What a 500-year-old Korean painting taught me about leading.
Every Joseon king sat in front of the same painting.
It's called Ilwol Obongdo (일월오봉도), and it was massive: five-panel folding screens, taller than a person, vivid with mineral pigments. Sun on one side, moon on the other. Five peaks rising in the center. Waterfalls, pine trees, a stretch of restless sea below.
The painting stood behind the throne. The king sat with this cosmos at his back, facing his court. Which means the most important image in the kingdom didn't depict the king at all. It depicted what held him.
The painting was considered incomplete on its own. It only became whole when someone took their place inside it.
The Joseon worldview said that someone had to be the king. The image becomes whole, I'd argue, when the relational field is alive: when many voices, energies, and truths are held together. When peaks shape each other. When sun and moon hold the sky together. When the waters keep moving whether anyone is watching.
Leadership, in this worldview, isn't a figure.It's the harmony that emerges when many elements are present to each other, intentionally and unintentionally, shaping and being shaped.
The sun and the moon represent complementary forces: yin and yang, presence and reflection, action and receptivity.
The five peaks stand for the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water), and together symbolize stability, continuity, and the enduring foundations of a community or nation.
Flowing water and waterfalls reflect vitality, movement, and the ongoing circulation of life and energy.
The trees stand for integrity, constancy, and quiet guardianship.
Each element earns its place. Nothing is decoration. The whole image is a worldview compressed into pigment: a cosmos in balance, where leadership was not about dominance, but about holding center within a larger living system.
In the reimagined version
I've spent ten months last year in a program called Co-Active Leadership, with fourteen other people from around the world. We nicknamed ourselves the Forest. Somewhere along the way I had the urge to express us and share what we learned. What came out was my own version of Ilwol Obongdo. I added ten more peaks and called it Ilwol Sibobongdo (일월십오봉도): Fifteen Peaks Under One Sky. In this reinterpretation, the landscape has been expanded.
The fifteen peaks represent each member of our cohort: distinct in shape and presence, yet inseparable from the whole. Each peak stands on its own, and at the same time, gains meaning through its relationship with the others. The Forest had a peak that ran sharp and tall on one side, and another that sat low and steady, and they didn't match, and somehow they made each other make sense. Together, they form a range: resilient, interconnected, shaped over time.
The sun and the moon honor our two leaders, Gülsün and Edwin, holding the sky with steadiness and contrast. Clarity and warmth, challenge and compassion. Reminding us that leadership is not singular, but relational.
The two treesrepresent our assistants, Duncan and Karine: rooted, attentive, quietly essential. They hold space, offer shelter, and make growth possible without seeking the center.
The watersthat flow beneath the peaks reflect the energy fields we swam in together for ten months, learning about presence over perfection, relationship over control, leadership as a living, breathing process rather than a fixed role.
Meet the Forest, a.k.a. Lion's Mane. I ❤️ these beautiful human beings who've taught me so much and changed me to my core. | January 2026 Sitges, Spain
Under the same sky
Like Ilwol Obongdo itself, this painting is not about a single figure at the center. It is about the harmony that emerges when many voices, energies, and truths are held together.
The old painting reminds us of something easy to forget once you sit on a throne: you are not the source of the cosmos. You are only one element of it.
But you are also shaping it, with every choice, every action, every silence. The range holds you. You hold your peak. The harmony lives in the exchange, in the relational dynamics.
May this image remind you that you are both a peak and part of the range, leading, following, influencing, and belonging, under the same sky.
Joonyoung Kim is an executive leadership coach and founder of Mindesign. She works with leaders on resonant productivity and creative leadership, the kind that sustains rather than depletes. Based in Korea, working with people everywhere.
What a 500-year-old Korean painting taught me about leading.
Every Joseon king sat in front of the same painting.
It's called Ilwol Obongdo (일월오봉도), and it was massive: five-panel folding screens, taller than a person, vivid with mineral pigments. Sun on one side, moon on the other. Five peaks rising in the center. Waterfalls, pine trees, a stretch of restless sea below.
The painting stood behind the throne. The king sat with this cosmos at his back, facing his court. Which means the most important image in the kingdom didn't depict the king at all. It depicted what held him.
The painting was considered incomplete on its own. It only became whole when someone took their place inside it.
The Joseon worldview said that someone had to be the king. The image becomes whole, I'd argue, when the relational field is alive: when many voices, energies, and truths are held together. When peaks shape each other. When sun and moon hold the sky together. When the waters keep moving whether anyone is watching.
Leadership, in this worldview, isn't a figure. It's the harmony that emerges when many elements are present to each other, intentionally and unintentionally, shaping and being shaped.
In the original Ilwol Obongdo
Painting of the Sun, Moon and the Five Peaks.
By Unknown author - http://gongu.copyright.or.kr/
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24918231
Each element earns its place. Nothing is decoration. The whole image is a worldview compressed into pigment: a cosmos in balance, where leadership was not about dominance, but about holding center within a larger living system.
In the reimagined version
I've spent ten months last year in a program called Co-Active Leadership, with fourteen other people from around the world. We nicknamed ourselves the Forest. Somewhere along the way I had the urge to express us and share what we learned. What came out was my own version of Ilwol Obongdo. I added ten more peaks and called it Ilwol Sibobongdo (일월십오봉도): Fifteen Peaks Under One Sky. In this reinterpretation, the landscape has been expanded.
by yours truly ❤️
©️Joonyoung Kim, December 2025, minhwa paints on hanji
Meet the Forest, a.k.a. Lion's Mane. I ❤️ these beautiful human beings who've taught me so much and changed me to my core. | January 2026 Sitges, Spain
Under the same sky
Like Ilwol Obongdo itself, this painting is not about a single figure at the center. It is about the harmony that emerges when many voices, energies, and truths are held together.
The old painting reminds us of something easy to forget once you sit on a throne: you are not the source of the cosmos. You are only one element of it.
But you are also shaping it, with every choice, every action, every silence. The range holds you. You hold your peak. The harmony lives in the exchange, in the relational dynamics.
May this image remind you that you are both a peak and part of the range, leading, following, influencing, and belonging, under the same sky.
Joonyoung Kim is an executive leadership coach and founder of Mindesign. She works with leaders on resonant productivity and creative leadership, the kind that sustains rather than depletes. Based in Korea, working with people everywhere.
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