“They practiced meditation. Meditation made them good at seeing how things happen. Meditation grounded them in the infinite. That is why they sometimes appeared deep and inscrutable, sometimes even great.
Their leadership did not rest on technique or on theatrics, but on silence and on their ability to pay attention.
They moved with grace and awareness, and they were able to negotiate complex situations safely.
They were considerate. They did no injury. They were courteous and quiet, like guests. They knew how to yield gracefully and how to be natural and inconspicuous. They were as open and receptive and available as the valleys that lie among the hills.
They could clarify events for others, because they had done it for themselves. They could speak to the depths of another person, because they had known their own deeper conflicts and blocks.
Because they had given up selfishness, they could enhance others.
They were not trying to become enlightened, because they were enlightened.

-Excerpt from The Tao of Leadership by John Heider (#15: The Leader’s Teachers)