leaders and machiavelli's advice

Niccol Machiavelli, a Renaissance scholar, was born in May 1469 in Florence, modern-day Italy, and lived to the age of 58. Machiavelli was an important man whose works are known as cornerstones of modern political science. He was a diplomat and politician, as well as a philosopher and poet. Over his lifetime, Machiavelli studied people's lives and took it upon himself to advise politicians about how they could govern their subjects and how those leaders should live their lives while continuing to rule over their constituents. His two notable works, The Prince and the Art of War which addresses the issues of ambition in leadership, power in politics, and virtues associated with political leadership, were and have remained, both controversial and influential to many leaders. Machiavellianism, a thought inspired by the Italian philosopher and political scientist, is today linked to the belief (mostly by politicians) that the end justifies the means. In this essay, with the foregoing assumption that I am Machiavelli himself, I seek to offer five recommendations to present day rulers, with each recommendation explained in detail.

Political Leadership should be guided by Expediency & Selfish Ambition

As per the teachings of Machiavelli, politics and leadership should always be guided by the principle of expediency. In essence, all means should be used (whether foul or fair) to help any given leader achieve their desired objectives and goals. It is not wrong for the leader to make use his own fatherland to help serve his own ambitions and to achieve aggrandizement as a result. To Machiavelli, leaders should use whatever means that is available to them and is at their disposal, including deceit and even manipulation of others to help him achieve his own ambitions. In his book, The Prince, Machiavelli advises individual leaders to avoid such virtues as justice and mercy and to further desist from showing love and temperance in the dealings with their subjects but rather to focus on the expedient achievement of political and leadership ambitions. Such virtues could derail the expediency that needs to be applied in the pursuit of such leadership ambitions. In the teachings of the Italian political scientist, there was no standard of human life higher than ambition, and as such political ambition and leadership should be expedited above all other concerns of human life, as it trumps them, and such expediency should be sought through whatever available means including innovation and risk taking. Generally therefore, Machiavellianism calls for leaders to be self-centered in their dealing with others; considering such a trait as moral, at least by the influence of Aristotelian view of morality as Sendjaya, Pekerti, Härtel, Hirst & Butarbutar (2016) posit. To Machiavelli, ambition which includes among other things, the desire to be better, do more for oneself (in terms of leadership) and pursue one’s own glory (through leadership), is part of the natural values and virtues and should form part of the qualities that each ruler or leader possesses. Overall, Machiavelli seems to advise that ambition and the desire to achieve higher should come above all else for a ruler.

Misery is Essential to Leadership

Machiavelli, in his teachings tended to front the view that for a prince to rule over his subjects, and effectively so, such subjects need to live in misery. In advancing such a position, he noted that misery amongst the subjects brings about fear, which in his supposition was an integral requirement for one to rule over others. Though he claimed that it would be best for a ruler to be both feared and loved, his main emphasis lay in the fear of subjects for their ruler, pointing out as Suchowlansky (2017) notes that any ruler, pushed to choose whether to be loved or feared, would almost always choose to be feared by his own subjects. In this manner, therefore, Machiavellianism calls for rulers and leaders to enhance the misery of their subjects if such action is likely to result in a fear for the ruler and therefore lend power to his rule. Leaders should ensure that their followers revere them and hold them in high regard, even if such an end is achieved by instilling fear amongst the populace through the means of violence and any other method that confers misery. In furtherance of the ruthless narrative, Machiavelli dispels of Christianity as offering a refuge for the miserable and posing a threat to legitimate authority of leaders; noting that Christianity (which in his view was a sect) served to make men weaker and more inactive while delivering politics and leadership into the hands of those who have not fought for it. To further the need to impart misery among a ruler’s subjects, Machiavellianism notes that morality must be rid of if the security of leadership is at stake and as such elimination of the values advanced by morality need be dispensed.

The End Justifies the Means

In the beliefs of Niccolò Machiavelli, leaders should not be preoccupied with the means through which they get to obtain or consolidate their powers. For a leader (especially in politics), as Sendjaya, Pekerti, Härtel, Hirst & Butarbutar (2016) seem to allude, Machiavelli advises that the end should be used to justify the means rather than letting the means go towards justifying the end. By the teachings of Machiavelli, therefore the goals that leaders have should fuel the acts and omissions of the leader in the pursuit of power and leadership. Where necessary, the teachings of Machiavelli advice of leaders, a rule should be willing and able to use cruelty, deception and even invoke fear in others if such actions will help him fulfill his leadership ambitions or objectives. Such actions would be justified if they help the individual (being a leader or aspiring leader) achieve the desired end, of power and leadership. In many of his works, and as part of his principles, Machiavelli holds the view that rulers need to adopt, where necessary, policies (however undesirable for the population) that would help perpetuate their leadership. Going by these assertions of Machiavelli, power and leadership should be driven by ambition even if such ambition calls for the use of all means necessary including war, which is an inevitability among humans. To further the narrative of placing the end over and above the means, Machiavelli notes that a ruler should (where necessary) take advantage of, and manipulate both subjects and accomplices if such actions help further his leadership ambitions.

Religion is not necessary

Religion, Machiavelli seems to suggest in his writings and later works, is not necessary for the rulers. To him religion is a product of mankind and as such it does not really provide much for human life if it makes no real contribution to the social order. In essence, religion should be secondary to other factors that lead to social order and in instances where religion undermines such, it should be disallowed. For him, politics was but a means through which some individuals (mainly the clergy) sought to exert their power over believers. In essence, to Machiavelli, religion posed a real threat to political leadership as it diluted the misery of individuals which is a pre-requisite for ruling them, an issue that Foca-Rodi (2013) seems to reiterate. Many of the teachings of Christianity have also been disputed by Machiavelli; noting that virtues which the teachings of Christianity consider as good deeds do not necessarily lead to happiness. To him virtues are relative (and should help one achieve their goals) and those practices and attributes that Christianity may deem as vices (such as pride) are actually necessary for ambition and the pursuit and eventual achievement of one’s goals and objectives; such achievement then should determine whether the attributes that led to it were vices or virtues. Summarily, Machiavelli, alludes to the fact that religion (especially Christianity) and the moral values it seeks to promote, to the extent that they divert from ambition, should have little or no effect on the decisions made by rulers.



Good Leaders Should Strive for Balance

Despite all the calls for self-centered leadership and behavior, Machiavelli, in realizing the limits to the powers that one leader could have, called for the conscious pursuit of balance of the varied interest in any community. In practice, what Machiavelli calls for in advocating for balance is the doctrine of sharing power in order to balance the interests of the different components in any given society. Through such balance and division of powers, checks and balances can be created, an idea that Machiavelli presents in its most extreme form (Belschak, Den Hartog, & Kalshoven, 2015). Still on calling for balance, Machiavelli makes a case for the promotion of capitalism which in his view would be the promotion of public virtue using private vices. In his opinion, and in tandem with his own call for ruthless ambition in leadership, Machiavelli notes that capitalism provides for the public and hence offers virtue while at the same time promoting the interests of the ruler (capitalist) and is therefore cognizant of the balance of public virtue with private vices. It seems that such balance, as advocated by Machiavelli, is important to maintain order in society; the division of power by creating a system of checks and balances helps maintain order in society just as does the creation of public virtues from private vices.

Conclusion

Philosopher and founder of political science, Niccolò Machiavelli, held several views on leadership and the conduct of leaders in the exercise of (and search for) their power. To him, the means that are used to seek or advance a ruler’s power should be subordinate to the actual achievement or advancement of such power. Machiavelli advises leaders to be expedient and be guided by selfish ambition, and to not be guided by religion which in his opinion is not necessary. Further, the fifteenth century philosopher and political science advise that misery is essential to leadership but goes ahead to note that good leaders should strive for balance across several spheres of their lives and that of their subjects.











































References

Belschak, F. D., Den Hartog, D. N., & Kalshoven, K. (2015). Leading Machiavellians: How to Translate Machiavellians’ Selfishness into Pro-organizational Behavior. Journal of Management, 41(7), 1934-1956.

Foca-Rodi, G. (2013). Niccolò Machiavelli. International Journal of Communication Research, 3(2), 134.

Sendjaya, S., Pekerti, A., Härtel, C., Hirst, G., & Butarbutar, I. (2016). Are Authentic Leaders always Moral? The Role of Machiavellianism in the Relationship between Authentic Leadership and Morality. Journal of Business Ethics, 133(1), 125-139

Suchowlansky, M. (2017). Machiavelli’s Legacy: The Prince after 500 Years. Contemporary Political Theory, 16(2), 286-289.