingma lineage. Over that time, he has spent one to two months per year in intensive meditation retreat. He was also on the Board and currently a faculty member at Namgyal Monastery, HH Dalai Lama’s only western monastery where he teaches Shamata Vipassana meditation.

As a long-term student of the Khenpos, he edited three of their books including commentaries on the Dudjom Tesar Ngondro by Dudjom Rinpoche entitled Illuminating the Path published by Padmasambhava Buddhist Center (2008); Supreme Wisdom, a commentary on seminal work Yeshe Lama by Jigme Lingpa published by Dharma Samudra (2016); and a commentary on The Flight of the Garuda by Shabkar Tsokdrug Rangdrol (yet to be titled and published). 

His own books include The Leadership Wheel: Five Steps for Achieving Personal and Organizational Greatness published by Palgrave Macmillan (2005) offers a view of leadership through the lens of the Tibetan Buddhist Mandala and Native American Medicine Wheel; This Hungry Spirit: Your Need for Basic Goodness by Larsen Publications (2011) advocates nurturing one’s basic goodness as a premise for both happiness and success; Empowered Leadership Development for Higher Education by Academic Impressions (2019) provides his leadership development methods, tools, and techniques for other consultants and educators. Finally, his latest book, Vipassana Meditation and Ayahuasca: Skillful Means for Spiritual Opening and Growth by Inner Traditions (2025) provides insight and advice on the skillful use of this plant medicine for spiritual opening and renewal along with an introduction to Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and Shamata Vipassana meditation as a sustainable path. Each of these is described more fully under the Books tab.  

Regarding Ayahuasca, one of the main topics of interest in his latest book, Clint first learned of this plant medicine while on a scouting trip for a leadership trek that he eventually led for Cornell alumni in Peru 2014. At the time, he was experiencing a spiritual malaise and thought it might help kick him out of the doldrums, so he decided to try it. His experience included 24 ceremonies over a three-year period with three different Curanderos (Maestro) including Ricardo Amaringo in Iquitos Peru, Alonso Del Rio in Pisac Peru, and Rafael Lopez Lobos, an apprentice of Ricardo now leading ceremonies at his center in Colorado.