Leadership

Rather than command and control, agile leadership (zhu) works on the rules of an organization’s games - its reward models, accounting methods, and learning flows - to align people to mutual benefit.

23. Leadership as a Service (lxvi/lxxii)

As, running beneath them,
A valley aligns a myriad streams into a river,
Agile leaders prioritize without commanding;
Optimize without controlling;
Gain agreement without requiring loyalty,
Respect without pomp and ceremony,
And collaboration without inspiring fear.

Where people are free to share and collaborate,
They align to each other’s leadership.
With no reason to fear leadership,
They both serve and supply it.

Without fear of leadership,
People work to benefit each others’ children,
Serve those who serve theirs,
And supply leadership
By generating leaders.

24. Stone Keel (xxvi)

The captain of a great ship tirelessly guides it at sea
Until, safe in port, he can lose it in sleep;
For calm is the master of risk,
And care the path to ease.

The captain of a great ship
Can’t treat it like a pleasure boat,
Steering aimlessly or recklessly.
Without care he loses his bearings at sea;
Without calm he loses the trust of his crew.
The great captain doesn’t point his ship like a jeweled figurehead
But balances her like a stone keel.

25. Strong Leadership (xxvii)

A great explorer leaves no trail unmapped;
A great speaker, no question unanswered;
A great teacher, no student unable;
A great general, no threat unchecked;
A great weaver, no thread unravelled;
A great banker, no debt unpaid,
Not even the least.

To multiply their strength
The strong must adapt the weak
Whose hands are the source of their strength.
Where the strong neglect the weak
Chaos results no matter how clever they are.

This is the method of adaptation:
As wood is shaped, it becomes a tool;
As a person is served, they become a servant;
And a great leader leaves no wood uncarved.

26. Fire in Darkness (xl/xli)

As ecosystems adapt species
Leadership adapts people.

As trees are adaptations of seeds,
And seeds of dirt,
By adaptation:
Wealth is born in poverty;
Rebellion in bondage;
Family in loneliness;
Liberty in terror;
Invention in scarcity;
Strategy in defeat;
Fire in darkness.

27. The Invisible Hand (xxxvii/xvii)

As nature adapts forms to each other,
Great leaders adapt people:
Controlling no one,
Neglecting no one,
Taking no one’s side.

This way, when a leader achieves their goals,
People see the achievement as their own.
The best leaders are barely mentioned by their followers;
The next best, famed and praised;
The next feared;
And the next mocked.

As you weaken peoples’ trust in each other,
You weaken their trust in you.

28. Promises (lxxxi/lvi)

Words are often false
And truth seldom spoken;
Words are often confusing
And truth seldom clear;
Words are often broken;
And truth seldom trusted.

Agile leaders don’t offer promises
That won’t serve alignment.
They reserve opinions and judgements
To ease differences and disagreements,
And check their power
To empower people to trust each other.

Above friendship and enmity,
Wealth and ambition,
Honor and disgrace,
They keep their word.

29. Humility (lxx)

When a leader’s words and actions serve community,
Betraying neither ego nor exploit,
Community propagates them.

The more you stand apart from people,
The less you understand what they feel
Where the more you live as one of them,
The more they take your word.

This is the benefit of humility.
The agile wear plain clothes
And speak common sense.

30. Fortress and Palace (lxviii/liii)

Trust makes the finest weapon and strongest defense.
As, building community, you weave trust between people,
So, securing peace, community surrounds you like a fortress.

In alignment, community progresses
As if following a main road
With no risk of losing its way.
Although following a main road is easy,
Many take the scenic route.

As their palaces rise,
Fields turn to weeds
And granaries empty.
Wearing fine clothes,
Bearing sharp swords,
Hoarding wealth and power,
Keeping courtiers and courtesans,
Are detours leading away from trust.

31. Overpowered (ix/xii)

As you temper a blade to the sharpest, it shatters;
Fill a cup to the brim, it spills;
Hoard food, it spoils;
So, when you concentrate power, it corrupts.

As too much beauty blinds,
Too much music dulls,
Too much food gluts,
Too much talk confuses,
Too much power impoverishes.

The agile say enough when they have enough
And grow their slice by growing the pie.

32. Autonomy In Alignment (lvii)

Agile leadership aligns people
By making no law but to secure trust,
No tax but to encourage trade,
And no reward but mutual benefit.

As, where leaders bring people into alignment
They collaborate and trade,
So, where leaders command and control,
People compete and conspire.

The more values and principles, the more compromises;
The more penalties and taxes, the more cheats;
The more hierarchies and frameworks, the more bureaucrats;
The more police and soldiers, the more conspiracies.
The more hungry children, the more rebels.

33. Revolution (lvii/lxxv/lxviii/lxxiv)

Where you punish rebellion, people revolt,
Trading their lives for better ones.
Your police may suppress and jailers torture
And armies displace and masters enslave,
But, when people have nothing left to lose,
They lose their fear.

When those whose lives don’t count
Outnumber those who count only their own,
And they have no fear left,
Nothing can control them.

Trying to control people with nothing left to lose
Is like chopping wood without an axe;
You only hurt your hands.