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 autonomous communities to their 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 demanding loyalty,
Respect without pomp or ceremony,
And collaboration without inspiring fear.

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

Without fear of leadership,
People work to benefit each others’ children,
Serving those who serve theirs,
And supplying 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;
Recognizing calm as the master of risk,
And care the path to ease.

The captain of the great ship
Won’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 the crew.
The great captain doesn’t point his ship like a jeweled figurehead
But balances her like a stone keel.

25. Carving Wood (xxvii)

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

So, to multiply their strength
The strong 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;
So a great leader leaves no wood uncarved.

26. Fire from Darkness (xl/xli)

As trees are adaptations of seeds,
And seeds of dirt,
As ecosystems adapt species,
Agile leadership adapts people.
`` Through adaptation:
Wealth comes from poverty;
Rebellion from bondage;
Family from loneliness;
Liberty from terror;
Invention from scarcity;
Strategy from defeat;
Fire from 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.
So, when the leader achieves their goals,
People see the achievement as their own.

And so 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 won’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 trust your word.

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

30. Fortress and Palace (lxviii/liii)

Trust makes the finest weapon, strongest defense, and straightest path.
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.
So 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 your blade to the sharpest, it shatters;
Fill your cup to the brim, it spills;
Hoard food, it spoils;
So, as you concentrate power, it corrupts.

As too much beauty blinds,
Too much music bores,
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)

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.

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

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 rape 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 just hurt your hands.