Lao Tzu

This quote by Lao Tzu shares about leadership from an inspiring perspective. Leadership, here, is when one inspires others, and not when one controls others. With this quote, it also seems like invisible leadership is highly effective and appreciated.

Visible leadership is quite common, especially so in a competitive business environment where people want to be credited for the work they have done or be recognized by their followers. There is control and command here and people know their leader is.

In contrary, then, there is invisible leadership. With Lao Tzu’s quote, I see a notion of invisible leadership where a truly great and generous leader is one that is able to gain fulfillment and happiness for his ability to create an environment that is nurturing – an environment that empowers its people or the organization to discover, learn and flourish. The personal virtue of modesty and subtlety is, thus, needed with such form of leadership. While the effects and power of this leader may not be tangible or seen, it can definitely be sensed and felt by the followers and the organization. There is some form of invitation by the leader to his/her followers – the invitation to grow.

In the context of today’s competitive world, whilst it may be challenging and tiring to serve the greatest good and then stay in the background, I feel that this also could be the most sustainable kind of leadership. In fact, true leadership should be invisible because this is a leader who possesses a very effective power form – the power to drive people by the people’s own intrinsic motivation. Further, I feel that this form of leadership allows for space within an organization. When there is space for the followers and/or the organization, they are able to grow organically and effectively. The followers will see the need to be responsible for their work tasks and consequently, their accomplishments. Allowing them to finally say, “we did it ourselves!” Thus, such invisible leadership requires a leader that is able to not intervene and not always be in the way of a certain workplace situation or project. In order to lead invisibly also takes a lot of trust and experience, per se.