Zengzi was one of Confucius' most outstanding students. Zengzi is a very trustworthy person. One day his wife was going to the market to buy some things when their child began to cry following her for he wanted to go with his mother. The mother in order to calm the child said, "Hush, I'll be back soon and when I get home if you listen to mummy, I will kill a pig for you." When she returned, Zengzi seized the pig, and prepared to kill it. The mother asked, "What are you doing! I was only consoling the child, don't take it for real."
Zengzi turned to his wife and said, "You promised the child that after returning from the market you would. Now you have to keep that promise. The child is small but he has a mind, and will imitate you. Today we must kill a pig otherwise we will indirectly teach him how to cheat people. And if he understands that you are cheating him he will never trust you again. How terrible a consequence, we have to teach him the right way."
After the words, his wife lowered her head and then Zengzi raised the knife and killed the pig. He was the child's first teacher.
I think the interesting part of this story is the reason why Zengzi killed the pig. He killed it to avoid the terrible consequence, he realized how such example could lead his child into imitating the cheating behaviour. He also realized that trust is the most important thing in his leadership towards his child. He didn't want his child to stop trusting his parents. I believe you've already heard it from somewhere, "A child is not a good listener, he/she is a good imitator."
One of the biggest secrets to leadership success is Leading by Examples. If a leader lives his words, he does what he says. Then his disciples/students/followers will highly appreciate their leader. The true respect are borned from appreciations while false respect are borned from fear. And when all the students have the right kind of respect towards their leader, it will be the highway to a successful leadership.
2 comments:
Hi, I never heard this story of Zeng Zi before. I actually think it's a good morality story. Thanks for posting it.
What is the moral value of the text?
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