20 Leadership Lessons from Confucius

Confucius (551-479 BCE), also known as Kong Qui or K’ung Fu-tzu, was a thinker, political figure, educator, philosopher and founder of the Ru School of Chinese thought. Even though Confucius was a great leader, he took the time to listen to what his disciples had to say. Also refer to my review of The Analects of Confucius.

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20 Leadership Lessons from Confucius

1. Learn by observing yourself and others.
2. Take pleasure in acquiring knowledge.
3. Learning without thinking is useless. Thinking without learning is dangerous.
4. A man without virtue cannot long abide in adversity.
5. He who works for his own interests will arouse much animosity.
6. The self-restrained seldom err.
7. The wise man desires to be slow to speak, but quick to act.
8. Fix your mind on the right way; hold fast to it in your moral character.
9. Emulate the good qualities you see in others, and check yourself for the bad ones.
10. Learn as if you were not reaching your goal, and as though you were afraid of missing it.
11. Make conscientiousness and sincerity your leading principles. Have no friends inferior to yourself. And when in the wrong, do not hesitate to amend.
12. Do not do to others what you would not like yourself.
13. If a man put duty first and success after, will not that improve his character?
14. If a ruler is upright, his people will do their duty without order.
15. When one is in a hurry, nothing is thorough.
16. He who demands much from himself and little from others will avoid resentment.
17. The wise man is intelligently, not blindly, loyal.
18. Love of knowledge without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by loose speculation.
19. Poetry is able to stimulate the mind, it can train to observation, it can encourage social intercourse, it can modify the vexation of life.
20. The wise man makes duty, not a living, his aim.

Source of leadership lessons: The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation (Classics of Ancient China)

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