Excerpt from The Dao of Leadership by John Heider:
“Natural events are cyclical, always changing from one extreme toward an opposite.
Imagine a bow and arrow. As the archer draws the bow, the two tips of the bow, which were far apart, come closer together; the narrow space between string and wood becomes wide; the bow string, which was at rest, becomes taut.
When the archer releases the arrow, once again the process reverses itself, as the tension relaxes.
That is the way of nature: to relax what is tense, to fill what is empty to reduce what is overflowing.
But a society based on materialism and the conquest of nature works to overcome these cycles. If some is good, more must be better, and an absolute glut seems best. At the same time, those who have little get even less.
The wise leader follows the natural order of events and does not take the consumer society for a model.
By serving others and being generous, the leader knows abundance. By being selfless, the leader helps others realize themselves. By being a disinterested facilitator, unconcerned with praise or pay, the leader becomes potent and successful.
The leader’s behavior works because it is based on an understanding of opposites and cycles.
Effective behavior only seems backwards.”