The physicist Niels Bohr famously said that the opposite of a shallow truth is a falsehood, but the opposite of a deep truth is another deep truth. This idea — that reality at its core resists simple either/or thinking — maps surprisingly well onto leadership. Nagarjuna, the 2nd-century Buddhist philosopher, called this 'śūnyatā' (emptiness): the recognition that fixed, rigid positions dissolve under examination, and that the most capable minds hold tensions without forcing premature resolution. For a leader, this means the courage to sit with 'we don't know yet' rather than manufacturing false certainty for the comfort of the room. The most generative meetings aren't those where someone wins the argument — they're the ones where a genuinely better question emerges.

Where in your current leadership or thinking are you claiming certainty mostly because uncertainty is uncomfortable — and what would change if you let the question stay open a little longer?

Drawing from Madhyamaka Buddhism — Nagarjuna