This post is part of a synchroblog of Christian bloggers writing this month about leadership, just in time for the election.  

In thinking about this post, my mind ranged over all the leadership books I've read, trainings and team work that I've had the privilege to participate in over the 30 years in the world of work. In addition, opportunities in seminary to talk, read and study about church leadership were seminal.   Nothing I've heard or read has been more powerful in focusing and challenging me around leadership than some of the stanzas from the Tao te Ching. The poetic rhythm, the double entendres, the clarity of the metaphors and the humility of the spirit of these words have been beacons for thousands of years and for probably millions of people.  While this is a Christian synchroblog, I can imagine Lao tzu and Jesus having a walk-and-talk and experiencing great silence and spirited laughter together, sharing their deep humility and understanding of the human condition.

Taoist ethics emphasize compassion, moderation, and humility. Taoist thought focuses on health, longevity, immortality, wu wei (non-action) and spontaneity.  Here are the Tao te Ching stanzas that have both rattled and unchained me.

A leader is best
When people barely know that he exists,
Not so good when people obey and acclaim him,
Worst when they despise him.
'Fail to honor people,
They fail to honor you;'
But of a good leader, who talks little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
They will all say, 'We did this ourselves.'

One of the formative teachers in my hospice career taught about the true, underlying goal for any hospice team. What the team works toward is the family  and friends being able to individually and collectively say after their beloved has died: "I did what I could not have thought possible."  This perspective takes the hospice team out of the picture other than to be the support for this process.  This way of engaged non-action increases our awe of the capacity of humans and the power of love.  I loved, learned, and taught and still teach this principle. 

Leaders should not seek power or status;
people will not then crave power or status.
If scarce goods are not valued highly,
people will have no need to steal them.
If there is nothing available to arouse passion,
people will remain content and satisfied.

This passage on the power of non-resistance has stood me in good stead during times in my administrative life when I have felt pushed into a position or into a place of reactivity.  When I have been able to live into this passage, amazing openings have happened.  When I have not lived into it, conflict has escalated.  I especially like the part about 'if scarce goods are not valued highly people will have no need to steal them'.  This a clear and nuanced stance for the leader: Able to vision beyond the moment of greed, desperation or fear of losing what we think we have to see that the real need is for peace and harmonious relations--far more valuable than any commodity. 

The truly wise do lead
by instilling humility and open-mindedness,
by providing for fair livelihoods,
by discouraging personal ambition,
by strengthening the bone-structure of the people.

The wise avoid evil and radical reform;
thus the foolish do not obstruct them.
They work serenely, with inner quiet.

These have been hard lessons.  I have tended to be a bit of a reformer and have thus stirred some obstruction.  I am learning through patient teachers and wise leaders that the best  way to the heart of the matter may be through assuming nothing, knowing precious little, assuming that intentions, including my own, are not ever pure, and being as open to the moment as possible.  The 'strengthening the bone-structure of the people' line puzzles and somehow enlightens me.  My current interpretation of that phrase is: strong infra-structure based on willingness to bend,grow and develop as the needs of the organism demand is where the vitality of any family, church, organization or country lies. 

And so, here we are on the eve of the election.  I've voted, by mail, here in Oregon.  I'm no longer nervous about the outcome: it is what it is. I am no longer resisting, and am actually serene about whatever the future may bring for the leadership of the US.  My bone-structure is being strengthened (whatever that means, I'm pretty sure it's happening). I pray for a leader who gets this: physicists do not need mysticism, and mystics do not need physics, but humanity needs both.  I pray for a leader who knows that only in being the river  will we accomplish the Herculean tasks ahead of us.  I pray for a leader that has the courage of his contradictions.  I pray for a leader that understands more than he knows, and can help us get over ourselves.

Check out the other blogs on this synchroblog on leadership, if you dare:

Jonathan Brink - Letter To The President

Adam Gonnerman - Aspiring to the Episcopate

Kai - Leadership - Is Servant Leadership a Broken Model?

Sally Coleman - In the world but not of it- servant leadership for the 21st Century Church

Alan Knox - Submission is given not taken

Joe Miller - Elders Lead a Healthy Family: The Future

Cobus van Wyngaard - Empowering leadership

Steve Hayes - Servant leadership

Geoff Matheson - Leadership

John Smulo - Australian Leadership Lessons

Helen Mildenhall - Leadership

Tyler Savage - Moral Leadership - Is it what we need?

Bryan Riley - Leading is to Listen and Obey

Susan Barnes - Give someone else a turn!

Liz Dyer - A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Polls

Bill Ellis - Spiritual Leadership and the Re-humanizing of the World

Julie Clawson- Leadership Expectations 

The Tao of Leadership by John Heider