Not the cry but the flight of the wild duck leads the flock to fly and to follow.

Chinese proverb

Leadership and communication are closely linked. It is impossible to think of a good leader who is not a good communicator.

Leaders are sometimes told that first and foremost they should be servants of their people. Not so. As J.B. Yeats wrote from New York in 1944 in a letter to his son, the poet W.B. Yeats:

The real leader serves truth, not people, not his followers, and he cares little for authority or for the exercise of power, excepting so far as they help him to serve truth, and we follow him because we too, when your attention is directed to it, would also serve truth, that being a fundamental law of human nature – however unfaithful to it we may often be when misled by passion or self-interest.

Such leaders, continued Yeats, gain a ready audience:

Their command excites no anger, since we are not brought face to face with an Ego. They and all of us are serving a mistress [the truth] who really issues the orders we obey.

The Eastern tradition of leadership, which reaches back to Confucius and Lao Tzu in the 6th century BCE, echoes what Yeats says. For it presents as an ideal the self-effacing leader; in sharp contrast, it must be added, to the more egotistical Western models still so prevalent today. The leader is a humble servant of truth, content to let the credit for accomplishing the common task go to others; that’s the badge of humility.

A leader is best when he is neither seen nor heard. Not so good when he is adored and glorified. Worst when he is hated and despised. ‘Fail to honour people, they will fail to honour you.’ But of a great leader, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, the people will all say, ‘We did this ourselves.’

Lao Tzu, Chinese Taoist philosopher