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Leadership & Organization Development JournalEmerald Article: Leadership moment by moment!

Ron Cacioppe

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To cite this document: Ron Cacioppe, (1997),"Leadership moment by moment!", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vo

8 Iss: 7 pp. 335 - 345

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Leadership & OrganizationDevelopment Journal18/ 7 [1997] 335345

MCB University Press[ISSN 0143-7739]

Leadership moment by moment !

Ron CacioppeGraduate School of Business, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia

Aims to bring together someof the major perspectives andtheories of leadership withsome of the key practicalcomponents of eastern andwestern philosophy. Suggeststhat the current leadershiptheories are good foundationsfrom which to move to a morepractical and immediateexperience of leadership. Themajor view put forward is that

these concepts of leadershippoint to the need for leader-

ship wisdom. First, coverstheories of leadership toprovide a summary of currentthinking on what is goodleadership. Discusses therecent concept of emotionalintelligence as an appropri-ate way to extend the way welook at the personality andskills of a leader. Introducesleadership wisdom as a wayof describing effective leader-

ship applied to the immediatesituation. This wisdom can befound in themes that haveexisted in western and east-ern philosophy for centuries.Explores these themes usingstories that have come fromphilosophical teachings andthen relates them to the

central points of leadership.Uses a summary figure toportray the integration ofprevious leadership conceptsaround leadership wisdom inpractice. Makes a number ofsuggestions that are imple-mented in leadership develop-ment which contribute to thedevelopment of leadershipwisdom.

Two monks, Tanzan and Ekido, were walk-

ing down a country road on their way to

visit a local monastery. They came upon a

lovely young girl dressed in fine silks, who

was standing in front of a muddy stream

afraid to cross it.

Come on, girl , said Tanzan. And he picked

her up in his arms, and carried her across.

The two monks did not speak again till

nightfall when they had retur ned to the

monastery. Ekido couldnt keep quiet any

longer.

Monks shouldnt go near girl s, he said

certainly not beautiful ones like that one!Why did you do it?

My dear fellow, said Tanzan. I put that

girl down, way back at the crossing. Its you

who are still carrying her! (Peter Pauper

Press, Zen Buddhism, 1959).

There are many muddy paths that people

must cross in todays organizations and lead-

ership needs to be clear, decisive and appro-

pri ate to the situation. Tanzan in the above

story shows unique leadership. He sees the

situation and is able to do what is needed. He

is not encumbered by ideas, rules and proce-

dures but looks at what is needed. Even more

importantly, he is able to move down the road

after the event with a clear mind. He lets go of

any anxiety about whether he acted rightly or

wrongly. Tanzan would have been able to see

and respond to the next action because his

mind is not still carrying his last action.

Ekido, however, is stil l carrying his judge-

ments, thoughts and concerns. Ekido needs

rules and procedures to control him in his

journey. On the outside Ekido may look li ke

the perfect monk but inside he is torn by

the rules of being a monk and needs these

rules to manage his inner yearnings. Whi le

concepts, rules and ideas may help guide a

person in training, a true leader carri es

his/ her mission in his/her heart it is not

external r ules that make the person. The

leader models the way not by following outer

form but by seeing their work as their way of

being.

Recent reviews of the research and theories

on leadership have consolidated the key areas

of leadership into personali ty,

situational/ transactional and transforma-

tional forms of leadership. The purpose of

thi s paper is to suggest that concepts about

leadership are useful background to under-

stand leadership but they need to be inte-

grated into more immediate, practical and

simpler ways of guiding leadership action. It

is suggested that there are several key ski lls

that a leader can employ which have been

described in both western and eastern

philosophies. The story of Ekido and Tanzan

is one of the many lessons that these tradi-

tions can contri bute to our current thinking

of organizational leadership. The develop-

ment of this leadership wisdom is put for-

ward as a real need in the current environ-

ment with its confusing and often contradic-

tory emphasis on improving both profits and

quality of service.

The study of leadership what have we l earned?

There is a great deal of li terature on leader-

ship and the field has many specific streams

such as decision making, leader-follower

interaction, power of the leader, cultural and

gender differences of leadership and many

other concepts that have made importantcontri butions to our understanding. For the

purpose of examining leadership in action,

however, three key areas of leadership theory

will be briefly reviewed; personality, situa-

tional/ transactional and transformational

leadership since these are the major themes

that emerge in the literature (Robbins et al .,

1994).

Personality traits of leadersEarly research attempting to find consistent

and unique personali ty trai ts that all leaders

possessed showed no definite pattern. More

recent studies have found six traits that di f-

ferentiate leaders from non-leaders; honesty

and integri ty, high energy level, ambiti on and

the desire to lead, intelligence, self-confidence

and task relevant knowledge (Kilpatrick and

Locke, 1991; Stogdi ll, 1974).

The results of a study by Kouzes and Posner

(1993) show the six highest characteristics

that people most admire in leaders are:

1 Honesty.

2 Forward looking.

3 Inspiring.


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Ron CacioppeLeadership moment bymoment!


4 Competent.

5 Fair-minded.

6 Supportive.

Situat ional/ transactional leadershipA second major focus of leadership training

and theory as a result of the Mi chigan and

Ohio State studies and the contingency theory

of Fiedler lead to the situational leadershipapproach. The theory of K en Blanchard called

Situational L eadership II uses the two dimen-

sions of supportive and directive to describe

four leadership styles that are most appropri -

ate depending on the situation and the devel-

opmental level of the person or group. The

major advance of the situation approach is the

recognition that for different development

levels and di fferent types of situations, differ-

ent leadership styles are more effective. For

example, in an emergency or when someone is

learni ng a skill for the first time, it is better

according to situational leadership to be

highly directive (spell out tasks and goals very

clearly) and less supportive.

Situational leadership is one of several

transactional approaches to leadership.

Other transactional theories li ke path-goal

theory and leader-participation theory

descri be the major task of the leader to guide

and motivate their followers in the direction

of established goals and to reward their

efforts in ways that are fair and valued by the

follower.

Transformat ional leadershipThe third major approach goes a step further

and helps li ft the follower beyond personal

goals and self-interests to focus on goals

which contribute to a greater team, organiza-

tional, national and world good. Transforma-

tional leadership communicates a vision that

inspires and motivates people to achieve

something extraordinary. Transformational

leaders also have the abil ity to ali gn people

and systems so there is an integrity through-

out the organization towards this vision

(Hugheset a l., 1994). Transformational lead-

ers have a vision and an abil ity to inspire

followers to incorporate higher values. It

pulls them towards achieving an importantchallenge. These leaders pay attention to the

concerns and developmental needs of the

followers, they change followers by helping

them to look at old problems in new ways and

they are able to excite, arouse and inspire

followers to put out extra effort to achieve

group goals. In addition, the follower takes on

and understands the vision as their own. If

the transformation leader leaves, the follow-

ers continue the effort to achieve the vision.

Whi le this brief review does not presume to

do justice to the field of leadership studies,

there are several key points regarding good

leadership which do emerge.

Leaders do have the characteristics of

good people, they are honest, have self-confi-

dence and are fair-minded and supportive.

Successful leaders are sensitive to the situa-

tion and their followers, are flexible, and able

to adapt to the situation to ensure that the

vision is achieved. A challenging, worthwhi le

vision i s also characteristic of a good leader.

The leader helps the follower transcend their

own self-interest and participate in a vision for

a greater good. Fi gure 1 summarizes these

major characteristics of successful leaders.

More recent work on gender and cultural

differences has shown that there are differ-

ences in behaviours and styles that need to be

considered. Male leaders emphasize goal

setting and women emphasize human inter-

action and facil itation in their leadership

style (Gibson, 1995). Hofstede (1980) and

others show leaders from different countrieshave different value orientations and differ-

ent styles. T riandis (1993) concludes, however,

that common leadership factors exist, but

depending on the cultural value orientation

shifts in emphasis wi ll occur. Gibson (1995)

suggests that overall, leadership behaviours

and styles do not vary greatly across gender

and cultures and differences are more a

matter of degree rather than actual di fferent

models of leadership.

Emotional intell igence

A class of four-year-old children are busilystudying and playing when the teacher

interr upts the class and gives them each a

marshmallow. The children are then told

that the teacher has to go on an err and for 15

minutes or so and they can eat the marsh-

mallow whenever they want but if they wait

til l the teacher returns they wi ll be given

two marshmallows.

Hi dden video cameras record how some

children respond to their first immediate

impulse and eat the marshmallow, others

who are tempted, but wai t and then suc-

cumb to the desire to eat the marshmallow

and finally, a third group who is able to delay

the pull of the immediate temptation for thegreater reward of two marshmallows 15

minutes later.

We might wonder, so what? What would

marshmallows and four year olds tell us

about li fe success and leadership?

By following the lives of these four year olds

over the next 14 years some amazing results

occurred. The children who were able to hold

back from eating the marshmallows were

found to have better mental health as young

adults (less anxiety, stress and worry) and


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[ 337 ]

performed better in high school and univer-

sity. Surpri singly the marshmallow test was a

better predictor of success in high school and

university than was IQ! The abil ity to manage

immediate and strong emotions was a skill

that had great value later in l ife. It appeared

that these children have some other type of

intelli gence that was even more valuable

than the traditional intellectual intell igencewhich we pri ze in our schools (Figure 2).

Goleman (1996) has described a concept

called emotional intelligence which he sug-

gests is a better predictor of l ife success than

the intellectual intelligence we measure as IQ.

Goleman defines emotional intelligence as a

persons abil ity to be aware of, manage and use

emotions appropriately in dealing with people

in various situations. He descri bes five main

skills that consist of emotional intelligence:

1 Self-awareness of ones own emotions as

they happen.

2 Managing feelings so they are appropri ate.

3 Motivating oneself in the servi ce of a goal.

4 Having empathy and understanding for

emotion in others.

5 Being able to interrelate well and work

with others.

A number of research studies have followed

children, adolescents and adults who have

higher emotional intelli gence and found that

they are more socially competent, personally

effective, able to handle stress better, are

more self-reliant and trustworthy and per-

form better academically. Over 120 different

studies of more than 36,000 people found that

the less prone to worry a person was the

better a person does in university. Higher

levels of hope and optimism not only pre-

dicted academic success but also predicted

success rates of sales and likeli hood to stay as

an insurance salesman.

Another factor which Golemen says relates

to success is flow that psychological state

where excellence is effortless, when a person

experi ences a bli ssful steady absorption in

the moment. Emotions at this time are posi-

tive, energized, natural and aligned to the

task at hand. Flow i s often characterized as a

state of self-forgetfulness. One study, whi ch

monitored the activi ty of students found that

high achievers spent over 40 per cent of the

time studying in the flow whi le low achievers

spent only 16 per cent of the time in the flow.

So what are the implications of emotional

intelligence for leadership? Recently six

groups of managers and professionals (about

200 people in total) were asked to list who

they considered leaders, internationally and

in Australia and then to vote on who they

considered the most successful leaders.

People such as Nelson M andela, Winston

Churchill, J ohn F. Kennedy, Mother Teresa,

Martin Luther K ing, Gough Whitlam (a previ-

ous Pr ime Minister of Australia) and J anet

Holmes ACourt (a successful Australian

business woman) scored well as successful

leaders across several groups. When askedwhat it is that led them to rate these leaders

as successful leaders the following li st

emerged.

Successful leaders:

have vision;

inspire and motivate;

communicate and clari fy the vision;

stay focused;

take risks;

persevere;

have abili ty to overcome adversity and

handle difficult situations;

are concerned for peoples welfare;

are highly sensitive to social cues; are the ri ght person, at the ri ght time and

know the right action.

When these groups were asked to rate these

leaders in intellectual intelli gence and emo-

tional intell igence, these leaders were gener-

ally considered to be only moderate to high in

intellectual intell igence but very high in

emotional i ntelli gence (see Figure 2). While

Paul Keating (the last Australi an Prime Min-

ister) was recognized as a leader high in intel-

lectual intelligence he was considered lower

Figure 1

Characteristics and qualities of successful leadership

Transformational leadershipThe leader has a worthwhile andchallenging vision that is communicated,motivates and inspires the followers. Theleader also considers the individual

Transactional leadershipThe leader understands and helps thefollowers reach their goals and at the sametime achieves the goals of the organization

Situational leadershipAble to apply the right amount of direction andsupport depending on the situation and thelevel of competency and motivation of thefollower style (directive, supportive or both)

Personality characteristicsThe leader is honest, self-confident, fair,supportive and has a desire and willingnessto lead




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in emotional intelli gence. A number of parti c-

ipants suggested that hi s poor emotional

intelligence ski lls cost him re-election as

Prime Minister.

The research on emotional intell igence

combined with managers and professionalsperceptions of leaders suggests that success-

ful leaders show an ability to be aware and

manage his/her own emotions while being

responsive to other peoples feelings. They

have an abil ity not to react or get caught up in

their own or other peoples negative emotions

such as anger, impatience, negative judge-

ments and anxiety.

The successful leader, therefore, has an

ability to be in the present and see the situa-

tion free from preconceived ideas. Whi le the

leader may have previous experience and

personal views or values, they do not cloud

his or her abil ity to discover what is the bestaction in the situation. In summary, good

leaders seem to:

See what the specific situation needs.

Have a clear and powerful vision/purpose

that guides him/ her.

Use knowledge (their s or others) as it is

needed to deal with the situation.

Be sensitive to and able to respond appro-

pri ately and differently to their followers.

Influence followers to work towards higher

level values and goals.

Have emotional intelligence an abil ity to

know and util ize appropriately their ownfeeli ngs and those of others.

Are in the flow are at one, focused in

the present moment and aware more fully

of people around them than other people.

There is only one word in the dictionary that

seems to summarize these characteristics

wisdom. The word wisdom is derived from

wis which means to make known,

instruct or to make certain.

Wisdom is defined as the capacity of judg-

ing rightly in matters relating to li fe and

conduct; soundness of judgement in choice of

means and ends, sound sense in practical

affair s, knowledge, especially of a high kind,

wise teaching or action (Little et al ., 1973).

Wisdom and leadership

While wisdom is a characteri stic that hasbeen valued by human societies for thou-

sands of years, there has not been much writ-

ten about it i n a formal sense in the leader-

ship literature. Wisdom has seemed a bit too

mysterious and slippery to focus on as a key

element in management. Yet the development

and transmission of wisdom has been consid-

ered vital to the wellbeing of humans and the

continuance of western spir itual traditions

for thousands of years. As one becomes famil-

iar wi th the wri tings, stori es and lessons of

the great philosophies of mankind certain

key themes, experiences and characteristics

can be recognized. A number of these charac-teristics can be identified as highly relevant

and useful to leaders, especially i n our cur-

rent organizational environment wi th i ts

conflicting, competing and changing

demands.

Know when to remain silent, and when tospeak

A master gardener, famous for hi s skil l i n

climbing and pruni ng the highest trees,examined his disciple by letting him cli mb a

very high tree. Many people had come to

watch. The master gardener stood quietly,

carefully following every move but not inter-

fering wi th one word. Having pruned the

top, the disciple climbed down and was only

about ten feet from the ground when the

master suddenly yelled; Take care, takecare!

When the disciple was safely down an old

man asked the master gardener: You did

not let out one word when he was aloft i n the

most dangerous place. Why did you caution

him when he was nearly down? Even if he

had slipped then, he could not have greatly

hurt himself.But i snt it obvious? replied the master

gardener. Right up at the top he is con-

scious of the danger, and of himself takes

care. But near the end when one begins tofeel safe, this is when accidents occur.

What does this story have to say about leader-

ship and what does the master gardener show

us by his moment by moment wi sdom? Cer-

tainly there are a few obvious aspects to the

story. The master gardener put his disciple in

a challenging situation, one the master gar-

dener knew the disciple could handle if given

the proper guidance.

The gardener/ leader was closely watching

the followers progress and knew when to

Figure 2

Types of leadership intelligence

High

Medium

Low

SuccessfulLeaders

X X

X XX X X

Medium High

Intellectual Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence


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keep silent and when to speak. The master

gardener also had emotional i ntelligence he

did not get worried, and managed not only

the anxiety of the disciple but even the crowd.

The master gardener knew the tendencies of

the followers mind at every moment so that

he could caution at the time when he knew

the disciple might think the job over and

might slack off Take care, take care!Whi le it sounds simple in this story, it is an

extraordinary abil ity of a leader to know the

mind of his/her followers and to act precisely

and wisely at the time for the good of both

the task and the follower.

There is another element here which is not

readily apparent and that is the trust of the

disciple. Thi s disciple was wil ling to put

his/her wellbeing in the hands of the master

and to follow instructions without question.

The follower was able to recognize the supe-

ri or wi sdom of the leader and was will ing to

place himself/ herself under the leaders guid-

ance to develop their own life and occupa-

tional ski lls. The master gardener was teach-

ing a lot more than how to prune tall trees!

This story comes from the Zen Buddhist

tradition and is used to help monks remain

alert during all instances in their training, to

encourage the mind to be awake and fully in

the present. Zen is the J apanese word for

meditation or contemplation. Zen aims to

help people free their minds from con-

structed, acquired concepts and mental

habits that limit and distort the view we have

of reali ty. It challenges the idea that we are all

separate people separate selves operating in

our individually constructed world views. It

aims to develop a life wisdom a seeing into

the direct nature of reali ty, not one

constructed through i ndividual opinions and

acquired ideas. It boldly suggests that only

when we are free from intellectual

constraints and egotistical concerns can we

then experience the world clearly and ful ly

participate in l ife.

This leadership wisdom is not a definable

concept but i s directly observable, practical

and effective in the moment. The master

gardener would probably not have heard of

situational/ transactional or transforma-tional leadership nor had attended any man-

agement training but was able to be an effec-

tive leader.

Be here nowAnother story from the teaching of Zen shows

another one of the key essential ski lls that are

necessary for the development of a leader

the abili ty to be in the present to see what is

happening without preconceived ideas or

distractions. This story involves a masters

conversation with a monk:

Do you ever make an effort to get disciplined

in the truth?

Yes, I do.

How do you exerci se yourself ?

When I am hungry, I eat; when I am tired, I

sleep.

This is what everybody does; can they be

said to be exercising themselves in the same

way as you do?No

Why not?

Because when they eat, they do not eat, but

are thinki ng of vari ous other things,

thereby allowing themselves to be

disturbed: when they sleep they do not sleep,

but dream of a thousand and one things; this

is why they are not li ke myself (Schloegl,

1975, p. 52).

This story simply and clearly emphasizes

much of what the average person of todays

world is missing. Almost everyone is so

involved with his/her own thoughts that they

dont experience what is actually going onaround them. The average person has about

100 thoughts per minute which means about

6,000 thoughts per hour. Over the course of a

day, this would be about 100,000 thoughts!

Much of this thinking process involves

self-talk a voice in the head commenting,

judging, justifying, or planning on some past

or future event or action. Often the same

comment is said over again, involves negative

comments about a situation not being the

way I want it to be or the way it should have

been. Whi le all of this is going on a person

only partially sees what is actually in front of

him or her.How many times have we travelled to work

and not recalled anything that was on the

route because we were totally absorbed in

thought? The car was on automatic pi lot and

yet we had eyes open, but nobody was home!

An essential characteristic for a leader would

be to be in the present for hi m or her to be

able to focus on the current situation without

inner self-talk, preconceived ideas and dis-

tractions that might interfere with him or her

li stening and seeing accurately what the

situation is. Yet, how much emphasis, train-

ing and reinforcement i s given to managers

to clear their minds from preoccupations,worr ies and mental self-talk?

The empt y cup knowing w hen we do notknow

The Oracle at Delphi prophesied that

Socrates was the wisest person in A thens.

When Socrates heard of this he set out to

prove the Oracle wrong because he felt he

wasnt the wisest. He spent some time wan-

deri ng around Athens talking to politicians,

poets, artists and philosophers who others

had held up to be very wi se people. As


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Socrates questioned them he began to see

that they werent wise because they thought

they knew things that they didnt actually

know. They said many things and were quite

skil led in their own occupations but thought

they knew things about the nature of li fe

and the universe which they obviously didnot know. Socratess conclusion was that the

Oracle may be ri ght, that he was the wisest

person in A thens, only because he knew that

he knew nothing whereas others thought

they knew something and did not!

In the world of management and leadership

education, we seem to have the view that the

more a person learns, the more he or she

knows and the better they will be as a leader.

We often look at the letters behind the name

(BS, MBA, etc.) and assume that person i s

more qualified to be a leader. Socrates, one of

the major phi losophers of western culture

shows that the wisest people are those that

know when they do not know. Often we hear

that those that have wisdom are often verysimple and childlike. They see things as for

the first time and are open to new experiences

and will ing to learn. They may have years of

experience but they are able to teach simply

and appreciate the profoundness of everyday

events.

In a similar way Eastern philosophy

emphasizes the need to empty the mind of

preconceived ideas, theories, and acquired

attitudes and views. These filters and distor-

tions of the mind inhibit one from truly l is-

tening and seeing what is directly in front of

us. This is shown clearly i n the following

story:A university professor went to see a Zen

master eager to learn about the nature of

Zen and i ts profound wi sdom and to test

whether it was comparable to the other

great phi losophies he was an expert in.

When the professor ar rived, the Zen masterasked him if he would like a cup of tea.

As the Zen master began pouring tea, the

professor started asking a number of ques-

tions about the value and meaning of Zen.

The Zen master kept pouring the tea with-

out answeri ng the questions. The professor

impatiently restated his questions and

asked for an answer.

The Zen master kept pouring the tea with-out saying anything. The professor began to

get annoyed and demanded that the Zen

master answer his questions.

By now the hot tea was running over the cup

and on to the professors hand. What are

you doing? You stupid fool? said the profes-sor. How can you be an expert in philoso-

phy when you cant even pour a cup of tea?

That cup is just like you, sir. How can I tell

you about the nature of Zen when your

mind, like that cup, is so full? said the Zen

master. (Peter Pauper Press, Zen Buddhism,

1959, p. 30).

The illusion of a separate meCentral to all philosophies are the questions

of Who am I?, How did this universe come

into being ? and What is my relationship to

it? The answers or beliefs we have about

these questions affect the way we structure

and control work, our views of ownership and

profit, our leadership style and the way we

deal wi th other people in the workplace.

Watts (1989), a phi losopher, describes the

major problem with modern society as oper-

ating from a false premiss of who we are:Yet the problem is more basic. The root of

the matter is the way in which we feel and

conceive ourselves as human beings, our

sensation of being alive, of individual exis-

tence and identity. We suffer from a halluci-

nation, fr om a false and distorted sensation

of our own existence as living organisms.

Most of us have the sensation that I

myself is a separate center of feeling and

action, living inside and bounded by the

physical body a center whi ch confrontsan external world of people and things,

making contact through the senses with a

universe both alien and strange (p. 8).

We have developed a view that we are an ego,

a psychological identity that exists separate

from the universe in which it l ives. Watts

describes two factors which are ignored and

result in our perpetuation of this miscon-

ceived idea of our existence. The first is not

realizing that so-called opposites, such as

li ght and darkness, sound and silence, solid

and space, on and off, inside and outside,

appeari ng and disappearing, managementand unions and cause and effect, are poles or

aspects of the same thing. The second is that

we are so absorbed in narrowed, disjointed

perception we really feel that this world is

indeed an assemblage of separate things that

have somehow come together and that we

each are only one of the many thi ngs in the

universe that are born and die alone.

Most Westerners locate the ego in the head,

from which the rest of us dangles. The ego for

us i s somewhere behind the eyes and between

the ears. It is, then, as if the human race had

hypnotised or talked itself into the hoax of

egocentr icity (p. 57). This leads to the

dilemma, according to Watts, that on one

hand we have the sacred individual the

unique personal ego, separate from both

nature and God defined by a society whi ch

commands the individual to be free and not to

conform. On the other hand, the person i s a

mere hired hand (the employee, part-time or

contract worker) who is just a cog in the

industri al machine who can be discarded,

retrenched, downsized if technology can do

his/her job better.


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According to Watts, the perpetuation of thi s

duali ty, this impositi on of the ego over the

world results in most of our products being

made by people who do not enjoy making

them, whether as owners or workers. The

major real aim in the enterprise is not a qual-

ity product or service but money and a return

to the shareholder, so our quality is inferior

no matter how many systems we put in place.

The importance of this is for leaders to see

and experience the third possibili ty that the

individual is neither an isolated person nor

an expendable, humanoid uni t of production.

A person may be seen, instead, as one parti c-

ular focal point at which the whole universe

expresses itself whatever one may choose to

call IT; Existence, Being, God or the Ultimate

Ground of Being. This view dissolves the

paradox of individuality vs collectivi ty, capi-

talism vs communism, individual vs organi-

zation, or owner/manager vs worker. Individ-

uality does not become separation but aunique expression of the whole part of the

universe, a unity of diversity:For you is the universe looking at i tself

from bill ions of points of view, points that

come and go so that the vision i s forever new

(p. 130).

Once this il lusion of ego is seen through, li fe

becomes a play, a play that should be carr ied

out exquisitely and wi th quali ty. The object of

the play is for the universe to experience and

know itself. Work becomes more than a

means to obtain personal wealth or objects of

wealth or to escape from the suffering of

poverty.Two quotes from the economist, philoso-

pher Schumacher (1974) summarize the value

of work from this perspective:Everywhere people ask: What can I actu-

ally do? The answer i s as simple as it is

disconcerting; we can, each of us, work to

put our own house in order. The guidance

we need for this work cannot be found in

science or technology, the value of which

utterly depends on the ends they serve; but

can stil l be found in the traditional wi sdom

of mankind (p. 45).

The Buddhist point of view takes the func-

tion of work to be at least threefold; to give

man a chance to utili ze and develop his

faculti es; to enable him to overcome his

egocentredness by joining with other people

in a common task; and to bri ng forth the

goods and servi ces needed for a becoming

existence. (p. 45).

Eastern and western phi losophers go to great

lengths to point out that this perspective

needs to go beyond mere intellectual

understanding to actual experience or

enlightenment knowing and being who

you are. Therefore considerable emphasis i s

placed on the actual practice of non-egotisti-

cal actions such as being in the present fully

free from attachments to past ideas or views

of ones self.

Ego climbing and qualityTo the untrained eye ego-climbing and self-

less climbing may appear i dentical. Both

kinds of climbers place one foot in front ofthe other. Both breathe in and out at the

same rate. Both stop when tired. Both go

forward when rested. But what a difference!

The ego-climber is like an instrument thats

out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an

instant too soon or too late. Hes li kely to

miss a beautiful passage of sunli ght through

the trees. He goes on when the sloppiness ofhis step shows hes tired. He rests at odd

times. He looks up the trail trying to see

whats ahead even when he knows whats

ahead because he just looked a second

before. He goes too fast or too slow for the

conditi ons and when he talks his talk is

forever about somewhere else, somethingelse. Hes here but hes not here. He rejects

the here, is unhappy with it, wants to be

farther up the trai l but when he gets there

will be just as unhappy because then it wi ll

be here. What hes looki ng for, what he

wants, is all around him, but he doesnt

want that because it is all around him.Every steps an effort both physically and

spir itually, because he imagines his goal to

be external and distant. (Pi rsig, 1981,

pp.189-90).

The ultimate price we pay for ego-climbing,

living in a way that is out of touch wi th our

environment, one another and the present

moment, is a lack of quality in the products

and services we provide and our experiences

of those products and services. The major

challenge for leadership is to help restore this

quali ty into our lives and work by helping

workers re-establi sh a connection wi th their

own internal wisdom. In order to help others,

leaders must find this within themselves. The

above quote shows the ultimate dissatisfac-

tion that all humans must feel when we live

our li fe for some future event. The most

unfortunate part is that just when we are

about to reach this imaginary goal, we set up

a new one in our mind and begin to focus onthat so we are continually struggli ng and

working towards some imaginary future that

we can never actually experience or enjoy.

The t ruly visionary mind is the t rulyegoless mindA great deal has been written about how

important it is to have a clear vision for orga-

nizational, team and personal goals. A story

of Zen, told by the late J apanese scholar,

Suzuki , the major interpreter of Zen for the

West helps shows the direct relationship


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between a truly creative mind and the truly

egoless mind and how powerful vi sion

arises from this:The abbot of a certain Zen monastery

wished to have the ceili ng of the Dharma

(meditation) Hall decorated with a dragon.

A noted painter was asked to do the work, he

accepted, but complained that he had never

seen a living dragon, if such a reali tyexisted. The abbot said, Dont mind your

not having seen the creature. You become

one with the dragon, be transformed into a

living dragon and paint it. Dont try to fol-

low the conventional pattern.

The artist asked, How can I become a

dragon? The abbot replied, You retire to

your pr ivate room and concentrate your

mind on it; the time wil l come when you feel

that you must paint one. That is the moment

when you have become the dragon, and the

dragon urges you to give it for m.

The artist followed the abbots advice, and

after several months he became confident ofhimself because of seeing the dragon out of

his whole mind and then he painted it in two

weeks. The result i s that the dragon is now

on the ceili ng to the Dharma Hall at the

Myoshinj i, Kyoto in J apan (Peter Pauper

Pr ess, Zen Buddhism, 1959).

The essence of this story is captured in the

phrase, That is the moment when you have

become the dragon, and the dragon urges you

to give it form. It i s no longer his ego that is

creating the dragon but the dragon i s creat-

ing itself through the person. It is that

moment when the person becomes both the

problem and the answer. The mind gives up

any concept of itself and becomes that which

it sees. Obtaining an open, clear mind so that

the mind can experience the question, ques-

tioner and solution or more accurately,

questioner-soluti on-question, as one, is a key

experience of wisdom.

This story provides a different view of how

successful visions arise. It suggests that when

the vision, the leader, and the followers

become one with the vision it comes into

being through them, not by them. In the

world of business it means that visions ari se

out of needs. The painter did not ask to paintthe dragon, the abbot asked the painter to fill

the need the barren wall of the meditation

hall . Leaders should seek to find the true

needs in society and let the vision arise from

that not have a vision and then convince the

world to buy it!

Second, we need to sit wi th, become, and

devote ourselves to the vision not just put i t

on the wall and use it to guide our action.

This story suggests that a true vision comes

through who we are.

Integrating leadership wisdom andleadership developmentFigure 3 integrates what has been discussed

to this point. It shows that leadership theory

and concepts help us to recognize and concep-

tuali ze those factors whi ch result in leader-

ship wisdom.

The central and practical characteri stics of

this wisdom could be summarized as:

Kn ow wh en to remain si l ent , and w hen to

speak. Look and li sten ful ly and respond in

the moment directly and clearly.

Be here now. Be in the present, let the self-

talk go and focus on what is occurr ing in

the moment.

Em pty th e cup kn ow w hen you do not

know. Do not get attached to i deas, precon-

ceived opinions. Use ideas and concepts,

do not let them use you, admit when you do

not know.

Dr op the i l l us ion of the separ ate me. When

your ego gets in the way let it go. Find the

uni fying point of the person, the team and

the situation.

Qual i ty moment by moment. Fi nd quali ty

in the moment, do not get caught up in the

imagined goal of some imagined future.

Recognize there is no other time than now,

no other place than here! Here and now is

the only place quali ty can be experienced.

T r ue vision ar ises fr om need, it occur s fr om

being. A worthwhile effort fills a genuine

need. A vision occurs when we see what is

needed and give ourselves to serving that

need. When our ego gets out of the way, the

vision occurs through us.These truths are both different and the

same. They point to the same experience and

ski lls in leadership and management. From

an external perspective these attributes may

appear to be acquired trai ts, ski lls and experi-

ence that result in leaders being more effec-

tive. But as the stories and quotes which have

been discussed show leadership wi sdom is

more a process of dropping preconceived

ideas, egotistical attachments, focusing on

and experiencing the present and responding

to what is needed. A number of recent wr iters

have begun to describe this as leaders operat-

ing from a higher state of consciousness.

Harung et al . (1995) descri be four levels of

consciousness and suggest high performing

leaders have more frequent experiences of

uni ty and oneness with their environment

and transcend the everyday busy-ness to

experience a sense of tranquil li ty and being.

They descri be a study of 22 world-class lead-

ers who report experiencing this higher level

of consciousness ten times more frequently

than average populations. They describe a

model for leadership based on ancient Vedic


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philosophy which has similarities to the

model presented in thi s paper.

Figure 3 also suggests that the development

of leadership may be in a different direction

than we have previously considered. Develop-

ment of leadership may involve learning how

to shed mental habits, to drop egotisti c con-

cerns and worries, and to reflect on ones

actions, intentions and goals both as a personand as a leader of organizations. Individual,

team and organizational development would

be the central theme of the educational expe-

riences. In some ways this is simi lar to the

learning organization theme of Senge and

others (Senge, 1990) but has an even deeper

experience at its base as to the nature of

human beings and what our work is.

At the individual level, leadership develop-

ment would involve the teaching of mental

clearing/meditation practices so that the

person learned to experi ence clar ity and

peace of mind. Cranson et al . (1991) showed

that students introduced to meditation expe-

rienced higher states of consciousness over

time as well as higher IQ and improved scores

on reaction time tests compared to control

groups. In another study, meditating students

level of self-development as measured by

Loevingers model of self-development

increased over a ten-year period compared to

control groups (Alexander et al ., 1994). There

is also evidence that meditation leads to

higher levels of serotonin. Gelderlooset al .

(1988), showed that higher levels of serotoni n

correlate with high scores on leadership

ski lls and work performance tests.

Examination and practice of the wisdom

and techniques of philosophical traditi ons

would be valuable in developing an abili ty to

maintain a state of open awareness, and a

stillness and clari ty of mind. Meditation is

one of the eastern techniques that has helped

many people for thousands of years. Manage-

ment of stress and understanding of ones

own personali ty would also be important.

Leadership development should include

health reviews so that the physical wellbeing

of the individual is also considered. Self-

reflection and examination of ones actions

and ideas through the use of journals would

be integral to leadership development. Use of

360-degree feedback would be valuable in

helping the individual see their leadership

skills and what is being recognized by others

as effective or i n need of improvement.

At the team level, a common worthwhi le

goal to unite and challenge the team is inte-

gral to achieving good teamwork. Individuals

knowing what role they are to play and what

they should do specifically to help the team

perform successfully is also part of this expe-

rience of oneness.

Finally, at the organizational level, the

overall purpose and vision needs to be exam-

ined as well as the basis of ownership and use

of profit. Is the vision contr ibuting to greater

good, world uni ty and harmony or i s the

agenda just shareholder profit and return on

the money i nvested? Organizations would

consider diversity and equali ty of humans as

natural to their business if based on the phi-

losophy descri bed in thi s paper.The individual, team and organization

would be experienced as one whole that has

parts working together, different but not

separate li ke fingers of a hand. The ideas

and activi ties suggested here are already

used in many organizations. Unfortunately

they are often seen as nice human resource

practices that are cut when the firms finan-

cial success is threatened. In additi on, they

are not often based on a solid foundation of

deep human wisdom that uni tes and experi-

ences itself as part of a living whole. The

stori es, quotes and ideas covered earlier in

this paper suggest that we cur rently operateour vi ew of ourselves, our relationships and

our organizations under a gigantic i llusion. If

this is so, the recognition of this i llusion will

lead to a whole new way of operating organi -

zations and how we work together.

On the t rail

Whi le these stories can at first sound abstract

and unrelated to the everyday modern world,

they are practical and appli cable in everyday

Figure 3

Leadership wisdom

Leadership wisdom

Transformational leadership

Reasoning&

emotional intelligence

Personality characteristicsof leaders

Use of transaction,goals, rewards,words, action

Situat ion, Need, Problem

Followers state of mind,motivation, skill level

Organizational and otherfactors

Use of knowledge,information & businessskills


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situations. I wi ll finish on an actual event that

occurred during the days when I was wri ting

this paper. The situation described is simple

and every-dayish and yet shows that leader-

ship does occur moment by moment.

I went for a two day bush walk with my 19

year old son, his friend, Zac and my 10-year-

old son. After walking 17km and camping by

a river on the first day, on the second we gotstarted a li ttle late for our return. Zac had to

be at work in the city by 5.00 p.m. and we

knew we had about a 5hr walk and 2hr drive

ahead of us. While it looked like we could

make it back i n time we were uncertain.

Zac led the group on to the bush track and

for the first 3km we were moving at a hectic

pace. I was the last person in the li ne and I felt

I was almost running to keep up. At times

some of us were stumbling while tryi ng to

keep up and we certainly did not have time to

enjoy the beautiful morning. I could feel my

self-talk was concerned about the pace. I

was worr ied that someone would trip and get

hur t or that we might not see a snake on the

path. I felt myself saying; I am not enjoying

this and Maybe I should say something to

Zac, that his rushing is not the best way to do

this walk. I was aware of my doubts and kept

telling myself to say something at the right

spot on the trail .

As I became aware of my internal self-talk I

also reali zed I was not saying anything

because I didnt want to confront Zacs con-

cern about getting back to the city on time. I

was will ing to ri sk one of us getting hurt and

will ing to miss enjoying a magnificent day

just because I was afraid to say what I knew

was true. Once I was aware of my thoughts

and feelings and what they were based on, I

called out to Zac and asked him to stop. When

I caught up with everyone, I asked them how

they were feeling about the pace. Zac said he

was concerned about getting back to his job

and he knew he was walking at an acceler-

ated pace. I explained that I felt we were miss-

ing the beauti ful day, and the enjoyment of

the walk and also felt we were putting our-

selves in danger by walking so quickly. We

also discussed how the rapid pace had caused

our thoughts to become involved with a lot ofother things and we were not really present.

Zac was thinking about how much time he

would need to get ready for his work, my son

was thinking about seeing his girl friend in

Sydney next week and I was thinking about

whether I should say something about our

rapid pace. So nobody was actually experienc-

ing the walk!

We then agreed to spend about two minutes

with our eyes closed, li stening to the sounds

around us, being aware of the sense of air and

sunlight on our bodies and allowing the

mental activity to die down. When we started

walking again there was a sense of quiet

attention and we seemed to be much more

together as a group. The rest of the morning

walk turned out to be much more enjoyable

and we made it back well ahead of the

required time. As we got near to our return

point, Zac came over to me and said that he

saw that hi s rushing was symptomatic of a lot

of things he does in li fe. He focuses on one

goal to the exclusion of everything else whi ch

diminishes his enjoyment as well as his effec-

tiveness. He seemed quite pleased that we had

slowed down and let go of the rushing; as a

result he gave attention to the walk since that

was why he had come on the two-day trek

anyway.

The important thing that I learned was that

my leadership was not to do with getting

anyone to do anything li ke getting Zac to

slow down. It was about me expressing my

concern to point out what I knew was true that rushing, with all the mental chatter

going on, was not good, and that being in the

present was something I needed to do. By

expressing that, I had done my job I pointed

out what I needed whether Zac or my son

got mad at me for slowing things down, or

whether they thought I was a wise

adult/ father did not matter. Leadership for

me was seeing what was needed in the

moment and letting go of the stuff that

blocked or i nhibited the things that needed to

happen.

Whi le thi s example may be of a simple

instant during bushwalking, there are thou-

sands of these moments of tr uth every day

for leaders and employees in organizations

all over the world. It is this moment by

moment leadership that makes the difference.

Leadership is quite mysteri ous since I did not

really know whether we would make it back

in time or not. It just took confidence that if I

did what I knew was true, things would turn

out all ri ght.

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