New Year's Resolution: Get Better

While it is true that some people just can’t be lead, more often than not, the situation calls for us to get better. Here’s a Taoist story retold in the leadership classic, Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge by Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus:

When Yen Ho was about to take up his duties as tutor to the heir of Ling, Duke of Wei, he went to Ch’u Po Yu for advice. “I have to deal,” he said, “with a man of depraved and murderous disposition. . . . How is one to deal with a man of this sort?”

“I am glad,” said Ch’u Po Yu, “that you asked this question. . . . The first thing you must do is not to improve him, but to improve yourself.”

Let's all resolve to get better.