The Zen master Dogen wrote in the Shobogenzo that 'to study the self is to forget the self' — a paradox that cuts to the heart of effective leadership. The leaders who most exhaust themselves are often those clinging hardest to their own image of being a leader. Dogen's insight suggests that genuine authority emerges not from self-assertion but from a kind of purposeful self-forgetting: you stop performing leadership and simply respond to what the situation actually requires. On a Friday, when the week's accumulated decisions have layered identity and ego into your work, it's worth asking whether you've been solving problems — or protecting your story about how you solve problems.

In a decision you made this week, how much of your reasoning was about what the situation required — and how much was about being seen as the kind of person who makes that decision?

Drawing from Zen Buddhism — Dogen Zenji