There is no leadership program in Zen. There is only a followership one: following one's true self. Again that following stops the moment, when we realise there is nothing to follow. Following and being followed is not one or not two.
That sounds weird until you see where it actually begins. It doesn't begin with vision, strategy, or mindset. It begins with the body and the breath. The old teachers called these the sanchō, the three adjustments of zazen. First comes chōshin, settling the body: a stable seat, a straight spine, grounded and at ease. Then comes chōsoku, letting the breath find its own natural rhythm. Only then does chōshin, the settling of the mind, arrive. It sounds the same as the first, but it is written with a different character. And it doesn't arrive because we worked on the mind directly. It arrives because the body and the breath have made room for it. Stillness and space open up by themselves.
The sanchō are not three techniques to master. They are a sequence of allowing. Body first. Breath second. Mind third. That order is the whole teaching. Try to settle the mind first and you usually just add tension to tension: more effort, more analysis, more self-monitoring. Most leadership development does exactly that. It starts at step three, trying to fix thinking with more thinking, more frameworks, more content, and then wonders why clarity feels manufactured. It is a little like rearranging furniture in a house with no foundation.
Last year, after the Zen in Action online program, I wanted to organise a 10 day Zen leadership program at the Zendo. I showed the marketing flier to Fr. AMA. He took the pencil, crossed it out, and said, "Just say a Zen meditation program for 10 days. Nothing else." He told me that in Zen schools in Japan, for the first six months, the teacher makes the student focus only on breathing. Only breathing. Nothing else. At the Zendo too, he made me sit in zazen and focus on breathing, and he made me do samu, before asking me to give introductory teishos for sesshins. I was in a hurry. He always slowed me down.
A knowledge dump, however sacred or ancient, doesn't help with the three adjustments. "Ettile pasu pullu thinnilla" is a popular Malayalam saying: the cow on a printed page does not eat grass. Zen has its own version. In the Gabyō (Painted Rice Cake) fascicle of the Shōbōgenzō, written in 1242, Dōgen starts from an old saying attributed to Xiangyan Zhixian: "A painted rice cake does not satisfy hunger." Xiangyan reached for it when his book learning failed him. Then Dōgen turns the saying around: "There is no remedy for satisfying hunger other than a painted rice cake." The words do feed you, but only when they are lived in the body rather than recited.
You can quote Dōgen perfectly and still be bracing your shoulders, holding your breath, performing calm. Borrowed insight easily becomes one more thing to perform or defend. In front of a teacher, and in front of a team, it shows at once. Here is a practical test: in a high stakes meeting, can you feel your feet, let the exhale finish, and not speak from the first reactive impulse? If not, no framework will save the moment. If yes, strategy has a foundation. This doesn't dismiss vision or strategy. It puts them second to embodiment. A settled mind can use frameworks. A scattered mind is used by them.
So following your true self isn't a vague ideal. It can be trained, and it is concrete. It is not following the ego's story, preferences, or brand. It is following what remains when body, breath, and mind are no longer at war. That self doesn't need to be promoted. It is already present. From it come the clarity, presence, and steadiness that everyone hopes leadership programs will produce. Leadership then becomes less a role and more an effect: steadiness, non-reactivity, the ability to be in a room without immediately needing to fill it.
Perhaps that is the real leadership lesson from the zafu and zabuton. Learn to follow first. Follow the body. Follow the breath. Follow the stillness that opens when you stop abandoning yourself. People don't follow titles, not in the deepest sense. They follow that steadiness, or they don't need to.
