Laozi’s Four Types of Leaders

Most workplaces have a strange relationship with leadership. We say we want leaders who can cultivate trust, autonomy and initiative, but often reward those who do the opposite, pursuing visibility, control and constant intervention while ensuring everyone knows any win happened because of them.

That can feel like true leadership. It may even work for a while. The team moves, the metrics improve and the leader gets praised, but then something goes wrong. Team members begin working for the leader's approval rather than from their own strengths. Decisions wait for permission. Initiative shrinks. The team becomes organized around a cult of personality instead of a shared purpose.

Laozi saw this problem more than 2,000 years ago. In chapter 17 of the Dao De Jing, the Chinese philosopher gives one of the most compact leadership theories ever written. "The best ruler," as translated by Yi Wu, is the one "the people merely know" exists. Below that is the ruler people "love and praise," then the ruler people "fear" and finally the one they "despise."

Please select this link to read the complete article from Big Think.