The Future Of Leadership Is Us, The Sangha

Everyday, everyone, including you, has the capacity to make a profound and lasting impact on the lives of others and the world around you. Wise leadership—rooted in humility, values, and genuine concern for others—is what can uplift, energize and inspire us, even during the most challenging times.
In The Art of Power, Thich Nhat Hanh emphasized that the Sangha is our future leader. If you feel uncertain about the future of leadership, lean on and invest in community. We can create collective leadership that is aware, inclusive, kind, and wiser together.
In the talk, we explore 7 principles to grow our wise, collective leadership.

Transcript

Every day,

Everyone has the capacity to make profound and lasting impacts on the lives of the people that are around us,

Right?

And that that is really the essence of being a wise leader.

It's the capacity to uplift,

To have other people rise with you as a leader,

To have compassion,

To energize,

To offer hope,

Inspire others,

And the capacity to help others feel seen and heard.

And there's sort of this interest,

I had a client tell me the other day about her company where there's this big push in terms of organizations trying to,

And leaders within organizations trying to show people that they care about them.

There's even a term now called carewashing,

Sort of like greenwashing,

Right,

Where organizations will put on these wellness workshops.

I'll be invited to speak at some of these wellness workshops.

And at the same time,

While they're putting on the wellness workshops,

They're also sending emails that they're expecting people to respond to,

Right,

Or they have inflexible schedules that people can't keep because their lives are so stressed.

And there was a Gallup poll in 2024 that looked at the percentage of employees who believe that their organization or their leadership cared about their well-being.

In 2020,

It was 49% of people believe that.

By 2024,

It dropped to 21%.

So we're having this sort of,

You know,

Maybe increase in people telling us that they care about us or that they are there to support us,

But then a decrease in trust in leadership.

So how can we show up as wise leaders and be the source of energy and care and support for each other if the sangha is the future of our leadership?

And one of the places that I've learned a lot about this is from Plum Village.

Last year when we went,

When you arrive at Plum Village,

Everything is slow.

You wait a long time for everything.

And when you arrive,

You go through all these series of lines of registrations and such,

And all these like weary travelers and tired families from all over.

And you eventually get to the line,

Which is the line where they give you your working meditation.

So Plum Village is a working monastery.

And when you take a retreat there,

You're part of the working monastery.

You chop the vegetables,

You set up the meditation hall,

You wash the dishes,

Sanitize the dishes.

And just as I was getting in line,

A friend of mine from the year before came up to me and she said,

You have to sign up for the toilets,

For cleaning the toilets.

And that was sort of the last on my list that I wanted my family to do was clean the toilets for 300 families.

And these are bathrooms that people are living in for a whole week.

She is someone who I would describe as a positive energizer.

So positive energizers are actually,

There's actually a term for the type of people who when you are around them,

You feel like a sense of glow and energy and you want to be with them.

You kind of will do all sorts of things and say yes to what they ask you to do because it's so fun and energizing to be around them.

You feel seen by them.

You feel heard by them.

You're inspired by them.

That's what one of these friends is for me.

And there's actually some research by Emma Sapala who's at the Yale School of Management who's looked at like organizations that the areas of organizations,

There's like these pockets where there's more productivity and there's more loyalty and there's less,

You know,

There's a better wellbeing.

And in these pockets,

What they found is that there's a higher degree of more positive energizers,

Right?

So positive energizers are a sign of wise leadership.

So who I was in line and she's telling me,

You should clean the toilets with me.

Because she's a positive energizer,

I said yes.

And that experience and what we did as a family over the course of the week taught me a lot about wise leadership and I'm going to talk about some of the practices that came from that experience.

It was probably the most impactful positive part of the retreat for me that we can use for ourselves.

So the first aspect of it is be a positive energizer,

Whether you're going into a barbecue,

You know,

For 4th of July tomorrow,

Or you work in a work setting,

Or you have a group of people that you meet with,

Have the qualities of somebody that lifts others up.

And the characteristics of positive energizers is that you see people,

You care about people,

You ask about people,

And you bring some positive energy their way.

But the other next thing about wise leadership was what we learned and what we started to do on the first day of toilet cleaning.

So here we are,

This group of people,

And you got to think that the group of people that sign up for this are actually a good group to be in.

Like these are the folks that are willing to get down to it and maybe are there for a reason.

And when we started the practice,

We would always start with a song,

And it's a very familiar song.

If you've been to Plum Village,

You probably know it well,

Which is happiness is here now.

And so in the song,

We sing happiness is here and now I've dropped all my worries,

Nowhere to go,

Nothing to do,

No longer in a hurry.

Wise leaders slow down.

And they don't rush through things because it's in the slowness that actually connections are made.

You know,

If you were to slow down the beginning of a meeting or slow down enough,

If you're dropping your kids off at school to get there a little early and talk to other people,

Or slow down enough to do a Zoom call with Rick Hansen,

That's where the magic happens.

Because you start to honor that the good is right here in the relationships that we're building and learning from each other,

The conversations that we have when we slow down,

And that we're not trying to get as much as I believed in the beginning to get to the end of the toilet cleaning.

We're in it.

And there's actually a lot of joy,

There's happiness is here now,

Being in this.

So wise leaders guide us to slow.

And they do that through the slowness of their actions.

If you have seen,

You know,

Videos of Thich Nhat Hanh in any kind of march or activism,

He's like slow procession.

He's protesting slowly,

Right?

And there's a power in that.

There's a power in that.

So wise leaders slow down.

Wise leaders also practice wise speech.

So there's a sort of four characteristics of wise speech that we can ask ourselves before we speak,

Which are,

Is it helpful?

Is it truthful?

Is it kind?

And is it timely?

Is it helpful?

Is speaking right now going to help the situation?

And sometimes not speaking is the wisest thing for us to do.

Sometimes not adding into a conflict.

Is it truthful?

Are you sure?

You know,

There are these big banners that were placed along the first year that we went to Plum Village or placed along the walkway to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Plum Village.

One of the banners when we walked on our walking meditation was,

Are you sure?

So to question yourself,

Is this truthful?

And before you speak,

Making sure that it's true to the best of your ability,

Right?

And is it kind?

Wise leaders act from a space of kindness.

Also is it timely?

Like is now the time to have this conversation with my partner about this or my kids about that or my parents or this friend group or this community that really the context in which we speak can make a big difference in terms of people's capacity to hear us.

How is their nervous system doing in terms of their ability to hear us?

To be a wise leader,

We also have to recognize privilege and power and positionality.

I have a little saying that I do in my house and now at most dinner parties that I'm at and with a lot of clients,

Which is,

Which direction is your E pointing?

And I'm going to have you do a little assignment with me,

Which is to take your finger,

Your first finger of your dominant hand and draw the letter E on your forehead.

Like trace it out on your forehead.

Oh,

This is so good to see you all doing this.

It's entertainment in itself.

Yeah.

Okay.

Now,

If you can remember,

Which direction did you draw your letter E?

Did you draw it so that you could read it or so that I could read it?

Was it pointing in or pointing out?

So there's actually both.

Okay.

Good.

So there's actually some research on this,

Which our context matters in terms of which direction we will draw our letter E.

In contexts where we feel like we're in a position of power,

We're more likely to draw our letter E facing in so that we can read it.

When we're aware of other people and perspective taking and you know,

I wonder what,

I want them to read it,

Right?

We may draw our letter E facing out.

This isn't good or bad,

But it's good to notice.

And that when you are in a position where you have a privilege or power,

You often don't know that you're in that position.

You don't feel it because you're in a position of privilege or power.

And you're also more likely to take your own perspective because you don't see,

Sorry for my light,

That there might be other perspectives besides your own.

So this is just like a fun little exercise that you can put people through at the dinner table or your family through.

And it's kind of funny to see how your family turns out.

If you have a 4th of July barbecue,

How everyone lands on the letter E thing.

The practice is to have your letter E face both ways.

It's helpful to know and see your own perspective,

Right?

It's helpful to understand what is it that I want?

What is it that I need?

What works for me?

And it's also very helpful to get behind the eyes of another person and take their perspective.

How does it feel to be them in this situation?

What is it like for them?

So back to the toilet cleaning,

You didn't know this was going to be the whole hour.

So when we were doing our service meditation,

At the beginning of the service meditation,

The leader,

The volunteer,

Asked us to think about what is our volition,

What is our motivation in cleaning these toilets?

And some people said things like,

Oh,

My volition in cleaning is I actually have never cleaned a toilet and I thought this would be a great place to learn some expert,

You know,

Bathroom hygiene etiquette.

But then other people said things like,

Well,

When I come to Plum Village,

I get so much and I thought I wanted to take on the task that would be the most challenging for me because it would be the way that I could give back the most.

Someone else said,

When I clean the toilets,

I think about all the little children that are going to come in here and brush their teeth tonight and have a clean little bathroom and cleaning it for them.

And I,

You know,

I didn't know at first what my answer would be.

But over the period of the week and cleaning it and contemplating a lot in this long service meditation,

I really started to contemplate all the people in the airports,

In my kids' schools who have cleaned my bathroom for me.

And with deep gratitude to have these spaces that we work together,

You know,

To make a clean bathroom to come into when you're at the airport.

So the volition can be in leadership,

Can be a volition where you recognize our interconnectedness and you recognize the E in and the E out,

Positionality and power,

But also how much we impact each other with our actions.

I believe that another quality of wise leadership that we all could practice more of is noble silence,

Speaking less.

And I interviewed this fascinating psychologist who specializes in relationships and she wrote a book about secure relating.

Her name's Ann Kelly.

And she talked about how when we're in conflict and we're like in threat,

A lot of us have a tendency to talk a lot.

We're trying to like get our point across and get the person to get our point and do they understand.

And so we speak and she described as speaking in essays.

And when we feel threat or we feel this urgency to get someone to understand and we start speaking in essays,

Guess what?

We lose them somewhere in the essay,

Right?

We've all been on the receiving side of an essay,

Right?

And we just start to tune out.

So Ann recommended,

She said,

You know,

Check in with your nervous system and if it's activated,

Speak in sentences,

Not essays.

Sentences.

And I would add to that,

That check in with your nervous system,

A wise leader checks in with their nervous system and practices noble silence,

Says less.

At Plum Village,

We practice noble silence from bedtime,

From dinner,

After dinner,

All the way through morning,

Through breakfast,

Through meditation,

Through breakfast.

And so I bring these,

You know,

I bring two teenage boys with me.

Actually one of them is not a teenager,

Two adolescent boys with me.

They started when they were nine,

Nine and 11 and now 14.

And so it's challenging to practice noble silence of,

You know,

Getting your kids together and getting it.

And so we have a little,

A mini cheat for our family where we keep a little notebook.

And if you have a very essential question,

You can write it in the notebook and you can pass it to someone and we'll pass it back.

And I found,

I was digging,

I was getting ready to go on this trip and I was digging through my stuff and I found our little notebook and I'm like,

Oh,

This is so,

This is going to be the most essential,

Like,

I can't wait to read what we wrote to each other during noble silence.

And I opened it up and it said things like,

Where's the sunscreen?

Are you going to bike?

You know,

Just,

I mean,

Those were the things that felt so,

So essential,

Right?

To say to each other.

And then can you imagine all the other things that we didn't say that we thought were not essential?

There's so much that we,

That we say that's not essential.

But I did find in there a few notes that were like,

I love you,

I love you too.

So having a practice of noble silence for all of us to be wise leaders helps us in so many ways.

It brings us back to the present moment.

We become better listeners.

We practice in silence with each other.

We feel each other better.

We notice each other's facial expressions and walks and all the nonverbal communication that we share as species.

I've been,

Had a really wonderful opportunity to interview Stephen Porges a couple of times.

And I interviewed him right at the,

He's the founder of Polyvagal Theory.

I interviewed him right at the,

Like March 15th,

2020,

Right when we were getting into lockdown.

And he,

He was talking about how concerned he was about us as a species,

How we were going to get through this COVID thing because of our threat systems being so active and because of all the nonverbal cues that we're going to be giving to each other through our eyes,

Through the tone of our voice,

Right?

And he said,

At the end of the interview,

I'm just like,

I'm like,

So what are you going to do?

And he said,

I'm going to Costco.

Like,

Oh,

Great.

Now we're doomed.

We're all going to Costco.

And then post,

Post all of that,

I interviewed him again.

But this time when I interviewed him,

The first thing he did was he flipped around his his screen and he showed me where he was,

Which was this beautiful ocean in Florida.

And he said,

My nervous system during COVID got so out of tune that we ended up coming to Florida.

And now this is what I look out on to tune my nervous system back up.

It's in these moments of silence that we can notice our own nervous system,

We can regulate our own nervous system,

And then we can transmit the nervous system that we want to be transmitting to our our sangha,

Right?

Because we,

The sangha,

Is the wise leadership.

So be a positive energizer.

Practice wise speech.

Notice the direction of your E,

Which way is it pointing,

Right?

Don't hurry.

Practice noble silence.

And then here's one that I think we need to pay attention to,

Which is,

As wise leaders,

We need to let the children lead.

So I had the opportunity this spring to participate in a six campus wide UC campus wide research study led by Alyssa Apple.

And what we did was,

We were disseminating resilience for college students,

Climate resilience skills for college students across six UC campuses.

We didn't know that during the period of teaching these resilience skills,

Which included things like I'd walk in and I put out the altar,

I bring my bell,

Put out some flowers,

We're like in these like,

You know,

Classrooms,

With the desks that are attached to the chairs in rows,

You know,

We're trying to get everyone in a circle.

We didn't know that during these eight weeks together,

That we would have an encampment right outside our classroom.

And that we'd be walking through the encampment to come to class.

We didn't know that our last class,

The encampment would take over our classroom,

And we wouldn't hold it.

But what we did know going in to this was that the students and the children are experiencing levels of stress and uncertainty that are incredibly overwhelming to them.

And so I,

And at the same time,

They're incredibly wise.

They are so,

So bright,

And so attuned to what's going on and,

You know,

Massive activists as well.

And so we,

You know,

We'd have these like little circles.

And I,

And I'd say,

You know,

I'd ask them,

Like,

What,

What are you feeling about our world right now?

Like,

How are you feeling about it?

And they would say things like apathy and overwhelm and anger,

And,

You know,

Like fear.

And then I would ask them things like,

Okay,

And so what do you do when those feelings show up?

And they would say things like,

I just try and not think about it.

I try and not talk about it.

I get overwhelmed by it.

I get so stressed.

My favorite was,

I go and walk around Target.

And so we took these kids out,

And we took them on like a nature retreat,

You know,

And,

And had them sit in the grass and had them look at,

You know,

Look at flowers and eat a tangerine mindfully,

Right,

All the things that are,

You know,

The basics of mindful awareness and,

And what they,

They came back at the end of the class saying was really that the most helpful thing for them in that class was feeling the collective support of the,

Of their peers,

Of being able to talk to their peers about what they're feeling.

And then they developed all these projects as a result of it,

These climate projects where,

You know,

One group made a podcast and one group made a clothes repurposing program and,

You know,

All these creative ideas in which they were going to take the resilient skills that they developed to take action towards the things that they were most worried about,

That they now had skills on board,

But also the capacity,

Collective capacity to take action,

Which is,

Which is also very much part of our resilience.

So let the children lead,

Give the children the resources to lead,

But let them lead.

They got way more technology smarts than they,

Than we did.

And,

And when,

When Ty,

Whenever he led a walk,

He would always lead the walk with children's hands at the front because he would say,

This is our future.

And whenever we do a Dharma talk,

Whenever we go to these large Dharma talks and Ty,

Whenever he would lead the large Dharma talks,

The children would always come in at the front,

At the beginning.

And Ty would say,

The children are going to be here for 15 minutes because that's all that they need.

The adults are going to stay for 45,

Right?

The wise leaders see our children as our future.

And that when we care for our children,

That we are investing in the wise leadership of our future.

The last,

The last aspect of wise leadership is I believe a wise mindset.

And one of the,

The widest,

Wisest leaders that I've ever met is Christiana Figueres.

And I don't know if you're familiar with Christiana Figueres,

But I first heard about her.

I go to Costa Rica.

I lead retreats in Costa Rica once a year in April,

If you ever want to come,

Come with me to Costa Rica.

Fantastic.

But I,

I first heard about her in Costa Rica.

Her father was the president,

Three-time president of Costa Rica.

Her father's was responsible for abolishing the Costa Rican,

The army,

The military.

And that,

You know,

When you go to Costa Rica and you're getting like trinkets for your family on the way home,

You get the t-shirt that says Costa Rica army on it.

And it has this like little trail of ants because that's the Costa Rica army.

They don't have army,

Navy,

Military.

And he invested all the money into education,

Into infrastructure,

Into back into the country that he would have put in the military.

So Christiana was his daughter and she went on to become involved in the UN and in particular in climate change.

And some attribute her to the reason why the Paris climate accord was successful to her and her ability to lead all,

You know,

I think it was like 129 countries,

You know,

And all the differences amongst these countries likes,

Right?

So all the big countries like the US are kind of the polluters,

Right?

And then they're the people that get the impact of that pollution is all the small countries,

Right?

So you can imagine getting these two,

These countries to agree on climate.

So Christiana is a very powerful leader.

And I had the opportunity to interview her for a summit that I did a while back.

And she talked about the three mindsets that she brings to leadership and to climate.

And these are three mindsets,

I think of a wise leader and three mindsets that we can bring into this election.

So the first mindset is stubborn optimism.

And,

You know,

Christiana,

She talked about,

You know,

I kind of picked it,

I picked an area that is an area that people say we have no hope,

Right?

And that the really stubborn optimism for her means bringing that hope as an input,

Bringing it towards her hope as a practice,

Optimism as a practice,

Not necessarily that you're in like some toxic positivity,

But that you are practicing it and holding on to it,

Because that is what keeps us going,

Right,

Stubborn optimism.

And the second mindset has to do with endless abundance.

And she talked about endless abundance and in relationship to our planet of just the endless abundance of sun and wind power,

Endless abundance of water power,

Endless abundance of love,

Endless abundance of compassion,

That when we can remember that there is endless abundance,

It resources us,

Right?

There's endless abundance.

And then finally,

The third mindset that she talked about is radical regeneration.

We all experienced a little radical regeneration during the pandemic when things kind of,

The air got a little cleaner,

People's lives shifted a little bit.

We've experienced a little radical regeneration in California here when we had a lot of water and just plants are coming back to life after a lot of drought,

But the capacity of our earth to regenerate and heal,

Especially when it's given the time and space to do so,

But also ourselves,

That we have the capacity to have radical regeneration,

Whether that's in our noble silence in the morning and we do a short little meditation or we come here and are with our sangha and we feel that regeneration from being in community with each other,

Or we go on retreat and the magical things that can happen when you are on a retreat or a vacation or just having dinner with your family,

Right?

We have the capacity to heal under the right conditions.

So stubborn optimism,

Radical regeneration,

And endless abundance are Christiana's wise mindsets,

And she has a great book called The Future We Choose.

My interview with her was on the Wise Efforts Summit,

And I'm not sure if it's still up or available,

But I'll try and get that up,

But I do think I have a snippet of her on my podcast,

The Wise Efforts Show.

I think I put a snippet of her and Jack Kornfield and a couple of others that were on that summit,

And Rick,

Who's on that summit too.

So concluding remarks,

Here are the things that I pulled out that I think that we could all embody as wise leaders,

That the future of wise leadership is the sangha.

We can practice being positive energizers for each other,

Practicing wise speech,

Being aware of our privilege and positionality,

Practicing not hurrying,

Happiness is here and now,

Noble silence,

Letting the children lead,

And taking on a wise mindset.

Thank you.