Through developing the Authenticity-Narcissism Index, I discovered this First Principle of Leadership - a paradox that began my journey exploring how paradoxes are perhaps the only truths we can grasp in our universe.

And the First Principle of Leadership is:

Leadership Requires Both Taking Control
and Letting Go of Control Simultaneously.

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(I) The Entrenchment of Recursion & Paradoxical Loops

This paradox led me to question the systems that surround us - corporate, higher education, and even non-profit. Through rigorous assessment, I realized most of us live within an interconnected web of invisible, recursive systems that are self-reinforcing and energy-draining by design.

For example, in workplace leadership, American workers face "performance reviews" like contestants on "America's Got Workforce." Meanwhile, narcissistic bosses proliferate throughout organizations.

Yet we rarely examine promotion processes through the lens of performance review. It goes like this: "Performance-based" reviews create "performance-based" promotions, fostering environments where grandiose narcissists who live-as-performance thrive.

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(II) The Confluence of Recursion & Threat of Irrelevance

What I described represents a classic leadership recursive system - the non-thinking, convention-accepting, normative-highlighting loop that surrounds us, but only revealed itself when we pause, take off the predefined perceptual frame, and examine from within.

With two decades in technology, finance, and advisory roles across renowned recursive systems (Ivy Leagues, Global Finance, Private Equity, Investment Banking), I become acutely aware of these "mammoth" elephants of system suffocation and existential threats being raised in Fortune 500 boardrooms, elite law firms, and investment due diligence sessions.

And as artificial general intelligence (AGI) advancement accelerates,I realize that the path well taken is no longer viable. This is the inconvenient truth if you remain buried in conventional thinking and believing your institutional knowledge can save you. Instead, you will face a double jeopardy of irrelevance: Corrosive recursive systems strengthen their grip while AGI unleashes an intellectual-as-capital "Ice Age".

The Way Forward Is Not Staying in the Same Game;
It Is Rotating Inward to Reset Perceptual Frame.

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(III) The Transcendence of Leadership Into Single Hand Clap

Once the realization resonates within myself, I realize that mirages of wealth, power and recognition are just mirages of abundance that will not be available for long. Through hard work, trial & error and some pure luck, not only I am able to find the path out, but also tracing the methodologies of emergence, infusing them through my lived experiences, and abstracting all that into a foundational philosophy that guides all of our programs:

The Way Forward is To Build in Multi-Dimensions; It is Flipping Upside Down to Reveal Your Echoes.

Leadership.SO is born with this seed phrase. By combining proven analytical frameworks, humanistic virtues and yes, artificial intelligence, we develop a series of programs to activate individuals’ nodes of deep examination, to connect with your peers through resonance, and to uncover your own inner compass to meet this volatile world with presence, clarity and intention.

Let our own edge of echo create more space for the river of authentic leadership to flow into our collective wave of consciousness.

And by the way, welcome to your first session.