The Best Leaders Are Invisible — Tao Te Ching

Lao Tzu ranks four ages of leadership from best to worst. In the highest antiquity, people did not know there were their rulers. In the next age they loved them and praised them. In the next they feared them. In the next they despised them. The pattern moves from invisible order toward open contempt.

When faith in the Tao was deficient in the rulers, a want of faith in them ensued in the people. Lao Tzu does not treat praise, fear, and hatred as separate accidents. As leadership becomes more visible and forceful, trust erodes on both sides. The more rulers need to prove themselves, the less the people believe in them.

The earliest rulers appeared irresolute, showing by their reticence the importance they set upon their words. Their work was done and their undertakings were successful, while the people all said, We are as we are, of ourselves. The best leadership leaves people feeling they achieved success on their own, not because someone was constantly pulling strings from above.