Why this book (West vs. East) ...

There are hundreds of books addressing the yáng of outer leadership, complete with checklists, game plans, and first person accounts of how successful people exercised leadership. But I wanted to write a book about the yīn or an inner leadership.

Connected to those leadership issues, my other different views and thinking came from my martial arts practice and their philosophy toward life and fights.

I've learned that East wants to be in harmony with nature; the Western approach is to control nature also spurred by the Western way of life and religion. Martial arts in the East have a focus on the martial way and the mental culture united with body, while in the West their perspective is sportier and competitive, where winning becomes their main objective. We could say, using the concepts of Eastern is a ‘soft’ approach as in yīn, and Western is ‘hard’ as in yáng. Eastern mentality is like a bamboo tree which is quick to bend with wind, but in its absence becomes stronger. The West is like an oak tree unperturbed by the wind, only to be ‘unfortunately’ pulled out by a hurricane later on. There are other areas where similar contrasts can be made. The West talks about human rights, whereas the Far East understands collective rights or even more profound, rights for all living life-forms. The West is not economical with energy, whereas martial arts including Tai Chi, are good at preserving it and only call on it in an emergency.

Why yellow

A Chinese character for colour is 顏色 (yán sè). Before the Five Elements Theory was used and according to Daoists’ believe, there were only two colours: opposing, yet complementary principles, black and white, yīn (阴) and yáng (阳).

According to Chinese calendar system, the Ten Celestial Stems (shí tiān gān 十天干) are connected with the Five Elements or Phases (wǔ xíng 五行) representing five states of forces of expansion or condensation (the plus energy, or , expansion; the minus energy, or , condensation) and their corresponding colours are:

Are leadership and management different?

This topic always fires a "never ending" debate. But I like it. It shows how we perceive our surroundings, leaders, managers and our life in whole. It implies that having different opinions is better than having none.

Therefore, some people describe it as two different positions – like:

• A manager is a person who do things right; A leader is the person who do the right things.
• A manager puts on the first place the results and indicators – numbers. A leader puts on the first place the people to achieve those results.
• A manager imitates others. A leader originates.
• A manager has a short-range perspective (Present = Manager). A leader has a long-range perspective (Future = Leader).
• A manager manages the things so that dreams/visions of a leader come true.
• A manager plans tactics. A leader plans strategy.
• A manager is risk cautious. A leader takes the necessary risks.

Why dragon

Dragons are deeply rooted in the Chinese culture. This mythological symbol dates back to 3000 BC and stands for happiness, immortality, procreation, fertility and activity. The Chinese call the dragon lóng - 竜 and it is the first of the four Divine Creatures to Chinese – the others being the unicorn, the phoenix and the tortoise. The Chinese often consider themselves, 'the descendants of the dragon' (龍的傳人; pinyin: lóng de chuán rén).

Chinese dragon has the following nine characteristics: 

• head is like a camels,
• horns like a deer's,
• eyes like a hare's,
• ears like a bull's,
• neck like an iguana's,
• belly like a frog's,
• scales like those of a carp,
• paws like a tiger's, and
• claws like an eagle's.

New @

Almost three years ago (April 2010) I have made a real lengthy dream of mine to come thru – to write a book. But not any book. A book about my two passions: Leadership and Martial arts. It was the time of my visiting exchange to the Xi’an Technological University as a professor.  Both professors at the Economic & Management College of Xi’an: Chunqing and Gang during my teaching and researching at first did not understood but later on grasped my thoughts and research intentions. The aim was to use Martial Arts doctrines based on two fundamental Chinese philosophies Daoism and Confucianism for Leadership. They helped me in grasping through long talks the ideas behind those two philosophies. At that time I didn’t know yet what would follow … Ok, I’ll tell this in ensuing blogs.