Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, when asked what he can give to make himself useful, answers: “I can think, I can wait, I can fast”. There are few things that I think exemplify personal leadership better than that.
I see personal leadership as the capacity to be the author of one's own conduct. We often ask how we might make a change happen, make our teams listen, handle a difficult supervisor, or stick to a resolution that feels clearly desirable but is thwarted by a habit. When we believe that others, a recalcitrant team, the supervisor, or the weather are at fault, we have handed over the key to our destiny to them. If we can, instead, ask who we are when we feel that, we have begun our journey to personal accountability and leadership. That involves thinking, waiting and fasting.
It is a different kind of thinking, waiting and fasting, though. This thinking is the insight that arises from a quiet, stable mind; that does not need to win; that processes criticism without collapsing or counterattacking. It is agile and clear because it is not held down by inner conflicts and outer inducements.
This waiting is not apathy or sloth. It is the ability to pause between stimulus and response, to acknowledge that the many aspects of the truth take time to reveal themselves, to allow a rising emotion to be fully comprehended. It creates a space in our minds which is the resting place of resilience.
This fasting is not the mere refusal of food. It is the seeing of hunger. It questions the automaticity of habit, watches emotional triggers that can undermine us; uncovers core values that drive us, often without our knowing; and builds the discipline to keep our promises when no one is watching. It opens us to the values that survive inconvenience.
The practice that builds this presence is unglamorous. It is fostered by regular reflection, perhaps written or spoken to a trusted listener, in which one revisits a difficult moment and asks what was really happening. Greatly helpful is attention to the body, which registers anxiety, anger, inspiration, fear before the mind admits it. We build self-trust through a habit of small promises kept – trifles will build it more sturdily than large but infrequent heroics. And we open ourselves to be seen by someone who will not flatter.
Presence is not a technique one acquires; it is what remains when pretence is steadily set down.