If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place to control itself.
James Madison, #51 in The Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers were written and published in 1787 and 1788 by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Their purpose was to urge New Yorkers to ratify the proposed U.S. Constitution. They are considered one of the great political treatises of all time, men trying to wrestle theory into practice, trying to establish a government free from tyranny but nevertheless functional, able to “control the governed.”
If The Federalist Papers have a single line that defines them – that summarizes the fundamental assumption on which they are based – it is this one. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” For it lays bare in the starkest possible terms that Hamilton, Jay, and Madison did not think men angels, did not they could be trusted, did not think they could be counted on to be good leaders, or followers, without checks and balances and the rule of law to control them. Without checks and balances to minimize the likelihood that too much power would be in the hands of one man, or one branch of government. And without the law to threaten punishment lest the checks and balances fail.
This phrase alone – “if men were angels” – is the most powerful possible evidence that how we think about leadership and followership is, or it should be, dictated by how we think about the nature of man, of humankind. If we believe that humans are fundamentally good, this would suggest either that no government of any kind is necessary, or that government can be loose to the point of being largely laissez-faire. If, conversely, we believe that most people cannot be trusted, are not angels, this would suggest something else entirely. It would suggest that constraints and controls of some sort must be established lest the disarray end in despotism. In The Prince Machiavelli made plain he thought men by nature were “ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly and covetous.” No wonder he advised the prince it was better to be feared than loved!
If men and now women are not angels, leaders are not angels. Not leaders in government, nor leaders in business, nor leaders anywhere else. This is not to say that leaders necessarily are bad. Rather it is to say that we cannot count on them to be good.
This returns us to the question of what do we do with what we know. I raised it in an earlier post on bad leadership (January 31), in which I compared it to climate change. That is, we know it exists, we know that bad leadership, like climate change, is real. But we seem unable to do anything much about it. Which does not make the questions about bad leadership any the less urgent. Above all these two: If we cannot count on leaders to be good, how do we stop them from getting to the point of being bad? And, if they are already at the point of being bad, how do we stop them from getting worse?
I will return to these questions in a later post. Here I will simply say that task one is to come to grips with, to begin to understand, just what it is we’re talking about when we say, “bad leadership.” Setting aside the semantic arguments about words like “leader” and “leadership,” there are the differences in how “bad” is defined. In many cases you and I are likely to agree that a leader is bad; in many other cases you and I are likely to disagree. For “bad” is often in the eye of the beholder, vulnerable to be subjectively felt as opposed to being objectively right and good and true.
Whatever the complexities, in my first major work on this topic – a book published in 2004, titled Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters – I developed a typology that still works well. I divided bad leadership into seven different types, with which some readers of this post will already be familiar. They are:
- Incompetent Leadership – The leader and at least some followers lack the will or skill (or both) to sustain effective action. Regarding at least one important leadership challenge, they do not create positive change.
- Rigid Leadership – The leader and at least some followers are stiff and unyielding. Although they may be competent, they are unable or unwilling to adapt to new ideas, new information, or changing times.
- Intemperate Leadership – The leader lacks self-control and is aided and abetted by followers who are unwilling or unable effectively to intervene.
- Callous Leadership – The leader and at least some followers are uncaring or unkind. Ignored or discounted are the needs, wants, and wishes of most members of the group or organization, especially subordinates.
- Corrupt Leadership – The leader and at least some followers lie, cheat, and, or steal. To a degree that exceeds the norm, they put self-interest ahead of the public interest.
- Insular Leadership – The leader and at least some followers minimize or disregard the health and welfare of “the other” – that is, those outside the group or organization for which they are directly responsible.
- Evil Leadership – The leader and at least some followers commit atrocities. They use pain as an instrument of power. The harm done to men, women, and children is severe rather than slight. The harm can be physical, or psychological, or both.
These seven types of bad leadership are not of course etched in stone. Nevertheless, they are intuitively as well as empirically indicative. Indicative of the fact that leaders are not angels – which is precisely why the devil in them, in us, must be grist for our mill.