MY 3-MINUTE SPEECH AT AWLF 2026
Inner Leadership: From Inner Clarity to Compassionate Action
“True leadership begins when we stop fighting to prove our worth, find clarity within, and turn that clarity into compassionate action.”
Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to share something that I have personally experienced in my life. For years, I believed my stress and unhappiness came from the pressures of work and life. So I pushed harder, worked more, achieved more. Especially as a woman in leadership, I sometimes felt I had to prove that I was capable, strong, successful, and worthy enough to be where I was. Sometimes, I felt I had to become stronger than I naturally was, just to be taken seriously.
Then, through a fortunate circumstance, I was introduced to Trúc Lâm Zen. After practicing for some time, I began to gain greater clarity from within and started looking back at my own experiences. I realized that I was participating in what I call a battle over my own worth. When I felt I was losing to someone else, unhappiness would arise. And when I had not yet lost, I was afraid that I might. That fear created anxiety and stress. I remember one meeting when a colleague dismissed my proposal in front of the whole team. My hands were shaking. I thought I was defending an idea. But I realized I was defending my worth.
That led me to ask myself: What is actually driving me?
I saw that the motivation behind this battle was what I had always called the ego – the part of me that wanted to be recognized, protected, and validated. Before, I thought the ego was me. But through practice, I began to see clearly that it was not me. And if I could see it, I no longer had to be controlled by it. I no longer needed to protect it or win every battle over my worth.
And something unexpected happened. A sense of happiness began to arise. Not because I had won, but because I no longer needed to win in order to feel valuable. This did not mean I stopped wanting to achieve. I still have goals. I still want to do meaningful work. But achievement no longer has to tell me who I am. When I stopped spending so much energy protecting my image, I could give my attention back to what truly mattered – my values, my goals, and the work I genuinely cared about. I became more effective as a leader. I could listen more, collaborate more, and see others more clearly.
And something else began to arise naturally: compassion. I realized compassion is not something I need to create. It is a natural quality within every human being. But when the ego occupied my attention, it left less space for compassion to express itself. With more inner space, I could listen without rushing to judge, disagree without needing to diminish others, and stay strong in my decisions while remaining kind in my actions.
Perhaps this is especially meaningful for women leaders. We do not have to become harder in order to lead. We can be strong without being hard, decisive without overpowering, and a leader without losing our gentleness.
Perhaps our greatest strength is not becoming stronger to win more battles, but becoming clear enough to know which work are worth doing. That is how I am learning to lead: from inner clarity to compassionate action. Thank you.
(Please click the button below to explore the expanded version of the speech.)
Explore More About Inner Leadership
Continue exploring the ideas behind my AWLF 2026 talk through the expanded version of my speech, available in your preferred language.
A Word from the Author
I am Nguyen Thi Minh Dang, Vice President of Global Viet Women (Melbourne-based) and formerly the first LEAD of the Australia-Vietnam Young Leaders Network (AVYX), an Australian Government-funded program. I am also an entrepreneur, with a strong interest in creating meaningful value for people and communities, particularly in addressing issues facing women.
For the past ten years, I have studied and practiced Truc Lam Zen and currently guide meditation practice under the Dieu Trang Nghiem Sangha. These three journeys: community work, business, and Zen, have shaped how I understand people, challenges, and leadership. Business and community work brought me closer to real-world problems, while Zen taught me to look inward and see more clearly how I think, choose, and act. Over time, this led to a realization that has become central to my perspective: “The pinnacle of Business is Zen. The pinnacle of Zen is Business.”
Inner Leadership: From Inner Clarity to Compassionate Action grew from this journey. It explores how inner awareness shapes our wellbeing, choices, leadership, and actions and how inner clarity can become meaningful value for ourselves and others.
– Nguyen Thi Minh Dang –
Co-Founder of Global Viet Women, Entrepreneur & Truc Lam Zen Practitioner
ABOUT THE EXPANDED SPEECH
Inner Leadership: From Inner Clarity to Compassionate Action
Introduction
Inner Leadership: From Inner Clarity to Compassionate Action begins with a question that seems deceptively simple: What actually causes me to lose my wellbeing? From there, the author traces a mechanism that operates quietly inside every one of us: the battle for value. When my sense of my own worth is placed in relation to others, I may try to lower them so I can feel higher, or try to raise myself through achievement, recognition, and the images I construct of myself.
But the battle doesn’t stop with others – it becomes a battle with myself. I build Masks to hide what I don’t want to see, and gradually come to identify with the images that can be observed. Once that image becomes “me,” its value becomes something I must protect. And because that value is always finite, a sense of lack appears bringing with it the need to compensate, and the need to keep fighting to prove my worth. From here, the essay arrives at a pivotal realization: as long as I keep taking that image to be myself, the battle for value continues. Once I no longer identify with it, I no longer need to protect its value and no longer need to fight.
That is where Inner Clarity opens – the ability to see clearly what is actually happening inside me – which in turn opens the way to Inner Leadership: no longer letting the battle for value govern how I live, but returning instead to what genuinely holds value for myself, for others, and for the community. And from Inner Leadership, the journey continues toward Compassionate Action – when concern, attention, and action are no longer swept into the battle for value, but are led by love instead.
Most Compelling Excerpt
“This is also why the battle for value can go on without end. As long as I keep taking that image to be myself, I must keep protecting its value. As long as that value remains finite, I will keep feeling I am lacking. And as long as I feel I am lacking, I will keep needing to compensate. As long as I need to compensate, I will keep having to fight.
Only when I stop taking that image to be myself do I no longer need to protect its value. And once I no longer need to protect it, I no longer need to fight. Once I no longer need to fight, I am no longer swept into the wounds and negative states that battle creates. And at that point, my wellbeing is no longer governed by that battle.
And perhaps this is where Inner Leadership begins not from creating a more beautiful image of myself, not from defeating others, not from forcing myself to become more valuable in order to be loved and happy. But from the ability to turn toward my genuine interests and goals – things that hold real value for myself, for others, and for the community.”
Explore More About Inner Leadership
Continue exploring the ideas behind my AWLF 2026 talk through the expanded version of my speech, available in your preferred language.
Q&A: BEYOND THE SPEECH
From Inner Clarity to Women’s Wellbeing, Leadership & Social Impact
Wellbeing does not simply change how we feel; it changes how we live, lead, innovate, and create value.
1. How does women’s happiness and health influence leadership effectiveness, innovation, and productivity?
For me, this question begins with something deeper: how does wellbeing change the way I see, listen, speak, and act? When I am governed by the battle for value, my concern and attention can be consumed by protecting, increasing, or compensating for my own value. I may spend time proving that I am right, protecting my image, or resisting the truth simply because it is difficult to admit that I was wrong. When I am no longer governed by the battle for value, I can look at what is actually happening without needing it to confirm my own value.
This changes the way I lead. I can distinguish between expressing what I truly understand and responding appropriately to another person. I can listen and respond to what is actually needed, rather than using the relationship to protect my own value.
It changes the way I innovate. I can receive information without adding what the other person has not said. I can accept a truth that does not fit what I previously believed, and change a way of doing things when reality shows that it is no longer appropriate.
It changes the way I work. My time, energy, and attention are no longer consumed by protecting my image or proving my value. I can work with greater efficiency, while also doing more of what the work actually requires.
When I face difficulties, I no longer see pressure simply as something I need to resist. When my actions are guided by responsibility rather than the need to protect my own value, pressure can become motivation to act and solve problems. And when these resources are no longer consumed by the battle for value, the range of things I can care about and take responsibility for can also expand. But for me, the most important point is this: Wellbeing is not a tool for becoming a better leader, a more innovative person, or a more productive worker.
When the ego no longer governs me, my concern and attention are no longer consumed by the battle for value. They can follow the guidance of love. Then I lead because people and the work genuinely need to be led. I innovate because reality requires a different way of doing things. I work because what I am doing has real value for me, for others, and for the community. For me, wellbeing does not simply change how I feel. It changes how I live, lead, innovate, and create value.
2. How can wellbeing be integrated into public policy, education systems, and organizational culture?
For me, there is a risk hidden inside this question: if we are not careful, integrating wellbeing itself can become another version of the battle for value another metric to achieve, another image to protect, another result to prove. So I think the deeper question is not simply, “How do we add wellbeing to our systems?” It is: “How do we create systems that no longer require people to constantly prove their value?”
In public policy, this means looking beyond the outcomes institutions want to demonstrate and asking what people actually need to live well. Wellbeing should not become another number that governments have to prove they are improving. It should be a lens for asking whether policies are genuinely responding to the real needs of people and communities.
In education, we need to be careful not to teach the battle for value from an early age. When grades, rankings, praise, and criticism become measures of a student’s own value, children learn to protect an image of themselves rather than simply learn and grow. Adding a wellbeing program on top of that does not change the underlying mechanism. Education needs to help students see what they truly understand, distinguish that from how they want to be seen, and learn without having to use achievement to prove their own value.
In organizational culture, the same principle applies. A culture governed by the battle for value can make people protect their image, defend their position, hide mistakes, or continue with a way of doing things even when reality shows that it no longer works.
So wellbeing requires a culture where people can say what they actually understand, listen to what others are really saying, face uncomfortable truths, admit when they are wrong, and change what needs to be changed without turning every disagreement or mistake into a threat to their own value. When responsibility guides action rather than the need to protect their own value, people’s concern and attention are no longer consumed by the battle for value. More of their time and energy can return to what truly matters to people, to the work, and to the community. And this is why, for me, wellbeing should not be a separate program added to a system.
It should become part of the way we design policy, educate people, and work together by creating conditions in which people no longer have to spend so much of themselves proving their value, and can instead use what they have to contribute to what truly matters.
Explore More About Inner Leadership
Continue exploring the ideas behind my AWLF 2026 talk through the expanded version of my speech, available in your preferred language.
3. How can governments, businesses, educational institutions, and civil society work together to build an ecosystem that supports women’s wellbeing?
For me, building an ecosystem for women’s wellbeing requires more than having different institutions work on the issue separately. It requires a way for experience, knowledge, resources, and action to connect with one another.
I see this happening through three connected steps: identifying what is genuinely needed, developing practical solutions, and bringing those solutions into life.
First, we need to listen to women’s actual experiences in their families, workplaces, communities, and different stages of life. These experiences can reveal problems that may not yet have been clearly understood, as well as ideas and practices that may already be helping.
Second, promising ideas need to be studied, tested, and developed into solutions that can be understood, taught, practiced, and evaluated. This is where educational institutions, researchers, businesses, and civil society can contribute different kinds of knowledge and experience.
Third, solutions need to reach real life. Businesses can provide workplaces and practical environments. Educational institutions can teach and build capacity. Civil society can connect solutions with communities. Governments can create the policies, resources, and conditions that allow effective solutions to reach more people and be sustained over time.
But I think there is another condition that connects all four. The institutions themselves need to avoid being drawn into the battle for value competing to demonstrate who contributed the most, whose solution is the best, or whose organization deserves the recognition. When concern and attention are consumed by proving the value of each institution, the ecosystem becomes fragmented. But when they are directed towards what women actually need, each institution can contribute what it is uniquely able to contribute, and make it possible for another part of the ecosystem to do what is needed next.
For me, this is where an organization or platform such as AWLF can play an important role: bringing together experience, knowledge, resources, and different capabilities so that promising ideas can move from individual experience to practical solutions, and from practical solutions to wider social impact.
An ecosystem for women’s wellbeing is not simply many organizations doing good things. It is a connected process in which what women experience can become knowledge, knowledge can become solutions, and solutions can become action that reaches more women and future generations.
4. How does women’s happiness and health influence leadership effectiveness, innovation, and productivity?
For me, integrating wellbeing into leadership development should begin not with another set of skills, but with helping people see what is actually happening within themselves when they lead. A practical starting point is to help leaders recognize when the battle for value is influencing their concern and attention when they are trying to protect their image, prove that they are right, defend their position, or increase their own value. The next step is to develop the ability to pause and look at what is actually happening before responding. What do I truly understand? What is the other person actually saying? What does the situation actually require? And how can I respond appropriately to the other person without turning the situation into a fight to protect my own value? This can become part of everyday leadership practice. In meetings, for example, leaders can be encouraged to distinguish between what they actually understand and what they assume. They can ask questions before reaching conclusions, listen without adding what has not been said, acknowledge when they are wrong, and change their decisions when reality shows that another way is more appropriate.
Leadership development can also include the ability to transform pressure into responsibility and action. Instead of spending concern and attention resisting pressure or protecting an image, leaders can ask: What needs to be done now? What am I responsible for? What can I do to move this situation forward? At the institutional level, the same principles need to be reflected in everyday practices. Organizations can create conditions where people can speak about what they actually understand, raise problems early, admit mistakes, challenge existing ways of doing things, and change course when reality requires it without every disagreement, mistake, or change becoming a threat to their own value. This also means changing what institutions pay attention to. If leadership development is measured mainly through status, performance, competition, or recognition, wellbeing can easily become another result that people have to prove. Instead, institutions can pay attention to how people make decisions, how they respond to others, how they deal with uncomfortable information, how they take responsibility, and whether their actions are actually serving people and the work. For me, the practical strategy is therefore not to add wellbeing as another separate component of leadership training. It is to build wellbeing into the way leadership is developed and the way institutions work every day.
When leaders learn to see what is actually happening within themselves, recognize when the battle for value is taking over, and redirect their concern and attention towards what is genuinely needed, wellbeing becomes part of leadership practice rather than a separate objective. The goal is not to teach people how to feel well while they lead. It is to create a way of leading and working in which people no longer have to spend so much of themselves protecting and proving their value, and can instead use their concern, attention, understanding, and responsibility for what truly matters.
Explore More About Inner Leadership
