Aligning To A Higher Will

Beyond Social Status and Ego

The wise leader does not push the river, they learn its current. Ancient Taoist sages called it wu wei: action through alignment rather than effort. “The best rulers,” wrote Lao Tzu, “are barely known by their people.” Their power does not come from display or dominance, but from attunement with the deeper flow of life.

Letting Go Of Self Importance

The idea that leadership is not about self glory (hidden behind the word reputation) is an unsettling idea for the modern executive world, where visibility and achievement define worth. Our culture celebrates the performer, the personal brand, the “driven” leader. But what happens when the applause fades, when ambition burns out, or when success no longer satisfies?

At that point, many leaders discover a quieter truth: the greatest movements in life often occur when we stop forcing them. Leadership matures when will shifts from personal control to cosmic alignment. From making things happen to allowing the right things to unfold through us. Social will climbs mountains whilst cosmic will becomes the mountain.

The Two Wills: Social and Cosmic

To understand this shift, we must distinguish between social will and cosmic will. Social will is the engine of ego which seeks validation, advancement, and recognition. It is what drives people to collect titles, followers, and influence. It can be productive, but also exhausting. It feeds on comparison, and its power evaporates when external approval disappears.

Cosmic will, by contrast, arises from alignment with something larger. It is not ambition but attunement, a willingness to serve life as it unfolds. Where social will forces, cosmic will flows.

Carl Jung (1961) described this movement as the transition from persona (the social mask) to Self (the organising principle of wholeness). He used the German term Berufung (vocation) to express this inner calling. True vocation is not chosen by ego; it is discovered by listening.

When vocation leads, success follows as a by-product. A CEO once told me, “I stopped asking how to prove I’m visionary. I started asking what wants to be created through me.” That single shift, from ambition to alignment, transformed her exhaustion into joy.

Social will is the wind that fills the sails; cosmic will is the tide beneath.

Dharma and Aligning To Higher Will

The Vedantic tradition offers another lens for this transformation: dharma, the principle that each being has a natural role in maintaining cosmic balance. Dharma is not duty imposed from outside, but truth in motion. It is the way one’s essence expresses itself in service to the whole (Radhakrishnan, 1927). When leaders act from adharma (against their nature), they experience strain, conflict, and fragmentation.

When they act from svadharma (their true function), energy flows effortlessly and meaning deepens. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1996) called this flow: the state where challenge meets competence and consciousness harmonises with action. Flow is the psychological signature of dharma, it is how the universe feels when it moves through us.

In organisational terms, dharma becomes collective purpose. A company aligned with its dharma acts not from competition but contribution. It becomes a living organism within the larger ecosystem of society. A leader aligned with that deeper intention doesn’t drive the mission forward; they listen for where it already wants to go. Alignment, then, is not passive. It is precision, like tuning a string to resonate with the field.

The Alchemy of Surrender

The modern myth of leadership is that control equals competence. Yet the deeper truth is that control often blocks coherence. Neuroscience reveals that moments of breakthrough insight rarely emerge during effort, but in states of rest, reverie, or openness. The default mode network, the brain’s associative system, integrates information during periods of quiet reflection, allowing intuition to arise (Beaty et al., 2015).

Gestalt awareness theory mirrors this: what is unfinished completes itself when given space. In practice, this means that the leader who cultivates stillness, rather than constant reaction, creates conditions for higher intelligence to operate. It takes courage to pause in a culture of velocity. Yet those who dare discover that surrender is not weakness, it is alignment with reality.

Translating Intuition into Strategy

Think of Michelangelo, who said he did not sculpt angels; he simply freed them from the marble. Cosmic leadership works the same way: the leader removes what obscures the truth rather than imposing their own design. Cosmic alignment is not mystical abstraction; it is practical discernment. Here are ways leaders can translate intuition into action:

1. Stillness Appointments: Schedule weekly “no-agenda” time. Protect it as fiercely as a board meeting. Stillness generates clarity more reliably than over-analysis.

2. Intuitive Journaling: Pose simple questions: “What wants to happen?” or “What is mine to do?” Write freely for ten minutes without editing. Hidden intentions surface when mind and heart synchronise.

3. Alignment Councils: Before major decisions, teams sit for five minutes in silence reflecting on purpose. Then each shares a sentence from that silence. The quality of strategy changes when born from stillness rather than stress.

4. Purpose Pulse Checks: At quarterly reviews, ask: “Are our actions still in tune with what truly serves?” This shifts performance review into coherence review.

The Tao Te Ching reminds us: “The sage does nothing, yet nothing remains undone.”

Leadership aligned with cosmic will feels like that, decisive yet unhurried, active yet at peace. The ego moves from driver to dancer, guided by rhythm rather than resistance.

True power is not in forcing outcomes but in harmonising with the unfolding of life.

From this space, strategy becomes artistry, and ambition transforms into contribution. When leaders align with cosmic will, organisations become instruments of coherence, less like machines to be managed, more like symphonies to be played. And as every great musician knows: it’s not control that makes music. It’s listening.

References

1. Beaty, R. E., Benedek, M., Kaufman, S. B., & Silvia, P. J. (2015). Default and executive network coupling supports creative idea production. Scientific Reports, 5(1), 10964.

2. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. Harper Perennial.

3. Jung, C. G. (1961). Memories, dreams, reflections. Pantheon Books.

4. Radhakrishnan, S. (1927). The Hindu view of life. George Allen & Unwin.