What is I-O?

A case in point, a recent book by Stanley Bing (2000) (a staff writer for Fortune magazine) titled What Would Machiavelli Do? The ends justify the meanness which highlights (in what I am hoping is a facetious manner) the benefits of getting ahead in the world by being meaner than the other guy or gal. According to the book jacket, it is a roadmap for people who want to get to the top and stay there. Its a way of life you can use at home as well as the office. A way of seeing other people from 50,000 feetas teeny-tiny ants you can squish. A simple, detailed plan for those with the courage to leave kindness and decency behind.

While I of all people can appreciate the use of humor (and sarcasm in particular) as a literary device to inform and educate others, the premise of this book is a bit disturbing. Mainly it bothers me because as conventional wisdom tells us humor, in order to be funny, must at least in part be based in fact. And, I can tell you from having read the book that it is extremely funny. Hence, extremely disturbing. Moreover, whats worse is that I found the book in the business section of my local Borders bookstore and not in the humor section! I dont know what this says about modern business ethics (a term that might at this point in time be an oxymoron) but it aint good! Further, this book is currently number 106 (in terms of sales) on Amazon.com under the category of leadershipoutselling many other credible sources of leadership wisdom such as Warren Bennis and James MacGregor Burns. Last but certainly not least, I find this book disturbing because it is simply one of the more recent entries into an increasingly popular genre of bookwhat I affectionately like to call the What a famous person/character never actually said about leadership book. For those of you who arent familiar with the genre, these books are penned by modern-day authors who ostensibly divine the dubious leadership acumen of either long-dead military leaders of questionable reputation or fictional characters in order to proffer it to the masses as pearls of wisdom.

In recent years we have been inundated with a litany of these books. For example, who among us has been fortunate enough to read classics such as Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun, or how about Make it so: leadership lessons from Star Trek, or in the self help/philosophy vein, The Tao of Pooh (thats Winnie the Pooh for those of you who were wondering) and The Te of Piglet. Personally, I have nothing against the Next Generation (even though my husband thinks that the original show is the only true Star Trek) and I am sure I could learn a lot from Captain Picard, but I think this is going a bit too far. Whats next, Leadership according to Joseph Stalin or Using the Vulcan mind meld to motivate employees? Isnt leadership the domain of people like Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., not Machiavelli, Attila the Hun, and imaginary captains of imaginary spaceships? Is our current leadership landscape so bleak that we must look to manipulative and toadying mid-level bureaucrats (in the case of Machiavelli) and fictional characters as bastions of good leadership? I truly hope not. Further, the leaders whose philosophy is being described wrote none of these books. These books are merely some authors interpretation/analysis of what he or she thinks someone else (either real or imagined) thinks about leadership. This is a bit too speculative for my taste and quite frankly more than a bit absurd, when you really think about it. 

What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men?

Anyway back to the Machiavelli book, I dont want to review it here, but I would like to share some of the nastier and funnier bits with you. Before I do however, I want to preface this by saying that: (a) I in no way, shape, or form endorse any of the concepts/approaches put forth in this book, and (b) I hope that none of you ever has the misfortune to work for a Machiavellian leader or become one yourself!

So, just to give you a flavor for the type of leadership that is being advocated in the book, let me share with you some of the more elucidating chapter headings which direct one on how to be successful by doing what Machiavelli would do:

• He would be, for the most part, a paranoid freak.
• He would fire his own mother, if necessary.
• He would be satisfied with nobody but himself.
• He would delegate all the crummy tasks, except the ones he enjoys.
• He would lie when necessary.
• He would respond poorly to criticism.
• He would be proud of his cruelty and see it as strength.
• He would permanently cripple those who disappoint him.
• He would torture people until they were only too happy to destroy themselves.
• He would feast on other peoples discord.
• He would make you fear for your life.
• He would screw with peoples weekends, wedding plans, or open-heart surgery.
• He would have no conscience to speak of.
• He would scream at people a lot.
• He would establish and maintain a psychotic level of control.

All in all, dear readers, this is a pretty miserable model of human behavior, let alone leadership behavior. Throughout the book, Bing peppers his anecdotes about Machiavellian leaders he has known and worked for with examples of leaders we all know, implying that they are Machiavellian as well. Some of the leaders with the dubious distinction of making Mr. Bings list are Martha Stewart, Ted Turner, and Hillary Clinton. Perhaps they are pleased with this dubious distinction, but I tend to doubt it. 

Early to Bed and Early to Rise Makes a Man
Healthy, Wealthy, and a Good Leader?

As fate would have it, I also (on the very same bookshelf in Borders) found a copy of a somewhat more enlightened and uplifting approach to leadershipnamely in a book called Ben Franklins 12 Rules of Management by Blaine McCormick (2000), an assistant professor of management at Baylor University. This book as you might imagine, has a different spin on leadership. Basically its a Yankees guide to leadership, full of tips on how to be self reliant, frugal, and conscientious as a leader. All in all, the sentiment expressed in the book, is better than expressed in the Machiavelli book, but its not exactly what Id call inspirational. In fact, its pretty darned tactical, and to my way of thinking, a better book for managers than leaders. Although Franklin certainly was a leader himself, I am not sure that the concepts expressed in the book (which are all extrapolations made by the author, not Franklins own words) would, if followed, produce a great or even very good leader. Just to give you an idea of the flavor of this book, I have listed below the 12 principles:

• Finish better than your beginnings.
• All education is self-education.
• Seek first to manage yourself, then to manage others.
• Influence is more important than victory.
• Work hard and watch your costs.
• Everybody wants to appear reasonable.
• Create your own set of values to guide your actions.
• Incentive is everything.
• Create solutions for seemingly impossible problems.
• Become a revolutionary for experimentation and change.
• Sometimes its better to do 1,001 small things right than only one large thing right.
• Deliberately cultivate your reputation and legacy.

On the plus side, the values expressed in the Franklin book are something to which we should all aspire. In particular, Franklin was quoted as saying how few there are who have the courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them. Truer words could not be spoken. Franklin was a strong believer in such important values as honesty, humility and self-awareness, and improvement. These values, while not sufficient to create a great leader, certainly go a great deal farther toward creating a decent human being than those espoused in the Machiavelli book.

Regarding my current dissatisfaction with the state of leadership today, maybe I am expecting too much. Maybe leadership of the inspirational variety is a myth or, in those rare instances where it does exist, an ephemeral and fleeting phenomenon that is short lived or borne largely out of current circumstances rather than extraordinary character. The legend of great leaders often seems to increase exponentially after they are gone; perhaps it is our desire to be led or to follow that creates these legends rather than the actual behavior of noteworthy individuals. Perhaps it is our need as humans to believe that some among us do in fact have higher standards of morality and behavior, and that these individuals are guided by noble ideals and will risk their own well being, comfort, and even their lives for the sake of something as intangible as a principle. Surely there have been examples of men and women like this throughout historyJesus, Ghandi, Joan of Arc. But to me, these days, they seem like a dim memoryan anachronism in our modern world. In a time where our own nations leadership has been in peril over inappropriate relationships with interns, and lately literally hung by a chad in Florida, this brand of individual seems to be nowhere in sight. Perhaps this is why we are looking to fictional starship captains for guidance and wisdom.

So, might I suggest that instead of asking the age-old question, Are great leaders born or made? we might want to consider a new one, Are great leaders born, made, imagined, or imaginary? Id love to stay and chat about this but I have to go. Im getting ready to start drafting my next book, Everything I Know About Leadership I Learned from Darth Vader.

As always, I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to contact me at my new address: PricewaterhouseCoopers, 300 Atlantic Street, Stamford, CT 06901, or by e-mail at j9151@aol.com.

References

Bing, S. (2000). What would Machiavelli do? The ends justify the meanness. HarperCollins: New York, NY.