Leadership Lessons from Confucius: cynicism, recrimination, and loathing

Confucius said: “Smooth talk and an affected manner are seldom signs of consummate conduct.”
子曰：「巧言令色鮮矣仁。」

At a time when it has never been easier for someone to pose as an expert, how is it possible to believe what you see or read any more? What do phrases like “models predict” or “research concludes” mean in a world where it is so easy for someone to optimize their algorithms to produce fancy charts that “prove” the existence of an “existential threat” that, by a quite amazing coincidence, can only be averted by shoveling billions of dollars in their direction?

Smooth talk and an affected manner may work very well for a small number of people in the short term. But it will inevitably lead to a huge backlash over the long term as trust in our institutions and those who run them is eroded and society is atomized by increasingly vicious cycles of cynicism, recrimination, and loathing.

Notes

This article features a translation of Chapter 17 of Book 17 of the Analects of Confucius. You can read my full translation of Book 17 here.

(1) This passage is a repeat of Analects 1.3. Confucius was rightly suspicious of members of the elite who cloaked their greed, vanity, and corruption with fine sounding words and pious displays of self-serving morality. Book 17 features a number of passages that touch on this theme, including 17.12, 17.13, 17.18, and 17.19. Other examples can be found in 5.5, 11.25, 12.3, and 15.11

I took this image in the Four Beasts Scenic Area in Taipei.