The Tao of Leadership 

Polarities 

• All behavior consists of opposites or polarities. If I do anything more and more, over and over, its polarity will appear.
• Knowing how polarities work, the wise leader does not push to make things happen, but allows the process to unfold on its own. The leader teaches by example rather than by lecturing others on how they ought to be. The leader knows that constant interventions will block the group’s process. The leader does not insist that things come out a certain way.

Being Open/ Yin

• The wise leader pays respectful attention to all behavior. Thus the group becomes open to more and more possibilities of behavior. People learn a great deal when they are open to everything and not just figuring out what pleases the teacher. The leader shows that style is no substitute for substance, that knowing certain facts is not more powerful than simple wisdom, that creating an impression is not more potent than acting from one’s center.
• Being open and receptive is called Yin, the feminine, or the valley.
• Imagine that there is a pond in this valley. When no fears or desires stir the surface of the pond, the water forms a perfect mirror. In this mirror, you can see the reflection of Tao. You can see God and you can see creation. Go into the valley, be still, and watch the pond. Go as often as you wish. Your silence will grow. The pond will never run dry. The valley, the pond, and Tao are all within you.

Enlightened leadership is service, not selfishness. The leader grows more and lasts longer by placing the well-being of all above the well-being of self alone. Paradox: By being selfless, the leader enhances self.

Timing

• From watching the movements of water, the leader has learned that in action, timing is everything. When the student is ready the teacher appears. Become more patient and be aware of the timing of the situation.. Use those key moments as leverage points

The wise leader settles for good work and then lets others have the floor. The leader does not take all the credit for what happens and has no need for fame. A moderate ego demonstrates wisdom.

Can you breathe freely and remain relaxed even in the presence of passionate fears and desires?

Can you know what is emerging, yet keep your peace while others discover for themselves?

You can do this if you remain unbiased, clear, and down-to-earth.

The Group Field Pay attention to silence 

• What is happening when nothing is happening in a group? That is the group field.
• Thirteen people sit in a circle, but it is the climate or the spirit in the center of the circle, where nothing is happening, that determines the nature of the group field. Learn to see emptiness. The silences and empty spaces, on the other hand, reveal the group’s essential mood, the context for everything that happens. That is the group field.

Reflection/ Turn Inward  

• Do not substitute sensationalism for learning. Allow regular time for silent reflection. Turn inward and digest what has happened. Let the senses rest and grow still. Teach people to let go of their superficial mental chatter and obsessions. Teach people to pay attention to the whole body’s reaction to a situation. *In order to do this you need to be still, unlearn what you’ve learned and fully attuned to your inner feelings. 
• When group members have time to reflect, they can see more clearly what is essential in themselves and others.

If you measure success in terms of praise and criticism, your anxiety will be endless.

Seeing

• When you cannot see what is happening in a group, do not stare harder. Relax and look gently with your inner eye. When you do not understand what a person is saying, do not grasp for every word. Give up your efforts. Become silent inside and listen with your deepest self.
• When a person is calm, complex events appear simple.
• To know what is happening, push less, open out and be aware. See without staring.
• Use intuition and reflection rather than trying to figure things out. *Intuition is not instincts though which come wired in you. Intuition needs to be developed and refined over time, hence a new leader wouldn’t necessarily have the ability to get to this place of intuition being able to figure things out. 

They could clarify events for others, because they had done it for themselves. They could speak to the depths of another person, because they had known their own deeper conflicts and blocks. Because they had given up selfishness, they could enhance others. They were not trying to become enlightened, because they were enlightened. *the leader had to put in the work, once they’ve achieved mastery the come back to being a “beginner” 

To become more profound, give up your selfishness. Let go of your efforts to be perfect or rich or secure or admired. Such efforts only limit you. They block your universality. Letting go is like dying. Everything emerges, becomes formed, and dies. You, too. When you die, you give up selfishness. You become one with everything else.

What if you approach everything with love? It seems like the main desires of people such as money and success come when you have compassion and treat people with love. Know the why and do it over the long term. 

The wise leader does not intervene unnecessarily

• The leader’s presence is felt, but often the group runs itself.
• Remember that you are facilitating another person’s process. It is not your process. Do not intrude. Do not control. Do not force your own needs and insights into the foreground.
• If you do not trust a person’s process, that person will not trust you.
• Facilitate what is happening rather than what you think ought to be happening. If you must take the lead, lead so that the mother is helped, yet still free and in charge.

Do not lose sight of the single principle: how everything works.

• No teacher can make you be happy, prosperous, healthy, or powerful. No rules or techniques can enforce these qualities. If you wish to improve yourself, try silence or some other cleansing discipline that will gradually show you your true selfless self.
• Most people are plagued by endless needs, but the wise leader is content with relatively little. Most people lead busy lives, but the wise leader is quiet and reflective. Most people seek stimulation and novelty, but the wise leader prefers what is common and natural. Being content permits simplicity in life. What is common is universal. What is natural is close to the source of creation. This is traditional wisdom

All power and effectiveness come from following the law of creation. There is no substitute for knowing how things happen and for acting accordingly. Everything, like it or not, is bound by this principle. The principle is like the blueprint for everything. All power derives from conscious or unconscious cooperation with the principle.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. 

When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need. 

These are feminine or Yin paradoxes: 

By yielding, I endure. The empty space is filled. 

When I give of myself, I become more. 

When I feel most destroyed, I am about to grow. 

When I desire nothing, a great deal comes to me.

My best work is done when I forget my own point of view; the less I make of myself, the more I am.

This is the wisdom of the feminine: let go in order to achieve. The wise leader demonstrates this.

Be still. Follow your inner wisdom. In order to know your inner wisdom, you have to be still.

The leader who knows how to be still and feel deeply will probably be effective. But the leader who chatters and boasts and tries to impress the group has no center and carries little weight.

Remember that the method is awareness-of-process. Reflect. Be still. What do you deeply feel?

Take It Easy Trying too hard produces unexpected results: The flashy leader lacks stability. Trying to rush matters gets you nowhere. Trying to appear brilliant is not enlightened.

Consider: When you think that you are so good, what are you comparing yourself with? God? Or your own insecurities?

The clearest, most helpful word I know to use for Tao is How, because Tao is the principle of how everything works. Remember that while it has no form or qualities, it is everywhere, all the time, forever. Imagine four levels of infinity: people are infinite in a sense; the earth is infinite; the cosmos is infinite; Tao is infinite. Although each of these four may be infinite in a way, the first three are subject to the next greater one. People are dependent on the earth. The earth is dependent on the cosmos. The cosmos is dependent on Tao. But Tao is not dependent on anything.

Being Centered 

• The leader who is centered and grounded can work with erratic people and critical group situations without harm. Being centered means having the ability to recover one’s balance, even in the midst of action. A centered person is not subject to passing whims or sudden excitements.
• The leader’s personal state of consciousness creates a climate of openness. Center and ground give the leader stability, flexibility, and endurance. Because the leader sees clearly, the leader can shed light on others.
• The group members need the leader for guidance and facilitation. The leader needs people to work with, people to serve. If both do not recognize the mutual need to love and respect one another, each misses the point.

A Warrior, a Healer, and Tao 

• The leader can act as a warrior or as a healer. As a warrior, the leader acts with power and decision. That is the Yang or masculine aspect of leadership. Most of the time, however, the leader acts as a healer and is in an open, receptive, and nourishing state. That is the feminine or Yin aspect of leadership. This mixture of doing and being, of warrior and healer, is both productive and potent. There is a third aspect of leadership: Tao. Periodically, the leader withdraws from the group and returns to silence, returning to God. Being, doing, being… then, Tao. I withdraw in order to empty myself of what has happened, to replenish my spirit. A brilliant warrior does not make every possible brilliant intervention. A knowing healer takes time to nourish self as well as others. Such simplicity and economy is a valuable lesson. It deeply affects the group. The leader who knows when to listen, when to act, and when to withdraw can work effectively with nearly anyone, even with other professionals, group leaders, or therapists, perhaps the most difficult and sophisticated group members. Because the leader is clear, the work is delicate and does not violate anybody’s sensibilities.
• Leaders who push think that they are facilitating process, when in fact they are blocking process.
• The wise leader stays centered and grounded and uses the least force required to act effectively. The leader avoids egocentricity and emphasizes being rather than doing.

As a rule, the leader feels more wholesome when the group process is flowing freely and unfolding naturally, when delicate facilitations far outnumber harsh interventions. Harsh interventions are a warning that the leader may be uncentered or have an emotional attachment to whatever is happening. A special awareness is called for.

Making people do what you think they ought to do does not lead toward clarity and consciousness. While they may do what you tell them to do at the time, they will cringe inwardly, grow confused, and plot revenge. That is why your victory is actually a failure.

But too much theoretical talk distracts the group from what is happening, from the process itself. Talking about process is one way to block process and lower the energy of the group field.

When that happens, the wise leader returns once again to an awareness of what is happening and to the single principle that lies behind what is happening. In the long run, focusing on this single principle is the most potent aspect of leadership. From this unity, we learn how things happen.

To know how other people behave takes intelligence, but to know myself takes wisdom. To manage other people’s lives takes strength, but to manage my own life takes true power.

Learn to see things backwards, inside out, and upside down

• It puzzles people at first, to see how little the able leader actually does, and yet how much gets done. But the leader knows that is how things work. After all, Tao does nothing at all, yet everything gets done. When the leader gets too busy, the time has come to return to selfless silence. Selflessness gives one center. Center creates order. When there is order, there is little to do.
• Potent leadership is a matter of being aware of what is happening in the group and acting accordingly. Specific actions are less important than the leader’s clarity or consciousness. That is why there are no exercises or formulas to ensure successful leadership. Potency cannot be calculated or manipulated, nor is it a matter of trying to look good.
• Leaders who lose touch with what is happening cannot act spontaneously, so they try to do what they think is right. If that fails, they often try coercion. But the wise leader who loses the sense of immediacy becomes quiet and lets all effort go until a sense of clarity and consciousness returns.

Can you tell the difference between what is happening and how it happens? Can you sense how what is happening arises out of how it happens? Process… and principle.

The Creative Process 

• The principle is not a thing. Call it zero. The principle in action is the unity of creation. This unity is a single whole. Call it one. Creation consists of pairs of opposites or polarities. Call these polarities or pairs two’s. These polarities become creative when they interact. Their interaction is the third element. Call it three. For example, a man and a woman are two. Their interaction, or intercourse, the third element, makes babies. That is creative. That is how all creativity occurs. The wise leader knows about pairs of opposites and their interactions. The leader knows how to be creative. In order to lead, the leader learns how to follow. In order to prosper, the leader learns to live simply. In both cases, it is the interaction that is creative. Leading without following is sterile. Trying to become rich by accumulating more and more is a full-time career and not free at all. Being one-sided always produces unexpected and paradoxical results. Being well-defended will not protect you; it will diminish your life and eventually kill you. Exceptions to these examples of traditional wisdom are very hard to find.

Gentle interventions, if they are clear, overcome rigid resistances. If gentleness fails, try yielding or stepping back altogether. When the leader yields, resistances relax.

Few leaders realize how much how little will do.

Less is more

• There is a problem with owning a lot. There is a problem with getting more and more. The more you have and the more you get, the more you have to look after. The more you might lose. Is that owning or being owned? But if you give up things, you can give up spending your life looking after things.
• The wise leader knows that it is far more important to be content with what is actually happening than to get upset over what might be happening but isn’t.

The wise leader knows what is happening in a group by being aware of what is happening here and now. This is more potent than wandering off into various theories or making complex interpretations of the situation at hand.

Stillness, clarity, and consciousness are more immediate than any number of expeditions into the distant lands of one’s mind. Such expeditions, however stimulating, distract both the leader and the group members from what is actually happening. By staying present and aware of what is happening, the leader can do less yet achieve more.

Learn to unclutter your mind. Learn to simplify your work.

Be Open to Whatever Emerges 

• The wise leader does not impose a personal agenda or value system on the group. The leader follows the group’s lead and is open to whatever emerges.
• Being open and attentive is more effective than being judgmental. This is because people naturally tend to be good and truthful when they are being received in a good and truthful manner.
• Tension causes people to make mistakes in critical situations. Mistakes are far more deadly than existence itself.

Have the wisdom to accept both life and death as facts and simply enjoy the dance of existence.

If I were to put my faith in some thing or person or creed, I would have no stability. People and things and creeds come and go and change all the time. I would live in fear that the thing I adored would be lost, or the person I obeyed would die, or the creed I followed would be altered.

The Ripple Effect 

Do you want to be a positive influence in the world? First, get your own life in order.

• Your behavior influences others through a ripple effect. A ripple effect works because everyone influences everyone else. Powerful people are powerful influences.
• Remember that your influence begins with you and ripples outward.
• All growth spreads outward from a fertile and potent nucleus. You are a nucleus.

When the leader practices silence, the group remains focused. When the leader does not impose rules, the group discovers its own goodness. When the leader acts unselfishly, the group simply does what is to be done.

The leader knows how to have a profound influence without making things happen.

For example, facilitating what is happening is more potent than pushing for what you wish were happening. Demonstrating or modeling behaviors is more potent than imposing morality. Unbiased positions are stronger than prejudice. Radiance encourages people, but outshining everyone else inhibits them.

Knowing how things work gives the leader more real power and ability than all the degrees or titles the world can offer.

That is how things happen naturally. Life is an opportunity and not an obligation.

Nobody has all the answers. Knowing that you do not know everything is far wiser than thinking that you know a lot when you really don’t.

The wise leader has learned how painful it is to fake knowledge. Being wise and not wanting the pain, the leader does not indulge in pretending. Anyway, it is a relief to be able to say: “I Don’t know.”

That is the way of nature: to relax what is tense, to fill what is empty, to reduce what is overflowing.

By serving others and being generous, the leader knows abundance. By being selfless, the leader helps others realize themselves. By being a disinterested facilitator, unconcerned with praise or pay, the leader becomes potent and successful. The leader’s behavior works because it is based on an understanding of opposites and cycles.

Be Like Water

• Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard.
• The leader does not fight the force of the group’s energy, but flows and yields and absorbs and lets go. A leader must endure a great deal of abuse. If the leader were not like water, the leader would break. The ability to be soft makes the leader a leader. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.