How Tai Chi Can Transform Leadership Qualities

 

The traditional Chinese practice of Tai Chi is renowned the world over for its many martial arts, physical and mental health benefits. High among these benefits is its potential to cultivate leadership qualities in practitioners. From enhanced self-awareness to improved communication skills, here is how Tai Chi can transform leadership qualities.

Balance

In leadership, balance is a key component because it means staying calm and balanced while under pressure. Tai Chi teaches its practitioners the importance of staying centered and focused when faced with unpredicted and difficult situations. This helps leaders stay grounded and make decisions objectively. Practicing Tai Chi also helps cultivate poise, self-control, and a sense of inner peace. This can help make leaders more capable of managing their emotions and making clear decisions without being swayed by panic, fear, or ego.

Concentration

The ability to focus is highly valued in leadership because it requires immense concentration and discipline. Tai Chi helps practitioners improve concentration levels through deep mental and physical exercises. Focused breathing and meditation techniques can help leaders concentrate better and stay on task and track. Additionally, the slow and smooth movements of Tai Chi also helps practitioners stay mindful and connected to their environment. This increases the likelihood of making wise decisions in the face of challenging situations.

Flow

Flow is an important attribute for leaders. It is the ability to move from one task to another, from one issue to another seamlessly without being disrupted by outside disturbances. Tai Chi helps cultivate this skill by teaching practitioners how to physically move in sync with their inner energy and surroundings. This helps leaders stay within parameters of their tasks and vision, on their goals and make timely decisions. Tai Chi also promotes creativity and a sense of ease which are two essential traits for successful leadership.

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is essential for wise decision-making. Tai Chi helps cultivate self-awareness by promoting relaxation and a better understanding of one's body. As practitioners become aware of their inner energy, they also become aware of their weaknesses and strengths. This helps them understand their limitations and empower them to make better choices in difficult situations. And a leader without self-awareness cannot lead others.

 

So, Tai Chi is a powerful tool used more and more that can help enhance the leadership qualities if it is practiced properly. Through balance, concentration, flow, and self-awareness, individuals can become more aware of their strengths and weaknesses and be better equipped to make wise decisions in challenging situations. Therefore, incorporating Tai Chi into leadership development programmes can have a significant positive impact on individuals.

Steps to Turn Control into Delegation

In my blog ‘Can Obedience nurture Trust?’ my thoughts were about shifting from blind obedience to trust. Control and delegation are a part of the same story. Let’s challenge them here now.

Control is the act or power of controlling or regulating people's behavior … or to exercise restraint or direction over; to dominate. All responsibility is with a control-holder.

History has repeatedly shown how problematic is to effectively restrain power from someone once it has been granted to if a strong system of control, checks and balances is in place. People tend to – when given control or power – exercise them far beyond the legal, actually given, authority. Such anomalies are not excluded in business.

What is Delegation?

To delegate means to give to another person a task or duty or activity meanwhile retaining responsibility for the outcome. The latter is the key since while delegating, you are still responsible for the outcome!

So, where lays the difference between the two if responsibility still remains in the same hands?

Well, control, as we have seen, can be misused when delegate hardly.

Best Practices describe why Punctuality matters

In martial arts “punctuality” is the key. Why?

Why I think so, I’ll explain later, let’s see how punctuality is defined in Wikipedia: the characteristic of being able to complete a required task or fulfill an obligation before or at a previously designated time. "Punctual" is often used synonymously with "on time". It is a common misconception that punctual can also, when talking about grammar, mean "to be accurate".

In business world punctuality means organizing your time effectively; to be more productive as you start or get on time; in some countries to be respectful to your hosts and well, yes – also disrespectful in others; in short, punctuality affects the individual just as much as it affects the workplace to operate more smoothly as a whole. Punctuality reduces stress as well as stress leads to poor workplace performance.

Does then being punctual strengthens and reveals your integrity?

It is said that when George Washington’s secretary arrived late to a meeting and blamed his watch for his tardiness, Washington quietly replied ‘Then you must get another watch, or I another secretary.’

When you make others wait, you rob minutes from those that came early or on time.

I recall leading a project group in a government environment: we had meetings in a place where most of attendants had their offices. The reason was not to spend time of most participants on commuting. I usually arrived few minutes earlier. Once, after several attempts of asking people to be on time, I have written on the big wall table names and numbers. Everybody seemed a bit wary while watching me. When the last person finally arrived I summed up the numbers and multiplied with average hour salary for our group. We lost almost an average monthly salary while waiting.

The importance of being punctual is not universal and varies from country to country, even within country and from culture to culture. In some places like south Europe, Latin America or Pacific Islands, life moves at a different pace than in northern hemisphere and meeting times are meant to be more incoherent.

Does then being punctual build up and reveal the extent of control a leader has?

How Would a Leader Rock With Fun

Does fun have anything to do in leadership?

Did ever happen to you when you were still young that out of nothing (or for something that today would not even notice) you burst out laughing loud in a classroom? Did other mates follow?

Grown up, have you ever been in a situation when you could not stop laughing even you are aware it is not appropriate time/place? Probably, you have not.

And if it happened to you, you very likely tried to hold back and hush up knowing that the sound of (roaring) laughter is far more contagious than any cough, sniffle, or sneeze. Therefore, laugh should not interrupt the important meeting or should it?

How many times have you heard the phrase ‘work and fun’? So, do we have fun at work or we work for fun …?

The heresy?

It is well known that when we laugh we change physiologically and psychically. We stretch muscles throughout our face and as well our body, our pulse and blood pressure go up, we breathe faster sending more oxygen to our organs and tissues. Maciej Buchowski, a researcher from Vanderbilt University, conducted a small study and found out that laughter appears to burn calories, too.

In the post Best Ways to Relax Successfully I was talking how relaxation lowers stress. Laugh was purposely not mentioned as you have to have fun to do what was written in previously mentioned post. Increased stress is associated with decreased immune system. A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress.

Without any study behind I can argue that most people do not equate ‘work & fun’ together. Furthermore, as shows The Employee Engagement we are further and further distancing from engaged employees. The disengaged majority of employees probably wish it could be true to have fun at work but they have never really experienced it or been allowed to have it. And, by not allowing it, what a failure to raise productivity, development and much more. Studies demonstrate that when people are having fun at work, employee turnover is reduced. And not only turnover …

Now, think for just a moment. Think about your personal experience: when last did you have some fun and after felt more energized, focused, willing and able to get more things done?

The Difference between Helping and Fixing

Leaders are there to help, managers to fix.

Agree?

Probably hard to claim this could be the final truth.

When helping someone then (obviously) you have to know better or more than the person you are helping. So, helping in ‘the wrong way’ demonstrates non-equality of the people involved thus becoming a relationship between non-equals.

There are times when we help a friend or co-worker during tough times. Does this kind of help require (owe) a favor in return? Or, is this help a sincere one with no expectation of returned favor?

Trying hard to help someone has it happened to you that you have inadvertently ‘helped’ in a way that it actually took away from people more than you could ever “give” them?

I remember my first weeks arranging my life in Seville. I was so many times lost and had to ask for help. And most of the times I got it only to discover that people, in their desire to help, sent me in the wrong direction.

There’s another way to help: we could help in a way that the receiver will eventually develop new abilities or knowledge and not just receive your help and your past knowledge.

And what would a help with a sincere and open approach be like?

Picture a small kid playing with toys: trying all over again to build a tower with bricks and it keeps collapsing all the times. After a while you step in and demonstrate how to do it. What exactly have you thought the child by your action? That depends on the way you have helped: you may have as well diminished kid’s self-esteem, sense of worth, integrity and/or wholeness. But, the help could be given with the right stimuli, motivation and by asking what goes where … it is a proactive way of helping that ultimately builds trust and knowledge.

With a sincere help you simply share your knowledge or you figure out what’s your help’s value to other person or when you give a transparent feedback. You do not expect anything in return. You just help the other to grow and learn. Help is also when (good) leaders take the time out of their busy day to help a follower or co-worker in need but unable to solve a problem. They’ll sure remember your help.

What about ‘fixing’?

Reasons why Leadership is not about manipulation

After recently a puppy joint our household once again it proved that from the moment we are born we have been predestined and taught how to manipulate. All small kids (the same goes for puppies) use basically 24 hours per day to watch, observe and consequently ‘calculate’ what is good for them and how to achieve it.

Well, assuming that is so and also knowing that manipulation has a bad reputation, how could we distinguish manipulation from a persuasion (does not have a bad reputation) that we use as well?

In my view a manipulation is, by definition, a form of persuasion and vice versa. Might be that manipulation is more of a short-term strategy, but consequently, manipulation and persuasion are all about getting someone to do something that you want them to do. Isn’t it?

From persuasion point of view I would say that it distinguishes from manipulation in a small detail: influencing someone because of something that is ‘good’ for the person or, better said that the person may be persuaded to perceive such doing as beneficial or good. Therefore, in this relation the trust in the persuader is the fundamental element for the effective persuasion. And trust is mostly missing or abused in manipulation.

Practicing “Tai Chun”

There is no martial art with the name Tai Chun. I just melted names of two arts to form a new expression:  the first word from Tai Chi (Tai chi in the leadership world -1) and the other from Wing Chun (Wing chun in Leadership; Wing Chun basics 4 Leadership). So, why did I combine those two arts?

For several decades now I have been practicing different martial arts and came to conclusion that at the top level of any martial art there is a very similar if not the same knowledge and performance.

Why is it so?

People like to think we are different. But, what I like to point out is that as people we are all the same. We have almost identical “hardware” (two legs and hands, one body, head …) that moves in the same way. Well, one is taller and the other is heavier etc. but there is no big difference when it comes to how we sit down, walk, eat or fight. We use the same musculatures, joints or/and bones. Our “software” is pretty similar as well (we have fears, we are happy, we are angry …). Our brains work through the ‘same’ neurons and have same regions for processing vision, thoughts, and emotions. Therefore, our thoughts are produced, stored and retrieved in the same manner. And the same goes for our  cerebellum system where our reactions are ‘memorized’ and fired from.

Lesson of Leadership by Biba

To post on the first day of a new year – a challenge in a way. But what else is a leadership if not that too?

Last year was a great year full of changes, challenges and a big loss too. After eleven years of being with us we lost our dog Biba. We've found her in a shelter and since the first moment she made an inseparable and very significant part of our family accompanying us wherever the path took us. She’s always been a very happy dog ready for any kind of action no matter the time, weather conditions or circumstances.

She taught our kids the responsibility for another living being. Yes, it was her doing to teach and to keep watch of our home and ‘our pack.’ She taught all of us how to be happy each and every day, she taught us what a real compassion means, she was watchful and mindful of all and she took her responsibilities with great care.

Multicultural environment and leadership

In situations when you have to introduce yourself where do you usually place your family name: in front of a given one or behind it? Do you call other people by their first name? Koreans for example remain largely as ‘people with no given names’. We often say ‘my’ school or ‘my’ office or ‘my’ country; the Japanese people say ‘our’ school or ‘our’ office or ‘our’ country and even ‘our husband’? In Western culture we use ‘Hi,’ ‘Thank you,’ ‘You’re welcome,’ or ‘I’m sorry’. In China the same is preferably expressed by eye contacts or body gestures. When eating with friends do you share dishes or does each of you have your own plate just for yourself?

Above are just some cultural differences that you may see when visiting the countries around the globe. For a short visit some mistakes are not significant but if you are in the position to lead a multicultural team also these mistakes may influence the job outcome.

For me the most important is that you “understand” the differences. Next important issue is that you have to ‘be aware of’ your ‘cultural background noise’ as I’ve talked about in my TEDx talk. A cultural background noise may be blocking your vision on others’ cultural issues. If you surpass it you are prepared to accept and change.

Loyalty at work

In working environment have you ever wondered about:

• Does a mutual feeling of trust within the organization increase productivity and commitment to set goals?
• Why can’t you handle an employee that frequently appears to undermine your authority or sabotage your projects?
• What is wrong when you entrust to employee and still, because of him, in team there is no teamwork attitude?

Most of the times the answer to the above questions is about loyalty: the quality of “faithfulness” to you as a leader or your principles, your country, organization, work, your vision, your superiors and subordinates.

Loyalty is a two-way street. Majority understands it as being loyal to those above forgetting those below. But, a leader depends on team. All of them should be committed, productive and reliable so that the entire department, company or country could be successful.

Tai chi in the leadership world – 2

In the previous post (Tai chi in the leadership world – 1) I've written about basics and fundamentals of the wide and profound wisdom of Tai Chi. By the end I have indicated some ways to use it in leadership. In this post I would like to expose some essentials of Tai Chi that may be an advantage also in leadership.

To empirically learn so-called internal martial art aspects of Tai Chi one begins with Tui shou or pushing hands (see post: Pushing hands and Virtue). Pushing hands is a distinctive Tai Chi practice very similar to Chi shou (sticking hands) used in Wing Chun (see post: Wing Chun basics and Wing Chun and leadership). The latter is more combative while pushing hands is less aggressive and more oriented to using opponent’s energy. With pushing hands the endurance needed in a contest is developed. The method softens stances, movements, and stiffness of a whole body. You need to be perceptive of your partner. Pushing hands diminish your natural instinct of resisting force with force enabling to correctly respond to the external stimuli: your body simply yields to force and redirects it. It is a Yin and Yang or strong and soft principle that governs pushing hands. With age we tend to become inflexible and our reactions jerky, as often obvious when (if) we slip and plunge to the floor. Kids are still much more natural in the same situations just collapse softly or roll, like usually lucky drunk person.

Pushing hands method is extremely good for a person with a big ego too (see post: Ego and Leadership) as it covers our senses and therefore conceals our reactions. A person should be very relaxed, stable in the proper stance that allows moving back and front, left and right, up and down. All thoughts should be wiped and nothing expected. When opponent’s action comes, you react naturally.

Observer’s influence and Leadership

If asked whether you like physics most or many of you would probably answer “no”.

In next few paragraphs I would like to show you that it is quite an interesting field that can be used and applied in real life and definitively in leadership too. I will begin with a kind of  ‘strange’ theory that demonstrates “observer’s influence” on what is observed.

The Werner Heisenberg uncertainty principle says that the act of observation interferes with what is being observed. He defined that the position and momentum of a particle cannot be simultaneously measured with arbitrarily high precision. More precisely the position is determined less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa. This is even more relevant in dealing with human and organizational systems. But there is a difference. In human and organizational systems, the object of observation is aware of being observed and can react depending on the situation and perceived purpose of the observation. This can compound the challenges of leadership.

There is definitively a version of the Heisenberg principle that works in leadership area. If a leader is present and steers things, they function differently than when he is present and doesn’t steer, or even when he is not present. Of course, it seems to work better when a leader is present. But shouldn't a leadership be about followers doing right things even when a leader is not present?

Learning Leadership from Martial Arts - II

 The principles I’m sharing today are not rules or steps that most of the times are offered and used separately instead of integrally in Western leadership teaching methodology. The Eastern principle has it usually all interlinked. Therefore, bellow you will see elementary pieces of a whole personality of a martial artist. They are refined and presented separately only for the purpose of a more straightforward understanding:

• Control: The martial arts teach self-control of the body and the mind (ego). Martial art practice starts with hard training, where a student (e.g.: karate, kick boxing, tai chi chuan, wing chun, savate, escrima, aikido, sambo etc.) normally has to endure the threshold of pain from received and given punches. Only when relaxed, one is in control of oneself and of pain, consequently of others too.
• Trust: There is a saying in martial arts: “Trust your friends to beat you so that your enemies cannot!” A martial artist has firstly to trust in himself not to injure others – only then others trust him not to be injured by him.
• Stability: A person cannot fight successfully and master the opponent without stability and balance in place. It means that we should properly adjust our stance: how we ‘shape’ our body to ‘adjust’ our bones that have to support the muscles in a relaxed way. With our stance, gaze and movements we communicate our mental, physical and emotional state to those that are able to read it. Should or not we show what our thoughts are?
• Adjustment: Not only a Chinese proverb says “The grass abates in the direction from which the wind blows!” A martial artist has to keep adjusting to the surrounding and to the opponent. Any hesitance on his part will result in time lost and thusly giving to the opponent an opportunity and the advantage to attack.

Leadership and time management

“Please call my secretary for a meeting – she knows when I’m busy” is often heard from an important CEO?

If you yourself do not manage your time, how are you able to manage the time of the people you lead?

To develop a time management skill means to become aware of how one uses his time. William Penn said: “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” And yes, there never seems to be enough time, unless you're the one that serve the time. Nothing can replace a time wasted, it can never be regained. Time management is a resource in organizing, prioritizing, and succeeding in what and how you perform.

A leader is burdened by numerous things almost always with limited time resources. Just worrying about time limitations and putting off or postponing may lead to indecision and consequently inefficiency. Due time pressure you resort to implement instead of analyze first. In leadership inefficiency occurs when unrealistic time estimates are made. Most of the time is lost due to issues resulting from poor organizational skills. This leads to ineffective meetings and finish with a leader micro-managing. The latter is also supported by failing to delegate tasks and performances. Many bad leaders are also not so strong in planning. They have not a clear idea about prioritizing, standardizing, or implementing organizational policies and procedures. They rather tend to deal with urgent tasks and thusly postpone the important ones till they become urgent (see my blog: Cause and consequence / Urgent and important).

Are Leaders Born or Made?

A timeless debate like the age-old controversy about “a chicken and an egg” is more or less applicable also to the question whether leaders are born or made. In the most texts I've so far read the prevalent answer is: a leader is born.

Personally, I’m more for a kind of the in-between position: early genetics shown in childhood is an imprint that is hard to undo. Later, learning and practice bring new qualities and dimensions to leadership. Statistically, leadership capability will definitively fall along the Gaussian distribution.  Some people are, indeed, born leaders but they still need a lot of work and learning to become true leaders and to get even better as they go along. At the bottom of the curve there are others who, no matter how hard they try, simply aren't ever going to be leaders.  They just don’t have the innate wiring. All in between start out with a very good prerequisites and are hard workers and learners but mostly never become outstanding leaders.

It may be true that some people feel more inclined and are better prepared to take on leadership roles and then consequently learn and develop the necessary skills to become a superior leader. Certain basics of good leadership can be self-taught, but a number of useful skills will be acquired through experience developed over a time. Understanding leadership functions is important to develop skills and capabilities to then achieve a successful leadership style matching one’s own character and talents. Therefore, modern theories about leadership involve a combination of personality traits and also specific skills, capabilities learned over time and gained through experience. It is rather a life learning process and not a semester at an MBA school.

Leadership responsiveness

Every and all things trigger a response: action ~ reaction.

Pretend that, while walking on an icy road, you slip. What is your reaction, your response? Mostly, we are so caught by surprise that we become stiff. That is followed by a fall. Frequently we land on our hands and, if we are lucky, only hurt ourselves and not broke wrists. If we had a knowledge how to “properly” fall, we would have “let go” and yield ourselves to a fall. Most likely, no harm to our body would be done, we would only get wet. Which we get anyway.

“The grasses abate in the direction the wind blows.” says a Chinese proverb.

Leadership by Virtue background

A common conclusion of all studies on our cultures is that we are definitely different. This is not really a great contribution but rather just a common knowledge. And this conclusion is what mostly challenged me. To successfully lead people you need to find what binds the people together and not what separates them.

Within globalization processes people that are now to work together do not come only from the same cultural background but were raised also in different cultures. And leaders are to take into consideration this new dimension, while, due to current perpetuating crisis, at the same time dealing with finding a way, a fresh and new leadership approach. And the stress should be put on the change of leadership practices and not only on a repainting of current ones. To introduce a new approach to leadership, the book “Leadership by Virtue” takes a different venue - a way that brings Far-East concepts into Western approaches and entangles both.

 The “Leadership by Virtue” approach is not about the instruction on how and what to do. It is rather a complex interlinked method to change oneself first. Accordingly, it is not ‘externally oriented’, as the case is in most of the Western culture’s way of management or leadership methodologies. Here the book takes  more Far-East tactic and is dedicated to ‘internal self’.

Least of effort in leadership

The Mandarin Chinese word wú wéi could be described: ‘by inaction nothing is left undone.’ It may well be also translated as ‘non-acting makes all action possible.’ Lǎo Zǐ, a philosopher of ancient China and the author of the Dào Dé Jīng, in stanza 38 ‘About Dé of the Dào’ described it as:
High virtue by obliging not acquires moral force.

Low virtue obliges always and thus lacks moral force.

High virtue neither strives nor acts for its own ends.

Low virtue does not strive but acts for its own ends.

Dào is usually translated as way, road, channel, path, doctrine, or line and by Chinese opinion cannot be obtained as virtue cannot be approached. The legendary Chinese sovereign and cultural hero Yellow Emperor (reigned from 2.696–2.598 BE) said that once Dào is lost, virtue arises; once virtue is lost, humaneness arises; once humaneness is lost, righteousness arises; once righteousness is lost, formalism arises. But formalism is the flowery representation of Dào and the beginning of disorder.

Two sides of the same coin

What constitutes to be a superior leader? F. Marcos said: Leadership is the other side of the coin of loneliness, and he who is a leader must always act alone. And acting alone, accept everything alone (brainyquote). So, is it a head or is it a tail?

My lessons from “the other side of a coin” started when, together with my sons, we decided to go to the Mount Kilimanjaro. My decision had nothing to do with Kilimajaro being the biggest free standing mountain in the world or because it is the tallest mountain of the African continent and not even because it bares my name in it. I joined the idea because it was my long lived dream since the times I lived in Africa.

To climb the summit of 5.895 m in eight days via Lemosho route had to be planned well in advance as we were not physically fit for such a challenge. For months prior to the challenge we have been successful at climbing and trekking to each and every hill or mountain available to us in Slovenia. After Kilimanjaro I realize that it was not the trekking of more than 70 km or freezing temperatures that we have underestimated. It was “the other side of a coin.”

High altitude and lack of oxygen proved to be subjected to our naivety in thinking that climbing such a mountain is only a physical challenge. Slow walk, introduced by our guides from the ANDA African Adventure, at the beginning of our tour seemed ridiculous to us, but each succeeding day on the mountain proved that it was the only compulsory physical possibility for success.

Wing Chun basics 4 Leadership

In the book Leadership by Virtue I refer to martial arts philosophies and Wing Chun principles with regard to a personal growth for those who strive to become an outstanding leader. Here I’d like to share some Wing Chun basics to illustrate this relationship:

Efficiency and effectiveness are both the hallmarks of Wing Chun. Out of these hallmarks spring three main principles: central line, economy of movement, simultaneous attack and defense. And these principles serve right only if you have cultured three roots: balance, structure and stance.

A correct stance is like a bamboo, firm but flexible, rooted but yielding. It gives us power to either deflect external forces or redirect them. Balance is connected to a structure that is embedded within a stance. A correct structure is not important just for the defense, but also for the attack. Being effectively ‘rooted’ or aligned against the ground enables the force of the hit to be taken and absorbed by the ground. Why a good leader has to have a stable stance I have already explained in my Leadership and stability blog post.