Leadership for the Future — Beyond Recurring Challenges
Contemplative Awareness of Words with Voice
For the past five years, I have been accompanying a corporate leadership program conducted by one of Japan’s leading manufacturers. Since its founding, the company has consistently created unseen futures through exceptional ideas and technological innovation. The program is designed for employees who are expected to take on management roles in the near future. Participants change every year, and when I reunite with members from five years ago, I often find that they have already joined the executive team.
The program combines lectures, workshops, and one-on-one sessions, with lectures and workshops held primarily in person. Sometimes we meet in an office conference room; other times, we gather at a temple in the morning and spend the day within its grounds. The content is updated each year.
Recently, we completed the first session of this year’s program. Considering both the content and the participants’ engagement—and from my own felt experience—I sense that it will become a deeper and more transformative space than ever before.
Today, the world finds itself at a point where it must fundamentally reexamine its very ‘foundations’. Leadership is no exception. Across fields such as organizational theory and cognitive psychology, numerous models and methods of the “ideal leader” have been proposed. Yet, for us to truly shift into new ways of being—not merely as roles we play, but as our embodied reality, what Buddhism refers to as body（身）, speech（口）, and mind（意）—we must first recognize the causes of our stagnation and, if something is preventing transformation, untangle it.
What, then, is the key that unlocks such a breakthrough?
* In 2025–2026, as a member of the WEF Global Future Council on Leadership, I have the opportunity to observe how the world envisions the next generation of leaders and to sense the emerging global currents shaping that vision.
This reflection was written in the midst of an ongoing program. It looks not at what has been achieved, but at what is unfolding now—and the possibilities within it.
Noticing the “Karma” Hidden in Everyday Life
— Turning Awareness Toward the Frameworks Built by Language
The theme of this year’s program is karma. The term carries many meanings, but here it refers to the unconscious tendencies that appear in our actions and thoughts, as well as the relationships—causes and conditions—that underlie and shape them.
Between lectures, which unfold through dialogue with the participants, we incorporate workshops. In one such session, we began by identifying words that are habitually used within the company. Participants made these words and expressions—those they use daily or frequently hear in internal communication—visible. The purpose is to notice how language itself shapes the framework of our thinking.
Every organization has words that are used repeatedly within its culture (for example, “prior consultation,” “originality,” or “our unique style”). The language of a community not only aligns understanding among its members but also forms a collective consciousness and ultimately the company’s culture. While such shared consciousness can be a strength, it can also become a framework that unconsciously binds the organization and narrows its own potential.
As we become more aware of the words we habitually use, we start to notice that even when discussing “problems,” we tend to use the same words to describe the same issues again and again. As a result, we ourselves make it easier for our reality to become fixed and rigid.
Furthermore, the meanings of words can drift away from their original essence over time. Their interpretations and nuances shift depending on who uses them. As words accumulate definitions, standards, and moral connotations, the process mirrors how individuals—born with their own unique dispositions—gradually acquire distinctions and judgments shaped by their environment and age.
Emotions, behaviors, and ideas that arise from words often occur automatically, and the influence they exert on us is far greater than we imagine. Different experiences lead to different interpretations, and such differences in perception can cause the collective flow of communication to stray from its intended direction.
That is why it is essential to return, again and again, to the origin—asking what truly matters.
In most cases, this dynamic interweaves our work and private lives. The “environmental language” of our time—found in politics, industry, education, and family life—overlaps and repeats with each person’s individual language. While culture and civilization continue to flourish, the “karma” that remains unresolved is also inherited. From individuals to groups, these influences interact and are passed down across generations.
Turning Our Gaze, Asking Anew
In this program, karma is not seen as something wrong, bad, or problematic.” Even when feelings of comfort or discomfort arise, we refrain from judging them as good or bad—instead, we simply turn our gaze toward them. The path can open without denial.
In many training programs, participants define a goal, plan the steps to reach it, build the staircase, and climb it one by one. Any wall that blocks the way is quickly identified, and solutions are devised and implemented to overcome it. This goal-oriented, problem-solving approach has certainly led to many remarkable results.
Yet, have we not also experienced situations where, even after a problem seems to be solved, the same patterns soon reappear? The satisfaction of achieving a result often fades quickly, leaving us chasing the next goal, haunted by a sense of emptiness as we try to fill what feels lacking. Unless the very interpretations and worldviews that shape our language—and through them, our perception of the world—change, our consciousness remains trapped within inherited frameworks. Transformation begins when we become aware of our habitual patterns and the workings of our own consciousness through a contemplative awareness of words — gently observing our use of words.
“Why do I use this word?” “What assumptions does it rest on?” “What kind of ‘rightness’ have I believed in?”—we pause, question, become aware, and gently untangle. There is no need to deny the past or the present. We simply turn our gaze toward them.
Buddhism teaches that when we walk such a path—this process—the companions who walk beside us are our greatest support. The path is never without difficulty. Alone, we may become pessimistic or fall into inertia. Our hearts may turn toward criticism of ourselves or others. At times, to escape suffering, we may become dependent on something—perhaps great wealth, a powerful leader, or even a piece of sweet chocolate. Such things can indeed provide temporary support. Eventually, each of us must face a moment of autonomy, for only then can we be released from the fear of loss.
When our footing falters, companions illuminate the path ahead. They become an irreplaceable source of support.
Possibilities and Challenges
The essence of this program lies in staying connected to the sense of the body.
In the second session, participants will spend time in a temple that has stood for eight hundred years, engaging in embodied listening. Through nonverbal exchanges—tones of voice, pauses, and silences—the background behind words begins to reveal itself.
Unless we step away, even temporarily, from the pursuit of “answers” and “optimization,” it is difficult to sense where the true voice resides. A group is a collection of individuals, and collective consciousness and individuality continuously shape one another. For this reason, it is essential that both the HR department implementing the program and I myself refrain from the intention to analyze or measure participants. The moment we try to measure, participants will instinctively respond to that expectation. Once we begin performing as subjects of evaluation, everyone starts to operate from the mind. They may say admirable things, yet remain bound by the same karma that they have yet to release.
This endeavor has only just begun, but I already sense its potential. Rather than seeking solutions, we are invited to pause and turn our awareness toward the mindset that gives shape to “problems.” Through this, the unconscious structures of both individuals and collectives begin to be illuminated.
We are used to articulating concepts fluently within familiar language. But what is needed now is to speak anew through our living bodies. When body, speech, and mind (身口意) become one reality, and our voices are released as they are, the rigidity of perspective and the grip of habitual thought begin to soften.
In fact, moments for such introspection are already abundant in our everyday lives. The impact of this leadership program will naturally extend beyond the realm of work. Transformation in consciousness inevitably transforms the environment around us. Perhaps we are now entering an age in which AI walks alongside us in this process.
And what does “leader” mean in the phrase leadership training?
That very concept, too, will surely continue to evolve.