The Ancient Circle of Leadership

By Les Mottosky

In Japan, there’s an old approach to mastery that doubles as a timeless guide for modern leadership. It's particularly relevant because it also serves as the essential strategy for all meaningful innovation. It’s called Shu–Ha–Ri. Three simple syllables that describe how we evolve through learning, adapting, and ultimately become an effective leader. In any situation, any business, any era – and – for a lifetime.

Leadership is the skill we all must take-on if our gifts are to have the impact we want to produce. Or to even surpass those expectations. Below is the recipe for the journey.

This process is driven and rooted in another Japanese concept. It could even be considered the ultimate mind-tool for vibrant living: Shoshin. While that word won't be familiar, it's meaning might be. Shoshin is the practice of beginner's mind. Simply put, this is the Zen concept of approaching life and experiences with openness, curiosity, and zero preconceptions, as if encountering them for the first time.

The foundational application of beginner's mind to this three step circle of leadership is that it provides the conditions for ongoing expansion.

Shu is to learn. To follow the form, absorb the fundamentals, and respect tradition with maximum discipline. For leaders, this is humility in motion; a willingness to apprentice ourselves to something larger, to listen before deciding. The application of beginner’s mind in this context isn’t naïve; it’s fertile. It recognizes that curiosity, not certainty, is the seed of every breakthrough.

Ha means to adapt. Once the fundamentals are embodied, we begin to bend and break them. We take a jack-hammer to the foundation of what we've absorbed; testing, questioning and reshaping the old forms. We're applying our unique and creative spin on our new education so it fits in a new reality. This is where real innovation happens. Adaptation requires courage: to evolve our approach while remaining true to the essence of what we've learned. It’s the creative tension between tradition and transformation. The adherence to beginner's mind is how we avoid stagnation and continue to adapt even after attaining success.

Ri is to become. Here, the practice disappears and the practitioner remains. We’re no longer mimicking or modifying, but expressing mastery as something uniquely our own. In leadership terms, this is integrity. The alignment between what we’ve learned, how we’ve evolved, and who we are when no one’s watching. This doesn't mean we rest on what we've become. Beginner's mind remains as the essential philosophy. In this time of rapid and unrelenting change, Shoshin is the approach to continual expansion. It's how we turn what we've 'become' into ongoing 'becoming'.

In a techno-information era obsessed with knowing, mastery belongs to those willing to unlearn what we believe we know. The beginner’s mind isn’t just a philosophy or phase, but the future of all our breakthrough progress.

And the ancient circle of leadership, Shu-Ha-Ri, is how we remember that becoming never ends.

TAGS: #Adaptation As Innovation #Leadership Wisdom #Creativity At Work #Courage Is Our Nature #Beginner's Mind

Les Mottosky

Adaptation Strategist // I help organizations turn creativity into their competitive advantage by aligning leadership, culture and strategy to unlock adaptive innovations.

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lesmottosky@mac.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/les-mottosky-9b94527/