Leadership & Organization Development Journal

Emerald Article: Leadership moment by moment!

Ron Cacioppe

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Leadership moment by moment!

Ron Cacioppe
Graduate School of Business, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia

Aims to bring together some

of the major perspectives and
theories of leadership with
some of the key practical
components of eastern and
western philosophy. Suggests
that the current leadership
theories are good foundations
from which to move to a more
practical and immediate
experience of leadership. The
major view put forward is that
these concepts of leadership
point to the need for leadership wisdom. First, covers
theories of leadership to
provide a summary of current
thinking on what is good
leadership. Discusses the
recent concept of emotional
intelligence as an appropriate way to extend the way we
look at the personality and
skills of a leader. Introduces
leadership wisdom as a way
of describing effective leadership applied to the immediate
situation. This wisdom can be
found in themes that have
existed in western and eastern philosophy for centuries.
Explores these themes using
stories that have come from
philosophical teachings and
then relates them to the
central points of leadership.
Uses a summary figure to
portray the integration of
previous leadership concepts
around leadership wisdom in
practice. Makes a number of
suggestions that are implemented in leadership development which contribute to the
development of leadership
wisdom.
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
18/7 [1997] 335345
MCB University Press
[ISSN 0143-7739]

Two monks, Tanzan and Ekido, were walking down a country road on their way to
visit a local monastery. They came upon a
lovely young girl dressed in fine silks, who
was standing in front of a muddy stream
afraid to cross it.
Come on, girl, said Tanzan. And he picked
her up in his arms, and carried her across.
The two monks did not speak again till
nightfall when they had returned to the
monastery. Ekido couldnt keep quiet any
longer.
Monks shouldnt go near girls, he said
certainly not beautiful ones like that one!
Why did you do it?
My dear fellow, said Tanzan. I put that
girl down, way back at the crossing. Its you
who are still carrying her! (Peter Pauper
Press, Zen Buddhism, 1959).

There are many muddy paths that people

must cross in todays organizations and leadership needs to be clear, decisive and appropriate to the situation. Tanzan in the above
story shows unique leadership. He sees the
situation and is able to do what is needed. He
is not encumbered by ideas, rules and procedures but looks at what is needed. Even more
importantly, he is able to move down the road
after the event with a clear mind. He lets go of
any anxiety about whether he acted rightly or
wrongly. Tanzan would have been able to see
and respond to the next action because his
mind is not still carrying his last action.
Ekido, however, is still carrying his judgements, thoughts and concerns. Ekido needs
rules and procedures to control him in his
journey. On the outside Ekido may look like
the perfect monk but inside he is torn by
the rules of being a monk and needs these
rules to manage his inner yearnings. While
concepts, rules and ideas may help guide a
person in training, a true leader carries
his/her mission in his/her heart it is not
external rules that make the person. The
leader models the way not by following outer
form but by seeing their work as their way of
being.
Recent reviews of the research and theories
on leadership have consolidated the key areas
of leadership into personality,
situational/transactional and transformational forms of leadership. The purpose of
this paper is to suggest that concepts about

leadership are useful background to understand leadership but they need to be integrated into more immediate, practical and
simpler ways of guiding leadership action. It
is suggested that there are several key skills
that a leader can employ which have been
described in both western and eastern
philosophies. The story of Ekido and Tanzan
is one of the many lessons that these traditions can contribute to our current thinking
of organizational leadership. The development of this leadership wisdom is put forward as a real need in the current environment with its confusing and often contradictory emphasis on improving both profits and
quality of service.

The study of leadership

what have we learned?
There is a great deal of literature on leadership and the field has many specific streams
such as decision making, leader-follower
interaction, power of the leader, cultural and
gender differences of leadership and many
other concepts that have made important
contributions to our understanding. For the
purpose of examining leadership in action,
however, three key areas of leadership theory
will be briefly reviewed; personality, situational/transactional and transformational
leadership since these are the major themes
that emerge in the literature (Robbins et al.,
1994).

Personality traits of leaders

Early research attempting to find consistent
and unique personality traits that all leaders
possessed showed no definite pattern. More
recent studies have found six traits that differentiate leaders from non-leaders; honesty
and integrity, high energy level, ambition and
the desire to lead, intelligence, self-confidence
and task relevant knowledge (Kilpatrick and
Locke, 1991; Stogdill, 1974).
The results of a study by Kouzes and Posner
(1993) show the six highest characteristics
that people most admire in leaders are:
1 Honesty.
2 Forward looking.
3 Inspiring.

[ 335 ]

Ron Cacioppe
Leadership moment by
moment!

4 Competent.
5 Fair-minded.
6 Supportive.

Leadership & Organization

Development Journal
18/7 [1997] 335345

Situational/transactional leadership
A second major focus of leadership training
and theory as a result of the Michigan and
Ohio State studies and the contingency theory
of Fiedler lead to the situational leadership
approach. The theory of Ken Blanchard called
Situational Leadership II uses the two dimensions of supportive and directive to describe
four leadership styles that are most appropriate depending on the situation and the developmental level of the person or group. The
major advance of the situation approach is the
recognition that for different development
levels and different types of situations, different leadership styles are more effective. For
example, in an emergency or when someone is
learning a skill for the first time, it is better
according to situational leadership to be
highly directive (spell out tasks and goals very
clearly) and less supportive.
Situational leadership is one of several
transactional approaches to leadership.
Other transactional theories like path-goal
theory and leader-participation theory
describe the major task of the leader to guide
and motivate their followers in the direction
of established goals and to reward their
efforts in ways that are fair and valued by the
follower.

Transformational leadership
The third major approach goes a step further
and helps lift the follower beyond personal
goals and self-interests to focus on goals
which contribute to a greater team, organizational, national and world good. Transformational leadership communicates a vision that
inspires and motivates people to achieve
something extraordinary. Transformational
leaders also have the ability to align people
and systems so there is an integrity throughout the organization towards this vision
(Hughes et al., 1994). Transformational leaders have a vision and an ability to inspire
followers to incorporate higher values. It
pulls them towards achieving an important
challenge. These leaders pay attention to the
concerns and developmental needs of the
followers, they change followers by helping
them to look at old problems in new ways and
they are able to excite, arouse and inspire
followers to put out extra effort to achieve
group goals. In addition, the follower takes on
and understands the vision as their own. If
the transformation leader leaves, the followers continue the effort to achieve the vision.
While this brief review does not presume to
do justice to the field of leadership studies,

[ 336 ]

there are several key points regarding good

leadership which do emerge.
Leaders do have the characteristics of
good people, they are honest, have self-confidence and are fair-minded and supportive.
Successful leaders are sensitive to the situation and their followers, are flexible, and able
to adapt to the situation to ensure that the
vision is achieved. A challenging, worthwhile
vision is also characteristic of a good leader.
The leader helps the follower transcend their
own self-interest and participate in a vision for
a greater good. Figure 1 summarizes these
major characteristics of successful leaders.
More recent work on gender and cultural
differences has shown that there are differences in behaviours and styles that need to be
considered. Male leaders emphasize goal
setting and women emphasize human interaction and facilitation in their leadership
style (Gibson, 1995). Hofstede (1980) and
others show leaders from different countries
have different value orientations and different styles. Triandis (1993) concludes, however,
that common leadership factors exist, but
depending on the cultural value orientation
shifts in emphasis will occur. Gibson (1995)
suggests that overall, leadership behaviours
and styles do not vary greatly across gender
and cultures and differences are more a
matter of degree rather than actual different
models of leadership.

Emotional intelligence
A class of four-year-old children are busily
studying and playing when the teacher
interrupts the class and gives them each a
marshmallow. The children are then told
that the teacher has to go on an errand for 15
minutes or so and they can eat the marshmallow whenever they want but if they wait
till the teacher returns they will be given
two marshmallows.
Hidden video cameras record how some
children respond to their first immediate
impulse and eat the marshmallow, others
who are tempted, but wait and then succumb to the desire to eat the marshmallow
and finally, a third group who is able to delay
the pull of the immediate temptation for the
greater reward of two marshmallows 15
minutes later.

We might wonder, so what? What would

marshmallows and four year olds tell us
about life success and leadership?
By following the lives of these four year olds
over the next 14 years some amazing results
occurred. The children who were able to hold
back from eating the marshmallows were
found to have better mental health as young
adults (less anxiety, stress and worry) and

Ron Cacioppe
Leadership moment by
moment!
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
18/7 [1997] 335345

performed better in high school and university. Surprisingly the marshmallow test was a
better predictor of success in high school and
university than was IQ! The ability to manage
immediate and strong emotions was a skill
that had great value later in life. It appeared
that these children have some other type of
intelligence that was even more valuable
than the traditional intellectual intelligence
which we prize in our schools (Figure 2).
Goleman (1996) has described a concept
called emotional intelligence which he suggests is a better predictor of life success than
the intellectual intelligence we measure as IQ.
Goleman defines emotional intelligence as a
persons ability to be aware of, manage and use
emotions appropriately in dealing with people
in various situations. He describes five main
skills that consist of emotional intelligence:
1 Self-awareness of ones own emotions as
they happen.
2 Managing feelings so they are appropriate.
3 Motivating oneself in the service of a goal.
4 Having empathy and understanding for
emotion in others.
5 Being able to interrelate well and work
with others.
A number of research studies have followed
children, adolescents and adults who have
higher emotional intelligence and found that
they are more socially competent, personally

Figure 1
Characteristics and qualities of successful leadership
Transformational leadership
The leader has a worthwhile and
challenging vision that is communicated,
motivates and inspires the followers. The
leader also considers the individual

Transactional leadership
The leader understands and helps the
followers reach their goals and at the same
time achieves the goals of the organization

Situational leadership
Able to apply the right amount of direction and
support depending on the situation and the
level of competency and motivation of the
follower style (directive, supportive or both)

Personality characteristics
The leader is honest, self-confident, fair,
supportive and has a desire and willingness
to lead

effective, able to handle stress better, are

more self-reliant and trustworthy and perform better academically. Over 120 different
studies of more than 36,000 people found that
the less prone to worry a person was the
better a person does in university. Higher
levels of hope and optimism not only predicted academic success but also predicted
success rates of sales and likelihood to stay as
an insurance salesman.
Another factor which Golemen says relates
to success is flow that psychological state
where excellence is effortless, when a person
experiences a blissful steady absorption in
the moment. Emotions at this time are positive, energized, natural and aligned to the
task at hand. Flow is often characterized as a
state of self-forgetfulness. One study, which
monitored the activity of students found that
high achievers spent over 40 per cent of the
time studying in the flow while low achievers
spent only 16 per cent of the time in the flow.
So what are the implications of emotional
intelligence for leadership? Recently six
groups of managers and professionals (about
200 people in total) were asked to list who
they considered leaders, internationally and
in Australia and then to vote on who they
considered the most successful leaders.
People such as Nelson Mandela, Winston
Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Mother Teresa,
Martin Luther King, Gough Whitlam (a previous Prime Minister of Australia) and Janet
Holmes ACourt (a successful Australian
business woman) scored well as successful
leaders across several groups. When asked
what it is that led them to rate these leaders
as successful leaders the following list
emerged.
Successful leaders:
have vision;
inspire and motivate;
communicate and clarify the vision;
stay focused;
take risks;
persevere;
have ability to overcome adversity and
handle difficult situations;
are concerned for peoples welfare;
are highly sensitive to social cues;
are the right person, at the right time and
know the right action.
When these groups were asked to rate these
leaders in intellectual intelligence and emotional intelligence, these leaders were generally considered to be only moderate to high in
intellectual intelligence but very high in
emotional intelligence (see Figure 2). While
Paul Keating (the last Australian Prime Minister) was recognized as a leader high in intellectual intelligence he was considered lower

[ 337 ]

Ron Cacioppe
Leadership moment by
moment!
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
18/7 [1997] 335345

conduct; soundness of judgement in choice of

means and ends, sound sense in practical
affairs, knowledge, especially of a high kind,
wise teaching or action (Little et al., 1973).

Figure 2
Types of leadership intelligence

Emotional Intelligence

X
X
Successful
Leaders
X
X
X
X
X

High

Wisdom and leadership

Medium

Low
Medium

High

Intellectual Intelligence

in emotional intelligence. A number of participants suggested that his poor emotional

intelligence skills cost him re-election as
Prime Minister.
The research on emotional intelligence
combined with managers and professionals
perceptions of leaders suggests that successful leaders show an ability to be aware and
manage his/her own emotions while being
responsive to other peoples feelings. They
have an ability not to react or get caught up in
their own or other peoples negative emotions
such as anger, impatience, negative judgements and anxiety.
The successful leader, therefore, has an
ability to be in the present and see the situation free from preconceived ideas. While the
leader may have previous experience and
personal views or values, they do not cloud
his or her ability to discover what is the best
action in the situation. In summary, good
leaders seem to:
See what the specific situation needs.
Have a clear and powerful vision/purpose
that guides him/her.
Use knowledge (theirs or others) as it is
needed to deal with the situation.
Be sensitive to and able to respond appropriately and differently to their followers.
Influence followers to work towards higher
level values and goals.
Have emotional intelligence an ability to
know and utilize appropriately their own
feelings and those of others.
Are in the flow are at one, focused in
the present moment and aware more fully
of people around them than other people.
There is only one word in the dictionary that
seems to summarize these characteristics
wisdom. The word wisdom is derived from
wis which means to make known,
instruct or to make certain.
Wisdom is defined as the capacity of judging rightly in matters relating to life and

[ 338 ]

While wisdom is a characteristic that has

been valued by human societies for thousands of years, there has not been much written about it in a formal sense in the leadership literature. Wisdom has seemed a bit too
mysterious and slippery to focus on as a key
element in management. Yet the development
and transmission of wisdom has been considered vital to the wellbeing of humans and the
continuance of western spiritual traditions
for thousands of years. As one becomes familiar with the writings, stories and lessons of
the great philosophies of mankind certain
key themes, experiences and characteristics
can be recognized. A number of these characteristics can be identified as highly relevant
and useful to leaders, especially in our current organizational environment with its
conflicting, competing and changing
demands.

Know when to remain silent, and when to

speak
A master gardener, famous for his skill in
climbing and pruning the highest trees,
examined his disciple by letting him climb a
very high tree. Many people had come to
watch. The master gardener stood quietly,
carefully following every move but not interfering with one word. Having pruned the
top, the disciple climbed down and was only
about ten feet from the ground when the
master suddenly yelled; Take care, take
care!
When the disciple was safely down an old
man asked the master gardener: You did
not let out one word when he was aloft in the
most dangerous place. Why did you caution
him when he was nearly down? Even if he
had slipped then, he could not have greatly
hurt himself.
But isnt it obvious? replied the master
gardener. Right up at the top he is conscious of the danger, and of himself takes
care. But near the end when one begins to
feel safe, this is when accidents occur.

What does this story have to say about leadership and what does the master gardener show
us by his moment by moment wisdom? Certainly there are a few obvious aspects to the
story. The master gardener put his disciple in
a challenging situation, one the master gardener knew the disciple could handle if given
the proper guidance.
The gardener/leader was closely watching
the followers progress and knew when to

Ron Cacioppe
Leadership moment by
moment!
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
18/7 [1997] 335345

keep silent and when to speak. The master

gardener also had emotional intelligence he
did not get worried, and managed not only
the anxiety of the disciple but even the crowd.
The master gardener knew the tendencies of
the followers mind at every moment so that
he could caution at the time when he knew
the disciple might think the job over and
might slack off Take care, take care!
While it sounds simple in this story, it is an
extraordinary ability of a leader to know the
mind of his/her followers and to act precisely
and wisely at the time for the good of both
the task and the follower.
There is another element here which is not
readily apparent and that is the trust of the
disciple. This disciple was willing to put
his/her wellbeing in the hands of the master
and to follow instructions without question.
The follower was able to recognize the superior wisdom of the leader and was willing to
place himself/herself under the leaders guidance to develop their own life and occupational skills. The master gardener was teaching a lot more than how to prune tall trees!
This story comes from the Zen Buddhist
tradition and is used to help monks remain
alert during all instances in their training, to
encourage the mind to be awake and fully in
the present. Zen is the Japanese word for
meditation or contemplation. Zen aims to
help people free their minds from constructed, acquired concepts and mental
habits that limit and distort the view we have
of reality. It challenges the idea that we are all
separate people separate selves operating in
our individually constructed world views. It
aims to develop a life wisdom a seeing into
the direct nature of reality, not one
constructed through individual opinions and
acquired ideas. It boldly suggests that only
when we are free from intellectual
constraints and egotistical concerns can we
then experience the world clearly and fully
participate in life.
This leadership wisdom is not a definable
concept but is directly observable, practical
and effective in the moment. The master
gardener would probably not have heard of
situational/transactional or transformational leadership nor had attended any management training but was able to be an effective leader.

Be here now
Another story from the teaching of Zen shows
another one of the key essential skills that are
necessary for the development of a leader
the ability to be in the present to see what is
happening without preconceived ideas or
distractions. This story involves a masters
conversation with a monk:

Do you ever make an effort to get disciplined

in the truth?
Yes, I do.
How do you exercise yourself ?
When I am hungry, I eat; when I am tired, I
sleep.
This is what everybody does; can they be
said to be exercising themselves in the same
way as you do?
No
Why not?
Because when they eat, they do not eat, but
are thinking of various other things,
thereby allowing themselves to be
disturbed: when they sleep they do not sleep,
but dream of a thousand and one things; this
is why they are not like myself (Schloegl,
1975, p. 52).

This story simply and clearly emphasizes

much of what the average person of todays
world is missing. Almost everyone is so
involved with his/her own thoughts that they
dont experience what is actually going on
around them. The average person has about
100 thoughts per minute which means about
6,000 thoughts per hour. Over the course of a
day, this would be about 100,000 thoughts!
Much of this thinking process involves
self-talk a voice in the head commenting,
judging, justifying, or planning on some past
or future event or action. Often the same
comment is said over again, involves negative
comments about a situation not being the
way I want it to be or the way it should have
been. While all of this is going on a person
only partially sees what is actually in front of
him or her.
How many times have we travelled to work
and not recalled anything that was on the
route because we were totally absorbed in
thought? The car was on automatic pilot and
yet we had eyes open, but nobody was home!
An essential characteristic for a leader would
be to be in the present for him or her to be
able to focus on the current situation without
inner self-talk, preconceived ideas and distractions that might interfere with him or her
listening and seeing accurately what the
situation is. Yet, how much emphasis, training and reinforcement is given to managers
to clear their minds from preoccupations,
worries and mental self-talk?

The empty cup knowing when we do not

know
The Oracle at Delphi prophesied that
Socrates was the wisest person in Athens.
When Socrates heard of this he set out to
prove the Oracle wrong because he felt he
wasnt the wisest. He spent some time wandering around Athens talking to politicians,
poets, artists and philosophers who others
had held up to be very wise people. As

[ 339 ]

Ron Cacioppe
Leadership moment by
moment!
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
18/7 [1997] 335345

Socrates questioned them he began to see

that they werent wise because they thought
they knew things that they didnt actually
know. They said many things and were quite
skilled in their own occupations but thought
they knew things about the nature of life
and the universe which they obviously did
not know. Socratess conclusion was that the
Oracle may be right, that he was the wisest
person in Athens, only because he knew that
he knew nothing whereas others thought
they knew something and did not!

In the world of management and leadership

education, we seem to have the view that the
more a person learns, the more he or she
knows and the better they will be as a leader.
We often look at the letters behind the name
(BS, MBA, etc.) and assume that person is
more qualified to be a leader. Socrates, one of
the major philosophers of western culture
shows that the wisest people are those that
know when they do not know. Often we hear
that those that have wisdom are often very
simple and childlike. They see things as for
the first time and are open to new experiences
and willing to learn. They may have years of
experience but they are able to teach simply
and appreciate the profoundness of everyday
events.
In a similar way Eastern philosophy
emphasizes the need to empty the mind of
preconceived ideas, theories, and acquired
attitudes and views. These filters and distortions of the mind inhibit one from truly listening and seeing what is directly in front of
us. This is shown clearly in the following
story:
A university professor went to see a Zen
master eager to learn about the nature of
Zen and its profound wisdom and to test
whether it was comparable to the other
great philosophies he was an expert in.
When the professor arrived, the Zen master
asked him if he would like a cup of tea.
As the Zen master began pouring tea, the
professor started asking a number of questions about the value and meaning of Zen.
The Zen master kept pouring the tea without answering the questions. The professor
impatiently restated his questions and
asked for an answer.
The Zen master kept pouring the tea without saying anything. The professor began to
get annoyed and demanded that the Zen
master answer his questions.
By now the hot tea was running over the cup
and on to the professors hand. What are
you doing? You stupid fool? said the professor. How can you be an expert in philosophy when you cant even pour a cup of tea?
That cup is just like you, sir. How can I tell
you about the nature of Zen when your
mind, like that cup, is so full? said the Zen
master. (Peter Pauper Press, Zen Buddhism,
1959, p. 30).

[ 340 ]

The illusion of a separate me

Central to all philosophies are the questions
of Who am I?, How did this universe come
into being ? and What is my relationship to
it? The answers or beliefs we have about
these questions affect the way we structure
and control work, our views of ownership and
profit, our leadership style and the way we
deal with other people in the workplace.
Watts (1989), a philosopher, describes the
major problem with modern society as operating from a false premiss of who we are:
Yet the problem is more basic. The root of
the matter is the way in which we feel and
conceive ourselves as human beings, our
sensation of being alive, of individual existence and identity. We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation
of our own existence as living organisms.
Most of us have the sensation that I
myself is a separate center of feeling and
action, living inside and bounded by the
physical body a center which confronts
an external world of people and things,
making contact through the senses with a
universe both alien and strange (p. 8).

We have developed a view that we are an ego,

a psychological identity that exists separate
from the universe in which it lives. Watts
describes two factors which are ignored and
result in our perpetuation of this misconceived idea of our existence. The first is not
realizing that so-called opposites, such as
light and darkness, sound and silence, solid
and space, on and off, inside and outside,
appearing and disappearing, management
and unions and cause and effect, are poles or
aspects of the same thing. The second is that
we are so absorbed in narrowed, disjointed
perception we really feel that this world is
indeed an assemblage of separate things that
have somehow come together and that we
each are only one of the many things in the
universe that are born and die alone.
Most Westerners locate the ego in the head,
from which the rest of us dangles. The ego for
us is somewhere behind the eyes and between
the ears. It is, then, as if the human race had
hypnotised or talked itself into the hoax of
egocentricity (p. 57). This leads to the
dilemma, according to Watts, that on one
hand we have the sacred individual the
unique personal ego, separate from both
nature and God defined by a society which
commands the individual to be free and not to
conform. On the other hand, the person is a
mere hired hand (the employee, part-time or
contract worker) who is just a cog in the
industrial machine who can be discarded,
retrenched, downsized if technology can do
his/her job better.

Ron Cacioppe
Leadership moment by
moment!
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
18/7 [1997] 335345

According to Watts, the perpetuation of this

duality, this imposition of the ego over the
world results in most of our products being
made by people who do not enjoy making
them, whether as owners or workers. The
major real aim in the enterprise is not a quality product or service but money and a return
to the shareholder, so our quality is inferior
no matter how many systems we put in place.
The importance of this is for leaders to see
and experience the third possibility that the
individual is neither an isolated person nor
an expendable, humanoid unit of production.
A person may be seen, instead, as one particular focal point at which the whole universe
expresses itself whatever one may choose to
call IT; Existence, Being, God or the Ultimate
Ground of Being. This view dissolves the
paradox of individuality vs collectivity, capitalism vs communism, individual vs organization, or owner/manager vs worker. Individuality does not become separation but a
unique expression of the whole part of the
universe, a unity of diversity:
For you is the universe looking at itself
from billions of points of view, points that
come and go so that the vision is forever new
(p. 130).

Once this illusion of ego is seen through, life

becomes a play, a play that should be carried
out exquisitely and with quality. The object of
the play is for the universe to experience and
know itself. Work becomes more than a
means to obtain personal wealth or objects of
wealth or to escape from the suffering of
poverty.
Two quotes from the economist, philosopher Schumacher (1974) summarize the value
of work from this perspective:
Everywhere people ask: What can I actually do? The answer is as simple as it is
disconcerting; we can, each of us, work to
put our own house in order. The guidance
we need for this work cannot be found in
science or technology, the value of which
utterly depends on the ends they serve; but
can still be found in the traditional wisdom
of mankind (p. 45).
The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold; to give
man a chance to utilize and develop his
faculties; to enable him to overcome his
egocentredness by joining with other people
in a common task; and to bring forth the
goods and services needed for a becoming
existence. (p. 45).

Eastern and western philosophers go to great

lengths to point out that this perspective
needs to go beyond mere intellectual
understanding to actual experience or
enlightenment knowing and being who
you are. Therefore considerable emphasis is

placed on the actual practice of non-egotistical actions such as being in the present fully
free from attachments to past ideas or views
of ones self.

Ego climbing and quality

To the untrained eye ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical. Both
kinds of climbers place one foot in front of
the other. Both breathe in and out at the
same rate. Both stop when tired. Both go
forward when rested. But what a difference!
The ego-climber is like an instrument thats
out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an
instant too soon or too late. Hes likely to
miss a beautiful passage of sunlight through
the trees. He goes on when the sloppiness of
his step shows hes tired. He rests at odd
times. He looks up the trail trying to see
whats ahead even when he knows whats
ahead because he just looked a second
before. He goes too fast or too slow for the
conditions and when he talks his talk is
forever about somewhere else, something
else. Hes here but hes not here. He rejects
the here, is unhappy with it, wants to be
farther up the trail but when he gets there
will be just as unhappy because then it will
be here. What hes looking for, what he
wants, is all around him, but he doesnt
want that because it is all around him.
Every steps an effort both physically and
spiritually, because he imagines his goal to
be external and distant. (Pirsig, 1981,
pp.189-90).

The ultimate price we pay for ego-climbing,

living in a way that is out of touch with our
environment, one another and the present
moment, is a lack of quality in the products
and services we provide and our experiences
of those products and services. The major
challenge for leadership is to help restore this
quality into our lives and work by helping
workers re-establish a connection with their
own internal wisdom. In order to help others,
leaders must find this within themselves. The
above quote shows the ultimate dissatisfaction that all humans must feel when we live
our life for some future event. The most
unfortunate part is that just when we are
about to reach this imaginary goal, we set up
a new one in our mind and begin to focus on
that so we are continually struggling and
working towards some imaginary future that
we can never actually experience or enjoy.

The truly visionary mind is the truly

egoless mind
A great deal has been written about how
important it is to have a clear vision for organizational, team and personal goals. A story
of Zen, told by the late Japanese scholar,
Suzuki, the major interpreter of Zen for the
West helps shows the direct relationship

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Ron Cacioppe
Leadership moment by
moment!
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
18/7 [1997] 335345

between a truly creative mind and the truly

egoless mind and how powerful vision
arises from this:
The abbot of a certain Zen monastery
wished to have the ceiling of the Dharma
(meditation) Hall decorated with a dragon.
A noted painter was asked to do the work, he
accepted, but complained that he had never
seen a living dragon, if such a reality
existed. The abbot said, Dont mind your
not having seen the creature. You become
one with the dragon, be transformed into a
living dragon and paint it. Dont try to follow the conventional pattern.
The artist asked, How can I become a
dragon? The abbot replied, You retire to
your private room and concentrate your
mind on it; the time will come when you feel
that you must paint one. That is the moment
when you have become the dragon, and the
dragon urges you to give it form.
The artist followed the abbots advice, and
after several months he became confident of
himself because of seeing the dragon out of
his whole mind and then he painted it in two
weeks. The result is that the dragon is now
on the ceiling to the Dharma Hall at the
Myoshinji, Kyoto in Japan (Peter Pauper
Press, Zen Buddhism, 1959).

The essence of this story is captured in the

phrase, That is the moment when you have
become the dragon, and the dragon urges you
to give it form. It is no longer his ego that is
creating the dragon but the dragon is creating itself through the person. It is that
moment when the person becomes both the
problem and the answer. The mind gives up
any concept of itself and becomes that which
it sees. Obtaining an open, clear mind so that
the mind can experience the question, questioner and solution or more accurately,
questioner-solution-question, as one, is a key
experience of wisdom.
This story provides a different view of how
successful visions arise. It suggests that when
the vision, the leader, and the followers
become one with the vision it comes into
being through them, not by them. In the
world of business it means that visions arise
out of needs. The painter did not ask to paint
the dragon, the abbot asked the painter to fill
the need the barren wall of the meditation
hall. Leaders should seek to find the true
needs in society and let the vision arise from
that not have a vision and then convince the
world to buy it!
Second, we need to sit with, become, and
devote ourselves to the vision not just put it
on the wall and use it to guide our action.
This story suggests that a true vision comes
through who we are.

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Integrating leadership wisdom and

leadership development
Figure 3 integrates what has been discussed
to this point. It shows that leadership theory
and concepts help us to recognize and conceptualize those factors which result in leadership wisdom.
The central and practical characteristics of
this wisdom could be summarized as:
Know when to remain silent, and when to
speak. Look and listen fully and respond in
the moment directly and clearly.
Be here now. Be in the present, let the selftalk go and focus on what is occurring in
the moment.
Empty the cup know when you do not
know. Do not get attached to ideas, preconceived opinions. Use ideas and concepts,
do not let them use you, admit when you do
not know.
Drop the illusion of the separate me. When
your ego gets in the way let it go. Find the
unifying point of the person, the team and
the situation.
Quality moment by moment. Find quality
in the moment, do not get caught up in the
imagined goal of some imagined future.
Recognize there is no other time than now,
no other place than here! Here and now is
the only place quality can be experienced.
True vision arises from need, it occurs from
being. A worthwhile effort fills a genuine
need. A vision occurs when we see what is
needed and give ourselves to serving that
need. When our ego gets out of the way, the
vision occurs through us.
These truths are both different and the
same. They point to the same experience and
skills in leadership and management. From
an external perspective these attributes may
appear to be acquired traits, skills and experience that result in leaders being more effective. But as the stories and quotes which have
been discussed show leadership wisdom is
more a process of dropping preconceived
ideas, egotistical attachments, focusing on
and experiencing the present and responding
to what is needed. A number of recent writers
have begun to describe this as leaders operating from a higher state of consciousness.
Harung et al. (1995) describe four levels of
consciousness and suggest high performing
leaders have more frequent experiences of
unity and oneness with their environment
and transcend the everyday busy-ness to
experience a sense of tranquillity and being.
They describe a study of 22 world-class leaders who report experiencing this higher level
of consciousness ten times more frequently
than average populations. They describe a
model for leadership based on ancient Vedic

Ron Cacioppe
Leadership moment by
moment!
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
18/7 [1997] 335345

philosophy which has similarities to the

model presented in this paper.
Figure 3 also suggests that the development
of leadership may be in a different direction
than we have previously considered. Development of leadership may involve learning how
to shed mental habits, to drop egotistic concerns and worries, and to reflect on ones
actions, intentions and goals both as a person
and as a leader of organizations. Individual,
team and organizational development would
be the central theme of the educational experiences. In some ways this is similar to the
learning organization theme of Senge and
others (Senge, 1990) but has an even deeper
experience at its base as to the nature of
human beings and what our work is.
At the individual level, leadership development would involve the teaching of mental
clearing/meditation practices so that the
person learned to experience clarity and
peace of mind. Cranson et al. (1991) showed
that students introduced to meditation experienced higher states of consciousness over
time as well as higher IQ and improved scores
on reaction time tests compared to control
groups. In another study, meditating students
level of self-development as measured by
Loevingers model of self-development
increased over a ten-year period compared to
control groups (Alexander et al., 1994). There
is also evidence that meditation leads to
higher levels of serotonin. Gelderloos et al.
(1988), showed that higher levels of serotonin
correlate with high scores on leadership
skills and work performance tests.

Figure 3
Leadership wisdom

Leadership wisdom
Transformational leadership
Reasoning
&
emotional intelligence
Personality characteristics
of leaders

Use of transaction,
goals, rewards,
words, action
Use of knowledge,
information & business
skills

Examination and practice of the wisdom

and techniques of philosophical traditions
would be valuable in developing an ability to
maintain a state of open awareness, and a
stillness and clarity of mind. Meditation is
one of the eastern techniques that has helped
many people for thousands of years. Management of stress and understanding of ones
own personality would also be important.
Leadership development should include
health reviews so that the physical wellbeing
of the individual is also considered. Selfreflection and examination of ones actions
and ideas through the use of journals would
be integral to leadership development. Use of
360-degree feedback would be valuable in
helping the individual see their leadership
skills and what is being recognized by others
as effective or in need of improvement.
At the team level, a common worthwhile
goal to unite and challenge the team is integral to achieving good teamwork. Individuals
knowing what role they are to play and what
they should do specifically to help the team
perform successfully is also part of this experience of oneness.
Finally, at the organizational level, the
overall purpose and vision needs to be examined as well as the basis of ownership and use
of profit. Is the vision contributing to greater
good, world unity and harmony or is the
agenda just shareholder profit and return on
the money invested? Organizations would
consider diversity and equality of humans as
natural to their business if based on the philosophy described in this paper.
The individual, team and organization
would be experienced as one whole that has
parts working together, different but not
separate like fingers of a hand. The ideas
and activities suggested here are already
used in many organizations. Unfortunately
they are often seen as nice human resource
practices that are cut when the firms financial success is threatened. In addition, they
are not often based on a solid foundation of
deep human wisdom that unites and experiences itself as part of a living whole. The
stories, quotes and ideas covered earlier in
this paper suggest that we currently operate
our view of ourselves, our relationships and
our organizations under a gigantic illusion. If
this is so, the recognition of this illusion will
lead to a whole new way of operating organizations and how we work together.

Situation, Need, Problem

Followers state of mind,
motivation, skill level
Organizational and other
factors

On the trail
While these stories can at first sound abstract
and unrelated to the everyday modern world,
they are practical and applicable in everyday

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Ron Cacioppe
Leadership moment by
moment!
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
18/7 [1997] 335345

[ 344 ]

situations. I will finish on an actual event that

occurred during the days when I was writing
this paper. The situation described is simple
and every-dayish and yet shows that leadership does occur moment by moment.
I went for a two day bush walk with my 19
year old son, his friend, Zac and my 10-yearold son. After walking 17km and camping by
a river on the first day, on the second we got
started a little late for our return. Zac had to
be at work in the city by 5.00 p.m. and we
knew we had about a 5hr walk and 2hr drive
ahead of us. While it looked like we could
make it back in time we were uncertain.
Zac led the group on to the bush track and
for the first 3km we were moving at a hectic
pace. I was the last person in the line and I felt
I was almost running to keep up. At times
some of us were stumbling while trying to
keep up and we certainly did not have time to
enjoy the beautiful morning. I could feel my
self-talk was concerned about the pace. I
was worried that someone would trip and get
hurt or that we might not see a snake on the
path. I felt myself saying; I am not enjoying
this and Maybe I should say something to
Zac, that his rushing is not the best way to do
this walk. I was aware of my doubts and kept
telling myself to say something at the right
spot on the trail.
As I became aware of my internal self-talk I
also realized I was not saying anything
because I didnt want to confront Zacs concern about getting back to the city on time. I
was willing to risk one of us getting hurt and
willing to miss enjoying a magnificent day
just because I was afraid to say what I knew
was true. Once I was aware of my thoughts
and feelings and what they were based on, I
called out to Zac and asked him to stop. When
I caught up with everyone, I asked them how
they were feeling about the pace. Zac said he
was concerned about getting back to his job
and he knew he was walking at an accelerated pace. I explained that I felt we were missing the beautiful day, and the enjoyment of
the walk and also felt we were putting ourselves in danger by walking so quickly. We
also discussed how the rapid pace had caused
our thoughts to become involved with a lot of
other things and we were not really present.
Zac was thinking about how much time he
would need to get ready for his work, my son
was thinking about seeing his girlfriend in
Sydney next week and I was thinking about
whether I should say something about our
rapid pace. So nobody was actually experiencing the walk!
We then agreed to spend about two minutes
with our eyes closed, listening to the sounds
around us, being aware of the sense of air and
sunlight on our bodies and allowing the

mental activity to die down. When we started

walking again there was a sense of quiet
attention and we seemed to be much more
together as a group. The rest of the morning
walk turned out to be much more enjoyable
and we made it back well ahead of the
required time. As we got near to our return
point, Zac came over to me and said that he
saw that his rushing was symptomatic of a lot
of things he does in life. He focuses on one
goal to the exclusion of everything else which
diminishes his enjoyment as well as his effectiveness. He seemed quite pleased that we had
slowed down and let go of the rushing; as a
result he gave attention to the walk since that
was why he had come on the two-day trek
anyway.
The important thing that I learned was that
my leadership was not to do with getting
anyone to do anything like getting Zac to
slow down. It was about me expressing my
concern to point out what I knew was true
that rushing, with all the mental chatter
going on, was not good, and that being in the
present was something I needed to do. By
expressing that, I had done my job I pointed
out what I needed whether Zac or my son
got mad at me for slowing things down, or
whether they thought I was a wise
adult/father did not matter. Leadership for
me was seeing what was needed in the
moment and letting go of the stuff that
blocked or inhibited the things that needed to
happen.
While this example may be of a simple
instant during bushwalking, there are thousands of these moments of truth every day
for leaders and employees in organizations
all over the world. It is this moment by
moment leadership that makes the difference.
Leadership is quite mysterious since I did not
really know whether we would make it back
in time or not. It just took confidence that if I
did what I knew was true, things would turn
out all right.

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Ron Cacioppe
Leadership moment by
moment!
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
18/7 [1997] 335345

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