Blog

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.

Leaders have power, authority, and influence. Or, at least, they have more power, authority, and, or influence than their followers. Vis-vis their leaders, followers are, then, at a disadvantage.

How significant is this disadvantage? Is whoever the leader impermeably strong? Are whoever the followers hopelessly weak? Or is the imbalance between leaders and followers within reason, in the natural order of things?  

If the imbalance is extreme, the first question is does anyone care? Do the followers care that their leader is so relatively strong and they are so relatively weak? If the answer to this first question is yes, there is a second one. How can followers take on leaders who are far, far, stronger than them?  

Even though President Donald Trump’s second term is still young, the question has already been asked as it applies to him, repeatedly. The answer has been elusive especially because some of Trump’s most prominent followers are not in any conventional sense of this word, weak. They have enormous resources which, however, they have been unwilling to tap into to stand up to the administration.

The roster of those who have been demonstrably weak is familiar. They include but are not limited to heads of law firms and universities; titans of business and media; and nearly every Republican who was elected and every Republican who was appointed. In each of these cases leaders have morphed into followers. They have kowtowed and caved, submitted and surrendered to an American president they seem to think all-powerful while they seem to feel, in comparison with him, powerless.

Similarly, Democrats have shown only faint signs of resistance. There are some exceptions, such as Governor Gavin Newsom, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  As well, there has been some civic resistance, for example, on June 14^th, on “No Kings Day.” Still, while the occasion consisted of impressively large anti-Trump protests across the country, to all appearances they proved ineffective. In fact, if they made so much as a chink in the president’s armor, it’s impossible for the naked eye to see.

Ironically, many of the president’s most strikingly servile followers are themselves leaders. Moreover, some are leaders of among the most powerful of American institutions. What are they thinking? That they will strike a deal with the president that he will honor, indefinitely? That by kissing the president’s ring they will protect themselves against his ire, permanently? That the president is so singularly, so stunningly gifted at the art of the deal they are helpless in comparison?

Every one of them ignores the most fundamental rule of power dynamics. That for the weak to take on the strong – with even a prayer of doing so successfully – the weak must unite. They cannot, simply cannot, stand alone.

I wish I could say this insight is uniquely mine. It is not. Not only does the evidence of history testify to the power of numbers it also confirms that when leaders divide their followers, they conquer them. It’s a mystery that, for example, the leaders of top law firms such as Paul, Weiss and Simpson Thatcher did not join hands to resist the Trump administration, any more than did the leaders of top universities such as Columbia and Brown; any more than did the leaders of top tech companies such as, just this week, Apple and Nvidia. So eager were they all to stand alone, not to cooperate or collaborate with each other, that they opted instead to cave. Individually to follow Trump – not collectively to resist him.

Huh?! Where’s the logic in that?! Nowhere.    

Sometimes I can’t resist temptation. In this case to return to the old debate about the importance in history – or lack thereof – of great men.*

A word about the words. “Great” does not here mean good. It means having an enormous impact. Changing the course of history.

“Men” does, though, does mean men. Why men? Because now as before leaders are, overwhelmingly, men. Not women. Overwhelmingly leaders are men in every country and culture, and in every sector. For all the progress that women have made in recent decades, equity at the top still eludes them, us. Likely, moreover, it always will.

That though is another conversation. Here I return to the point of this post. Which is to suggest that though we live in a time – the time of Trump – in which the debate seems if not dead, then on life support, we cannot resist it. It’s why Daniel Immerwahr raises it in a recent piece in The New Yorker.**

He reminds us that the most famous voice denying and decrying the importance of great men was Leo Tolstoy’s. Tolstoy argued that to “ascribe historical agency to figures like Napoleon was akin to seeing a herd of cattle and concluding that the cow in front must be in charge.” What Tolstoy believed instead was “that social forces, not men on horseback, decide the fate of nations.”  

Immelwahr writes, importantly, correctly, that academia is also hostile to the idea that leaders matter much if at all. “The scholarly tendency has been to devalue choice and chance as historic factors. War and revolutions might feel chaotic, but they happen for reasons rooted in economics, ideology, geography, and climate. The doings of generals, in this view, are froth on the waves.”

This in his review of a book just out, by Scott Anderson, titled King of Kings. The book is about the Iranian revolution (1979) in which three men were of overweening importance: the Iranian Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi; the Iranian cleric and revolutionary, Ruhollah Khomeini; and the president of the Unites States, Jimmy Carter. They more than anything or anyone else explain what happened and why.  

All this at a moment when the importance of great men seems indisputable. I admit to a bias. My interest in leadership is lifelong. Moreover, studying it, writing about it, teaching about it is what I do. But… I approach leadership systemically. I do not focus solely on leaders. I pay equal attention to followers and to the contexts within which leaders and the followers are situated.  

I am arguing therefore that the longstanding great man debate is artificial. Of course great men matter! The evidence that they do is overwhelming. This does not, though, mean that Tolstoy was wrong. He was not, he was right. Context matters. It matters every bit as much as do leaders – and followers.

Far more than any other single individual or single anything else, Vladimir Putin has recently dominated events in Europe. Far more than any other single individual or single anything else, Donald Trump has recently dominated events in the global West. What these men do when they meet tomorrow in Anchorage, how they act and interact, what they say and do not say, what they decide and do not decide will be enormously significant. This is not to say that no one and nothing else is. Rather it is to underscore that sometimes great men matter. A lot.   

————————————————————

*See, for example, this post.

“The Hero in History”*

** https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/08/11/king-of-kings-the-iranian-revolution-scott-anderson-book-review  

Turns out that notwithstanding the title of their widely praised 2007 neo-Western – “No Country for Old Men” – the filmmakers got it wrong.* There are lots of countries for old men! Lots of countries for men who are not just old but who have great power. Presidents and prime ministers who run the show without many or even any to challenge or second guess them.

This post was prompted by a piece in the Financial Times by Janan Ganesh titled, “The World is Run by Old Men in a Hurry.”* Ganesh’s point was that age, instead of serving as a deterrent, serves as an accelerant. Instead of leaders who are old being more careful and cautious, they are leaders in a hurry. He writes: “The problem with aged leaders is not their health…but their incentives. As well as not having much time to leave a mark, they won’t have decades of retirement in which to suffer the … penalties of any disastrous act committed in office.”

Ganesh points out that more than half of the world’s population and much of its land area and military might are in the hands of men who are older than Ronald Reagan when he first became president. (He was 69.) These men include China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, India’s Narendra Modi, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Turkey), Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and of course the American near-octogenarian, Donald Trump.  

I like that Ganesh turns the conventional wisdom on its head. Which is that instead of doddering, shuffling along, these leaders are determined, rushing to get things done. (Watch it, Taiwan!) But he does not take on the big question. Why is it that leaders like these, leaders who are old in an era when most of the world’s population is young – the global median age is under 31 – not only get into positions of power but stay in positions of power? (Putin and Erdogan have been glued to their seats for over two decades; Xi and Modi for over one.)     

To an extent the answer is systemic. Most leadership systems favor those familiar with them precisely because they have been around for years. But in a time defined above all by galloping advances in technology, it’s worth noting how we are led by leaders who might know many things, but technology is hardly ever among them. If in five- or ten-years we wake to a place near unrecognizable or even near uninhabitable, it will be because for most of the first half of the 21st century we have been led largely by men who have no conception of the capability of technology. The average age of a U.S. senator is 64. The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, is 40.

In many if not most autocracies followers have few options. Changing the leadership class in Russia or China, even in a less autocratic country such as Turkey, is heavy lifting. But what’s our excuse? How did it come to pass that America’s previous president was so frail he was finally forced to withdraw from running a second time? And how did it come to pass that the country’s present president is twice as old as his average constituent?

Again, in part the answer is systemic. But in part it is not. In part it is because in the United States public service is poorly rewarded. It is poorly rewarded professionally, politically, personally, and financially. Being a public servant – becoming a public sector leader – used to have several compensations. Now it has far fewer – and they are harder to come by. So young people are turned off while old people, old men, continue to rule our roost.  

——————————————————————

*The filmmakers are Joel and Ethan Cohen.

** https://www.ft.com/content/1d41a591-940d-4936-b79f-4c7857138903