Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 66

Poem 66

All streams flow to the sea
because it is lower than they are.
Humility gives it its power.

If you want to govern the people,
you must place yourself below them.
If you want to lead the people,

you must learn how to follow them.

The Master is above the people,

and no one feels oppressed.

She goes ahead of the people,

and no one feels manipulated.

The whole world is grateful to her.

Because she competes with no one,

no one can compete with her.

Commentary

Malahide Estuary

We don't have to be in anyway astute to know that leadership is a difficult skill, or even set of skills.  Having been a teacher all my life, my only leadership role has been at classroom or at Year Head levels. Working with and leading adults is an area in which I have little experience.  However, I am old enough now to have "worked under" many leaders and to have observed and experienced many leadership styles.  Without a doubt we mostly abhor the autocratic or authoritarian style of leadership.  Who wants to be told what to do on a daily or even hourly basis? The opposite was the case - total lack of leadership - once in our school when a principal only lasted less than a year as the job was far beyond his capabilities. Luckily, the man realised this quite quickly and luckily got his old job back in the school from which he had come.  Anyway, all order and discipline disappeared in the school over night. Thankfully, this was just a slight hiccup in my 30 years in that school and all other leaders have been more or less satisfactory, with one outstanding leader.

Malahide Estuary

I have never studied leadership, but I would hazard the following qualities of good leadership from observation and experience or length of years on this earth: (i) good vision of where the organisation is going, (ii) good motivator, (iii) good listener, (iv) enthusiasm for the job, (v) knows his/her staff well - whether X, Y or Z will suit this or that job, (vi) can delegate and allow everyone to take ownership of their area without wanting to control things - in other words, she or he will never be a micro-manager.  I have experienced a more junior head of department who could never let go the reins of control and insisted on controlling everything.  In the end of course, such leaders don't control anything and things spiral into disorder, (vii) a good problem solver - able to deal with multiple problems at a time, and consequently be good at comparmentalising things (viii) has to have a hard skin, that is, they have to rise above the situation and learn never to take things personally.  If one puts oneself forward for a position in authority one has to learn to take citicism.  It has been my experience, and I take it that of most of the readers of this small blog, that leadership invariable attracts criticism by its very nature.  Everyone wants someone to blame, a quick scapegoat to blame all problems on.  Finally (ix) s/he who is a leader needs a very good sympathethic and empathethic deputy leader with whom they can share their problems, insights and vision.  Now, these are mere observations as the result of my life experience in my particular place of work, and bear in mind that I have never studied the aea of leadership ever.

In the above poem, I particularly love the image of the sea as the centre of power, and my goodness what a powerful phenomenon it it.  We all know that all life emerged aeons ago from the watery slime of our seas and oceans.  Without the oceans and seas there would simply have been no life as we know it.  The sea or the ocean consequently has always been a central symbol in all mythologies and cultures.  In psychoanalytical or Jungian terms the oceans or seas represent the great Unconscious, a source of much of our psychic lives.  Then, the image of all lesser water bodies, rivers and lakes and so on - the rivers all flow into the seas while the other water bodies are connected with the oceans historically and geologically in ways this writer could never understand.  However, what I am getting at here is the powerful imagery of all this for good leadership.  The leader, according to the Tao is the sea or the ocean and the workers are the rivers that flow into it.  Our poet tells us that the sea lies at a lower level to allow such an inward flow.  In this sense its power is very natural, and indeed a very humble one.  Interestingly the etymology of the work "humble" is "humilis" which means lowly or low lying.

One of my favourite all time quotes comes from Albert Camus, an atheist.  (Indeed, contrary to general belief, atheists do have a spirituality in the broadest sense of that term, obviously not in the religious sense of it.  See the marvellously comprehensive blog called Spirituality Ireland HERE.) The quotation reads: "Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend."  Strangely enough - or maybe not that strangely as we are all human, no matter what our beliefs - the idea of accompanying others is central to spiritual guidance, counselling and chaplaincy.   This is more or less the sense of the final stanza above.  The Master is more a companion on the journey, and yet a leader who always wields an encouraging power, a power which at base is empowering of others.

The Master is above the people,

and no one feels oppressed.

She goes ahead of the people,

and no one feels manipulated.

The whole world is grateful to her.

Because she competes with no one,

no one can compete with her.