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As indicated in my post of August 21, I am delivering on this site a very short course on the classics of literature on leadership. (See the post for how “classic” is defined.)

The course will draw on my edited volume, Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence (McGraw-Hill, 2010). Here I can provide only short bursts of texts. My hope is that they will prompt you to dig deeper.

The selections are grouped into three parts. Part I comprises classics About Leadership. Part II is a compilation of Literature as Leadership. And Part III consists of selections by Leaders in Action. Leaders who have used words – written, oral, or both – as instruments of leadership.

In the coming weeks, the entries are in Part I. They are About Leadership.

Today we turn to Thomas Hobbes, to his book, Leviathan. I have always had a special interest in Leviathan – I am almost tempted to write fondness for it- as the book is one of the first important works to emphasize not just the importance of leaders but of followers. Given that I consider followers as important as leaders it’s heartening that, even preceding the Enlightenment, one of the major political philosophers focused on the rights of ordinary people.

To be clear, their rights were modest enough. First was the right to life which, however, given the time in which Hobbes lived, the assertion of which was no small thing. Think of it this way. Not much more than a hundred years passed between the publication of Prince and Leviathan. But whereas Machiavelli was nearly entirely focused on the near boundless rights of the prince, Hobbes insisted on the all-important right to life not just of the prince, but of his subjects.

Further, though Hobbes declared that once there was a leader that leader had to be all powerful, there could be no leader without the consent of those who were to be led. During a time when monarchs still strode the world like the kings and, sometimes, queens they were, this was, itself, revolutionary.

Hobbes’s was, however, disposed to be dark. His view of human nature was bleak, his view of the human condition even bleaker. Because we were not to be trusted, because we, you and me, were fearful and rapacious, selfish and dangerous, we had no choice, really, but to be governed by a super strong leader of a super strong state. Otherwise, we were destined, doomed, to do each other in. To put it differently, though directly, Hobbes believed that for even our right to life be realized, we had to surrender nearly every other right to the state.

From Leviathan – “On the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning their Felicity and Misery”:

• The difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. For as to strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself.

• Therefore, if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.

• Hereby it is manifest that men [must have] a common power, a [strong state, a leviathan] to keep them all in awe [lest there is a war] of every man against every man.

• [But] nor can any law be made till they [the people] have agreed upon the person that shall make it.

I define followers by rank. Which is to say that in my lexicon followers have less power, authority and influence than leaders. And sometimes they have no power, authority or influence at all.

The victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s by now all too well known predation were then, as I define them, followers. For many years that’s all they were. Bereft of any resources they were where the wind blew them. But in the last 24 hours this changed. Summoning their courage in tandem they put their foot down. They are insisting they will stay silent no longer. They are taking control of a narrative that for decades had controlled them.

If they succeed in shifting America’s political dynamic even some would that transform this band of followers into leaders? Yes. But this will not now or ever diminish their origin story. For a very long time they were followers who had nothing and no one.

As indicated in my post of August 21, I am delivering on this site a very short course on the classics of literature on leadership. (See the post for how “classic” is defined.)

The course will draw on my edited volume, Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence (McGraw-Hill, 2010). Here I can provide only short bursts of texts. My hope is that they will prompt you to dig deeper.

The selections are grouped into three parts. Part I comprises classics About Leadership. Part II is a compilation of Literature as Leadership. And Part III consists of selections by Leaders in Action. Leaders who have used words – written, oral, or both – as instruments of leadership.

In the coming weeks, each of the entries is in Part I. Each is About Leadership.

Today we turn to Machiavelli, to The Prince, which scarcely needs an introduction. The Prince was described by Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield, “the most famous book on politics ever written.” So famous is the book, the manual really, that the adjective, “Machiavellian,” has come over five centuries to be part of the English language. But Machiavelli’s mind was far more nuanced, and The Prince far more complex, than the charge “Machiavellian” seems to suggest.  

I refer to The Prince as a manual because it was written as an instruction. As I wrote in the above-mentioned book, “Machiavelli believed that rulers require education of a special sort and training of a certain kind. So, think of The Prince as a primer, a how-to-book if you will, particularly for Lorenzo de’ Medici, who became Duke of Urbino in 1516.”   

The Prince is utterly pragmatic. It is a deeply personal manual, intended for the prince, the duke, the leader, only. Who, Machiavelli presumed, had lessons to learn on how to preserve his power. This is not to say that the prince’s subjects – the leader’s followers – are slighted. They are not. In fact, Machiavelli makes clear the preferred way for the prince to preserve his power is to keep his people content, or at least content enough. Still, the prince must always, without exception, put his interests above everyone else’s. This applies even when he concludes that he must be cruel as opposed to what is preferred, which is to be merciful.

From Book XVII:

• I say that each prince should desire to be held merciful and not cruel; nevertheless, he should take care not to use this mercy badly.

• A prince, therefore, to keep his subjects united and faithful, should not care about the infamy of cruelty, because with very few examples he will be more than those who for the sake of too much mercy allow disorders to continue… for these customarily hurt a “whole community.”  

• From this a dispute arises whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The response is that one would want to be both the one and the other; but because it is difficult to put them together, it is much safer to be feared than loved…. For one can say this generally of men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, pretenders and dissemblers, evades of danger, eager for gain.

• I conclude, then, returning to being feared, and loved, that since men love at their convenience and fear at the convenience of the prince, a wise prince should found himself on what is his, not on what is someone else’s. He should only contrive to avoid hatred, as was said.

As indicated in my post of August 21, I am delivering on this site a very short course on the classics of literature on leadership. (See the post for how “classic” is defined.)

The course will draw on my edited volume, Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence (McGraw-Hill, 2010). Here I can provide only short bursts of texts. My hope is that they will prompt you to dig deeper.

The selections are grouped into three parts. Part I comprises classics About Leadership. Part II is a compilation of Literature as Leadership. And Part III consists of selections by Leaders in Action. Leaders who have used words – written, oral, or both – as instruments of leadership.

In the coming weeks, the entries are in Part I. They are About Leadership.

Today we turn to Plutarch, to Lives. Plutarch. a Greek, who lived circa 100 CE, can be considered the first biographer. He understood that life histories are perhaps the most compelling of all narrative forms, so he composed fifty short studies of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers, and patriots for the express purpose of comparing them. Contrasting them so they might serve not just as examples but as instructions. Examples of good leaders and instructions on good leadership. On what constitutes leadership that is not just smart but wise, leadership that is not just effective but good-hearted.   

The selections that follow are from his comparison between Dion, a Greek, and Brutus, that great but flawed Roman drawn so brilliantly by William Shakespeare in Julius Caesar. As I wrote in the above-mentioned text, “”The Comparison of Dian and Brutus’ is Plutarch at his best. In the writer’s equivalent of just a few short strokes, we learn what we need to know about the two men, and we learn what we need to know about what Plutarch considered important.”

What emerges most vividly from this text is how well Plutarch understood the intricacies, the inconsistencies, of a man like Brutus. Plutarch understood that humans are not widgets – rather they are complex beings who have mixed motives and yield mixed results.   

• The greatest thing charged on Brutus is that he, being saved by Caesar’s kindness… did yet lay violent hands on his preserver. [Brutus was among those who murdered Caesar, stabbed him until he died.] Nothing like this could be objected against Dion; quite the contrary.

• Does not, however, the matter turn the other way? For the chief glory of both was their hatred of tyranny, and abhorrence of wickedness. This was unmixed and sincere in Brutus, for he had no private quarrel with Caesar, but went into the risk simply for the liberty of his country.

• But the very enemies of Brutus would say that he had no other end or aim, from first to last, save only to restore to the Roman people their ancient government.

As indicated in my post of August 21, I am delivering on this site a very short course on the classics of literature on leadership. (See the post for how “classic” is defined.)

The course will draw on my edited volume, Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence (McGraw-Hill, 2010). Here I can provide only short bursts of texts. My hope is that they will prompt you to dig deeper.

The selections are grouped into three parts. Part I comprises classics About Leadership. Part II is a compilation of Literature as Leadership. And Part III consists of selections by Leaders in Action. Leaders who have used words – written, oral, or both – as instruments of leadership.

In the coming weeks, the entries are in Part I. They are About Leadership.

Today we turn to Plato, to The Republic. Plato is of course one of the most prominent and widely esteemed political philosophers of all time. The Republic, in turn – said to have been written about 380 BCE – is acclaimed as the most widely read of all political texts, even into the 21^st century. This is not by any stretch to say that The Republic is usually read in its entirety. It most certainly is not. Still, parts of it remain grist even for our modern mill.   

The fact that Plato wrote The Republic in dialogue – as a series of conversations – helps us understand it. The seemingly informal exchanges bring life to his ideas in ways that would otherwise be impossible. Given my own special interest in bad leadership, and the fact that in the contemporary leadership literature “bad” remains widely ignored, Plato’s explorations of bad, or even evil leadership are, to me, of special interest. So, the excerpts below include, briefly, of course, some of Plato’s ruminations on the dark side of the human condition.    

• From Book V

Unless philosophers become kings in our cities, or unless those who now are kings and rulers become true philosophers, so that political power and philosophical intelligence converge… I believe there can be no end to our troubles, my dear Glaucon, in our cities or for all mankind….

We must still consider the tyrannical man himself. How does he evolve from the democratic man? What kind of a life does he lead? Is he happy or miserable?

          You are right. These are questions we still haven’t answered.

          I think we have neglected one thing in particular.

          What?

          We have still not given a full accounting of human desires….

          What desires do you mean?

          Those that stir when the soul is otherwise asleep… Then the wild and brutish part, sated with food and drink, becomes restless and goes on the prowl in search of anything that will satisfy its instincts. You know that in such a state it will shrink from nothing because it has been released from reason and a sense of shame.

As indicated in my post of August 21, I am delivering on this site a very short course on the classics of literature on leadership. (See the post for how “classic” is defined.)

The course will draw on my edited volume, Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence (McGraw-Hill, 2010). Here I can provide only short bursts of texts. My hope is they will prompt you to dig deeper.

Given that we are on to the second selection – the first was Lao Tzu – I should point out the selections are grouped into three parts. Part I comprises classics About Leadership. Part II is a compilation of Literature as Leadership. And Part III consists of selections by Leaders in Action. Leaders who have used words – written, oral, or both – as instruments of leadership. Each entry in the coming weeks is in Part I.

Today we turn to Confucius, to Analects. As scholar and translator Simon Leys put it in his introduction to Analects, “No book in the entire history of the world has exerted, over a longer period of time, a greater influence on a larger number of people than this slim little volume.” Leys’s statement is compounded by what has transpired in China in recent years: interest in Confucius and Confucianism has been revived, even actively encouraged. This is due virtually entirely to the leadership of Xi Jinping, who since 2012 has governed both China and the Chinese Communist Party with an increasingly tight fist. For Xi’s own reasons and ambitions, Confucious has served him well.

Analects is a collection of sayings and ideas that were not compiled by Confucius himself, but by his disciples. They reached their final form circa 200 BC- 200 AD. Above all, Confucious extolled the virtues of what today we might call law and order. How were they to be achieved? By holding firm to hierarchies in which everyone knew their place and acted accordingly. This applied to everyone equally – to leaders and to their followers.

This is not to say that leaders were to have a free hand. They were not. On the contrary. As followers were expected to fall into line, leaders were expected to rule wisely and well.

• From Chapter 1:

A man who respects his parents and his elders would hardly be inclined to defy his superiors. A man who is not inclined to defy his superiors will never foment a rebellion.

• From Chapter 20:

What are the four evils? The Master said: “Terror, which rests on ignorance and murder. Tyranny, which demand results without proper warning. Extortion, which is conducted through contradictory orders. Bureaucracy which begrudges people their rightful entitlements.

As indicated in my post of August 21, I am delivering on this site a very short course on the classics of literature on leadership. (See the post for how I define “classic.”)

The course will draw on my edited volume, Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence (McGraw-Hill, 2010). Here I can provide only short bursts of texts. Perhaps they will prompt you to dig deeper.

We begin today at the beginning, with Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu.

Approximately 2,500 years ago he wrote – or reputedly wrote – the foundational text of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching. The text is mystical and philosophical, spiritual and psychological. It is moreover not easy to decipher, to understand. Still two things are evident. First, Lao Tzu’s interest in leaders – in how people do govern. Second, his interest in followers – in how people should be governed.  

Here two excerpts from two “chapters.” For our purpose “sage” should be read as “leader.”

• From Chapter Seven:

The sage stays behind; thus, he is ahead.

He is detached, thus at one with all.

Through selfless action he attains fulfillment.

• From Chapter Nine:

Better stop short than fill to the brim….

Amass a store of gold and jade, and no one can protect it.

Retire when the work is done. This is the way of heaven.

In the coming weeks and months, I will deliver – on this site – a short course. A short course on the classics of the literature on leadership. It will draw on my edited volume, Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence (McGraw-Hill, 2010).

To say that I love this book is not to be immodest. For what I love about it is the evidence it gives of great literature on a subject of great importance. Leadership. I annotate each entry – but the book is not mine. It belongs to the great writers – from before Confucius to after Carson – whose work constitutes it.

Each of the relevant posts will consist of the following. First, a few of my own remarks. Second, short quotes from the preeminent thinkers and writers who comprise the collection.  

Tomorrow I will begin at the beginning. With Lao Tzu (Laozi), the Chinese philosopher who, approximately 2,500 years ago, wrote the Tao Te Ching.

Today a few words about the criteria used to assemble the collection. Each entry had to be a classic of the leadership literature – which raises the question of how “classic” was defined. My criteria:

• Each entry had to be either about leadership or an act of leadership.
• Each entry had to have literary value.
• Each entry had to be seminal. It had to change forever what we thought and, or how we behaved.
• Each entry had to be universal – applicable not just to a single nation or even region but worldwide. Applicable not just to a single sector but to every sector.
• Each entry had to be timeless – enduring or, as it applied to recent entries, apparently enduring.    

Buckle up. You’re in for a great – if occasionally bumpy – ride!

 

President Donald Trump famously loves the trappings of royalty. The evidence is everywhere – from his now gilt and gold Oval Office to his unprecedented military parade to his plans for an extravagant, vaguely evocative of Versailles, White House ballroom.

No mystery there, Trump admits it. He boasts about it! Earlier this year, in response to, of all things, his administration’s attempt to stop New York City’s congestion pricing, he posted about himself, on Truth Social, of course, his own media platform, “LONG LIVE THE KING!” Nor did the White House rest there. It reinforced the message, recirculating it on Instagram and X, along with an illustration of Trump wearing, you guessed it, a crown.

The response to his half-jest, half-serious claim to being American King was No Kings Day. Held on June 14^th, it was organized by a loose coalition of anti-Trump followers, groups deeply alarmed by what they perceive as Trump’s proclivity to power. Power that is centralized. Power that is centralized and that can be exercised in ways reminiscent of royals. Of royals when being a royal was not just symbolic. When it meant being in control, preferably control that was complete.

No Kings Day turned out either the largest or among the largest single days of political protest in American history. Moreover, estimates made by the Crowd Counting Consortium indicate not just that turnout was huge – somewhere between 2 and 4.8 million people participated – but that it was widespread. Nationwide were some 2,250 different actions.   

Media tend to focus either on Trump or on Trump’s legions of servile followers. Sometimes they also cover instances of resistance – though only when they are dramatic. This week was widespread coverage of the admittedly remarkable display of anger directed against former Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik. She made an appearance in her own district only to be stopped from even delivering her remarks by angry crowd that booed and jeered her straight off the stage.

Less attention, much less attention, is paid to protests that are peaceable. Even when, as in the case of No Kings Day, turnout is huge. It’s true that in and of themselves demonstrations like these, no matter their size, do not create significant change. In fact, if No Kings Day had any impact whatsoever on the Trump administration, I did not detect it. But no leader should ever underestimate the power of followers. Especially not when they have a common cause about which they feel very, very strongly. I therefore predict first that resistance to Trump will continue to grow. And that, second, in tandem with even a moderately effective leader of the opposition, Republicans will soon be brought down. Brought down even in next year’s congressional elections – if, that is, they are reasonably free and fair. If.  

Imagine if you can, you’re Volodymyr Zelensky. Imagine that in early 2022 you were president of a large country, Ukraine, that suddenly suffered a major military attack by your much larger neighbor, Russia.

Imagine further that for the last three- and one-half years you’ve been trying with every fiber of your being and virtually every hour of every day to manage the impossibly difficult situation in which you and your country continue to find yourselves. Fighting a dirty war against very long odds, suffering significant death and destruction, and coping not just with your enemy but with your ostensible friends.

Include if you can in this miserable mess that you had just made a serious mistake – a bungled attempt to muzzle Ukraine’s anticorruption agencies – that cost you considerable support among your own people. And, finally, imagine that now you are on a global chessboard, straddling the line between being a pawn, moved around by others, and making a move on your own, like the royal you wish you were.  

If you were Volodymyr Zelensky what you would be above all is tired. Deeply, utterly, and completely exhausted. Sleep deprived, peace deprived, bone weary, completely drained. Still dancing on the head of a pin but ready at any moment to drop.  

If it’s any consolation, you would not be alone. While Zelensky’s situation is, obviously, singular, we know from the relevant research that leaders across the board are drained, feeling more stretched than they want to be or ideally should be. According to the executive coaching firm Vistage, “two-thirds of chief executives admit to feeling burnt out regularly, with nearly a quarter experiencing it more frequently or nearly every day.”   

For some years leaders in all sectors and situations have reported the demands on them are far greater than they used to be. In a recent report, McKinsey CEO Bob Sternfels writes that in response to “an ever-shifting array of problems and threats,” CEOs are now “on the job 24/7.” Similarly, leadership coach Christina Harvey reports that “burnout has become a common theme,” with leaders themselves talking about it more freely than they used to.

          The reasons for the changes – the increased demands on leaders and the increased pressures on them to perform to the max – are multiple and some are familiar. I would single out three: first, the rapidly changing, largely unfamiliar, and sometimes frightening technologies; second, the changing, coarsening culture and the changing, coarsening media landscape; and third, the types and numbers of stakeholders to whom they are now, like it or not, responsible.

          Again, this post is not to suggest that the demands on a leader like Zelensky can compare to the demands on other sorts of leaders such as chief executive officers. It is however to point out that most leaders are pressed in the present as they were not in the past. It is further to point out it’s a near miracle that Zelensky still walks and talks.