Leadership Lessons from Confucius: rigorous self-reflection

Ziyou said: “My friend Zizhang is a man of great ability, but he has not yet achieved consummate conduct.”
子游曰：「吾友張也，為難能也，然而未仁。」

As a leader it is vital for you to identify the weaknesses in the members of your team and provide them with the mentorship and training they need to address them. However, it is even more critical to examine the frailties that are holding you back from further improvement. Without a consistent process of rigorous self-reflection and self-cultivation, you risk personal and professional stagnation and worse as you lose sight of your original values and goals. It is only by truly knowing yourself that you will know others.

Notes

This article features a translation of Chapter 15 of Book 19 of the Analects of Confucius. You can read my full translation of Book 19 here.

(1) This is the first of two sharp jabs aimed at Zizhang. The second one is delivered by Zengzi in 19.16. It is reasonable to assume that this is no editorial accident. The implication is that for all his intelligence, Zizhang is not qualified to be the successor of Confucius because of his arrogance and ambition.

(2) This is the final appearance of Ziyou in the Analects. Unlike Zizhang, Zengzi, and indeed most of Confucius’s followers, Ziyou only began to study with the sage in the latter stages of his life.

I shot this image in a hillside temple on the Four Beasts near to Taipei.