The most important thing for a leader is to not be overly
controlling and manipulative. The core of being a positive leader is to allow
all of your followers their full reign of creativity and intelligence. You need
to interact with them as living and changing organisms, and not merely view
them from a templated abstraction about who they are. If you only see them objectified through their
various labels, such as “followers”, and you try and control them thusly, you
will only succeed in snuffing out their fun and vibrancy and exhausting a lot
of energy on your part.
There are many leaders, some of them are energetically dead
and some are energetically alive. The energetically dead people tend to be
aggressive or unbalanced leaders. They control the group from a position of
authority that is fueled by a feeling of strength derived from tension. An
energetically alive leader uses creativity and natural love to fuel his/her
interactions. He/she does not need to hold up a strong ego to do battles for
him/her, but simply interacts with everybody head on, completely relaxed.
Consider a tai chi form, which is a long sequence of precise
movements. Many people think their
way through the form. They guide their arms and legs into position through
their ideas, concepts and principles they have mentally scribed as Law for
their actions. This is a poor leadership of the body, because the body parts
remain dead and tense while the mind simply guides them into the correct mold. The
good practitioner knows not to interfere with or manipulate his/her body’s
movements. The intelligence of the body has been strengthened through the
practice of tai chi and each body part “knows” what to do on its own. The mind
continues to analyze, but this analyzation no longer interferes with the
aliveness of the body. This is a good leadership of the mind, because it
fulfills its role but maintains respect for the conscious freedom of each of
its “subjects.”
Consider how a snake moves its body. Its consciousness is
distributed throughout its body, so that every body part can effortlessly move
in coordination with every other part. This gives the animal incredible
vibrancy. While a leader must be good at guiding his group pragmatically,
safely and strategically, they must also have a vibrancy of aliveness so that a
knowledgeable and clever mind does not overshadow his/her direct experience of
his “possy”. Thus, the integration of this tai chi ch’uan principle can directly improve the
internal balance of a leader- enhancing his leadership skills and his ability
to comfortably connect to his crew.
