Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T10:31:17.701Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Daoist Reflection on Sea-Like Leadership and Enlightened Thinking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 December 2016

Yijun Xing*
Affiliation:
Beijing Jiao Tong University

Extract

As he gazed on the sea, Confucius sighed: ‘The passage of time is like the flow of water, which goes on day and night’. In later generations, the image of ‘water’ was found everywhere in Chinese literature, and most works used the metaphor first expressed by Confucius (Xing & Liu, 2015). However, Lao Zi's understanding differed from Confucius's, as he was more concerned with the virtues of water than its image. He believed that ‘the highest virtue is like that of water. Water benefits everything in the world without contending’.

Type
Dialogue, Debate, and Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © The International Association for Chinese Management Research 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Feng, Y. 1947. The spirit of Chinese philosophy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Lewin, A. L., & Stephens, C. U. 1994. CEO attitudes as determinants of organization design: An integrated model. Organization Studies, 15 (2): 183212.Google Scholar
Xing, Y., & Liu, Y. 2015. Poetry and leadership in light of ambiguity and logic of appropriateness. Management and Organization Review, 11 (4): 763793.Google Scholar
Xing, Y., & Sims, D. 2012. Leadership, Daoist wu wei and reflexivity: Flow, self-protection and excuse in Chinese bank managers’ leadership practice. Management Learning, 43 (1): 97112.Google Scholar