Around the same time as Carl Gustav Jung was making sense of the shadow as a symbolic object, in 1933, in the Eastern world, still largely unknown from the Western hemisphere, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki was publishing a hymn to all things delicate and nuanced, appreciative of everything understated and natural, softened by the patina of age and shadows, attentive to layered tones and their power to reflect low sheen materials such as gold embroidery and cloudy crystals.

Between the Jungian notion of the shadow and the praise of shadows by Tanizaki can be discerned a shared insight: nothing is just purely bright or entirely dark. For Jung, the shadow refers to those personally unconscious aspects of the psyche that are incompatible with the ego-ideal, yet remain open to moral recognition and integration. For Tanizaki, shadows are to be appreciated, as they reveal depth, texture, and the subtle beauty of what is, inviting an exercise in mindfulness, especially mindfulness of beauty, as central to a life well lived.

The light needs the dark, and beauty emerges from their interplay. Haven’t you noticed how you feel stronger and more confident when you are able to face and acknowledge your own darkness?

The first English translation of Tanizaki’s essay on Japanese aesthetics and taste was published in 1977. It includes a foreword by the architect Charles Moore, a leading figure of postmodernism, who rejected universal truths and emphasized the instability of meaning, skepticism toward established norms, the blending of styles, and attention to the socially constructed nature of knowledge and reality. Inspired by Tanizaki’s work, he writes that it helps us look deeply into ourselves and into our own inhabitation of the world.

If we dare to apply these perspectives on shadows to leadership, they highlight the importance of attuning to the fine gradations of perception and feeling, both in oneself and in others. Human and robust leadership does not rely on oversimplified clarity, but on the capacity to recognize ambiguity, vulnerability, and latent tensions, including those that have not yet fully surfaced. It is precisely in engaging with these penumbral dimensions, the barely perceptible yet active layers of experience, that leadership becomes more grounded and perceptive.

Rather than weakening authority, attention to nuance strengthens it: it enables a deeper understanding of human dynamics, more accurate judgment, and the creation of environments where complexity can be acknowledged rather than denied. In this sense, strong leadership is not the avoidance of shadow, but the ability to integrate it as a source of insight and presence.

(Image: Kyoto, 2019)

Sources

Grayling, A. C. (2002). Rereadings: AC Grayling on a fine study of Japanese aesthetics. The Guardian (October 5, 2002).

Tanizaki, J. (1977). In Praise of Shadows. Stony Creel, CT: Leete’s Islands Books.