Chinese Proverbs on Leadership: 10 Idioms & Sayings for Leaders

Plan strategy carefully

Literal: Work the counting rods in the command tent

Liu Bang, asked why he had won the empire when Xiang Yu was the better soldier, named three men he could not equal. Of Zhang Liang he said: 运筹帷幄之中，决胜千里之外 — turning the counting rods inside the tent curtains (帷幄), he decides victory a thousand li away. The Records of the Grand Historian keeps the spe...

Lead by example

Literal: Use oneself as example

To take (以) one's own person (身) and make (作) it the standard (则). 则 is a rule or a model in the strict sense — the thing others are measured against — so the claim is precise: not setting a good example in general but being the reference copy. Chinese applies it to parents, teachers and officials, ...

Advance methodically with caution

Literal: Each step make camp

At every step (步步) making (为) a camp (营). The phrase belongs to the vocabulary of vernacular military fiction rather than to any surviving manual, and it describes a specific and slow method: advance a short distance, fortify, secure the supply line behind you, and only then advance again. Its point...

Leadership by action

Literal: Self ahead of the soldiers

Self (身) ahead of (先) the soldiers (士卒). The phrase belongs to the historical literature of command and describes a specific and verifiable thing: the officer physically in front of the line, taking the first risk rather than directing from behind it. Chinese has kept it almost intact for modern man...

Achieve secretly through misdirection

Literal: Secretly cross Chencang

Shut into Hanzhong in 206 BCE, Liu Bang took Han Xin's plan and came back out 从故道, by the old road, to fall on Zhang Han at Chencang. That is all the Records of the Grand Historian says. The decoy everyone knows — men set to conspicuously rebuilding the burnt plank roads while the army went another ...

Eliminate root cause of problem

Literal: Remove firewood under pot

To draw out (抽) the firewood (薪) from under (底) the cauldron (釜). The nineteenth of the Thirty-Six Stratagems states the logic: you cannot meet the boiling water, so remove the fire instead. The distinction it draws is between the symptom and its supply, and the phrase always implies that direct eng...

Prioritize minor over fundamental matters

Literal: Root branch reversed position

Root (本) and tip (末) put in reversed (倒) position (置). The botanical pair is one of the most productive in Chinese: 本 is the base of the trunk and 末 the outer twigs, and the whole vocabulary of priorities is built on it. What the phrase names is not disorder but inversion — the secondary thing is re...

Influential leadership

Literal: One call, hundred responses

One (一) call (呼) and a hundred (百) answer (应). The phrase describes a specific kind of standing: not authority, which compels, but the sort of following that responds without needing to be persuaded first. Chinese distinguishes them carefully, and this one is about voluntary response. Union organise...

Influence of leadership

Literal: Above acts, below imitates

Duke Huan of Qi liked purple, so the court wore purple, so the whole state wanted purple and the price of the dye went to five times that of plain cloth. Guan Zhong told him to say at court that he disliked the smell of it and to turn away anyone wearing it. Within three days, Han Feizi reports, nob...

Moderation in all things

Literal: Excess equals deficiency

Zigong asked Confucius which of two disciples was the better; one went too far and one fell short. Asked whether going too far was therefore better, Confucius answered 过犹不及 — overshooting (过) is just like (犹) falling short (不及). The point is that they are the same kind of error, not that one is pref...