Examining the Ethical Leadership of Taekwondo Instructors : Focusing on Tao Te Ching

Abstract

PURPOSE The ethical leadership of Taekwondo instructors plays a crucial role in enhancing the value of Taekwondo. Therefore, this study explores the elements of ethical leadership among Taekwondo instructors by drawing on the insights from Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.METHODS Through the Tao Te Ching, an oriental classic containing the ideas of Lao Tzu, we have extracted and discussed the elements of ethical leadership that Lao Tzu conveys to Taekwondo leaders in this era.RESULTS The ethical leadership of taekwondo leaders in the Tao Te Ching was presented as the virtues of inaction and humility as behavioral norms. Inaction as a code of conduct was discussed about a leader who practices inaction in a changing world through subjective thought rather than a meaningful Taekwondo leader who leads Taekwondo with an existing pattern and looks at ethics. A Taekwondo instructor must possess the virtue of humility. A Taekwondo instructor with humility must be glazed, soft, and humble as water.CONCLUSIONS In a Taekwondo culture that follows the Confucian ideology of extreme austerity, Lao Tzu's ethic of non-action and the virtue of humility can be like wearing an ill-fitting robe. However, standing on the edge, outside the frame of reference of the ideologies and values we have come to believe in and follow, and seeing the world as it is, not as it should be, according to the laws of nature, provides a new discourse for Taekwondo philosophy.