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Kung Fu Secrets of Leadership
By Benjamin Murane
“Ah so, Grasshopper,” you wish to know how to manage a team? Feel like your handle on the subject is more slippery than eating with chopsticks? Let Sensei Ben, along with the gurus of TRI and television kung fu heroes, instruct you in the delicate art of Kung Fu Group Leadership. It’s powerful, but balanced… and sometimes even subtle.
My teachers have been masters of their arts for ages. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have taught me how to work as a team; Neo has given me the finer points of finding my personal style; Jet Li has shown me perseverance; the Karate Kid demonstrated the necessity of practicing my skills. Now I pass their collective knowledge down to you through these simple karate-class instructions.
Here are ancient pearls of wisdom passed down from one generation of student gurus to the next.
Know your center. Like the Oracle tells Neo in The Matrix, “Know thyself.” What are your principles? What is your style of leadership? Your style matters only as far as you know how to correctly apply it. Would the Ninja Turtles use a sword when a butter knife would do?
Always warm up. Start a meeting with a networking game or a focus activity to stretch your leadership muscles. Get the creative juices flowing, get fully warmed up and prepared, and then go for the hard stuff.
Look your target in the eye. World-famous martial artist Jet Li would tell you that where you focus your attention is where you will end up. Are you looking up at your goals, or down at your feet?
Challenge your limits. This follows the first one: know your limits, but always push the boundaries. I once saw a six-year-old do a jumping kick over six people to break a two-inch plank in half. Why would you and I have trouble doing the same? Because the six-year-old set her own limits—you and I let our limits be set by others. When practicing your art of leadership, challenge yourself and your team to ascend to that higher benchmark!
Keep your cool. Be patient. Did the Ninja Turtles ever try to take on the evil super-villain right away? No. The best teams take time to learn each other’s personalities and styles. Never engage an issue in the heat of emotion. Hang-ups and mistakes will happen, but you must learn how to bend like the willow and not snap like the oak.
Learn different techniques for different situations. What made the Ninja Turtles such a great team? Their diversity and different skills made them prepared for any situation. There are four types of leaders:
Tigers: We always need Tiger-style leaders—the organized, efficiency- and goal-minded leaders—but Tigers need the balance of emotional leadership as well as structural leadership. Lawrence Fishburne’s character Morpheus of The Matrix is a tiger-style leader because of his goals and organizational attributes.
Cranes: Cranes are emotion-centered and people-focused. A crane leader will be the leader who ensures that everyone is getting along. A crane person is a good communicator and is the perfect style for smoothing out problems when tensions get high. An example of a crane leader is the Karate Kid himself, because he is always concerned for how people feel.
Monkeys: Monkey leaders are gregarious, energetic and love being in the spotlight! Monkey-style leaders may need help focusing on the work at hand, but are the perfect style when you want to make something fun or involve lots of people. Ninja Turtle Michelangelo is a monkey-style leader. Cowabunga, dude!
Praying Mantis: Mantis-style leaders are analytical, patient and usually quiet. They are the best for finding answers to problems since they can sift through information and ideas for the real jewels. The Ninja Turtles’ teacher, Splinter, is a mantis-style leader due to his need to mediate and think before taking action. Mantis leaders are big thinkers.
These four styles—Tiger, Crane, Monkey and Mantis—are the basic types of leaders, but everyone will develop their own unique combination of traits for different circumstances. All groups require a balance of all four. By learning that different techniques are useful at different times, you will know which people you need to compliment your own style.
Learn to stand up again. In almost every action movie, the hero is winning and then—oh no—he or she is knocked down! Victory by the opponent seems apparent! But wait! Our hero is getting back up? That’s what makes a hero into a superhero: no matter how many times he or she is almost defeated, giving up is not an option. And how many movies begin with a resounding defeat for our hero, who still manages to persevere just in time for the credits to roll?
Know there’s always more to learn. It is not a secret in martial arts that “black belt” is only the rank of a “certified learner,” not master. Real mastery will take years. You can never know everything, so it is expected that there will be challenges you cannot deal with yourself. Find a mentor, like the Karate Kid did, and as he was told, “Practice! Again!”
These are secrets that any learner of any style of leadership can understand. You must be like water, flexible and able to glide over obstacles. You must be like the mountain, strong in your principles and confident in your strengths. You must be swift like the wind, wind doesn’t sit in meetings forever; it moves! You must pounce like a tiger on opportunity—but do it with the prepared and professional grace of a crane.
Now, grasshopper, what is the point of all this? In the Tao Te Ching is written: “The leader doesn’t talk, he acts. When his work is done, the people say ‘Amazing: we did it, all by ourselves!’”
Benjamin Murane, a past member of the March of Dimes National Youth Council, is a Trainer with TRI and a frequent contributor to the Leadership Solutions Network. Click here to learn more about Ben and how to contact him!
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