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.