The Concept of Leadership: Machiavelli’s “The Prince”

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Table of Contents

Introduction
A perfect example of a genuine leader
The character of King Richard II
The character of Bolingbroke
A new beloved ruler
Conclusion
Bibliography

Introduction

The concept of leadership has been discussed and interpreted in the works of world-famous writers thousands of times – the whole of humanity has been always interested in the issues of successful leadership and the ways to obtain these skills. The world history remembers dozens of examples of powerful rulers who remained in the minds and hearts of people as cruel or just, tough or merciful – the succeeding generations study them in their history courses; people consider knowledge about them a sign of intelligence and good education.

However, one should never forget that there are a thousand more leaders who failed to impose their will and use their power, were manipulated, conspired, and betrayed. These people are not remembered well as the peculiarity of human nature is to keep in mind only significant things having some impact on individual and social life.

In addition, people have been longing to obtain the secret recipe of power that is attractive for everyone – it is essential to be able to reach your goal in life to succeed. Not everyone has this quality, and there has been created no practical guidance to nurture these qualities. Nonetheless, there is much work already done in the sphere that may help both in practice and in theory to analyze the implications of power and ruling.

A perfect example of a genuine leader

One of the most famous books on the subject of what a genuine leader should be like is Machiavelli’s work “The Prince”. It is a powerful masterpiece of a grand thinker of the Renaissance on the subject of what qualities a leader should possess to be successful, to reign further, and to reach his/her goals. This is a rather provocative piece of writing as it justifies vanity, lies, betrayal, cruelty, and arrogance.

This work is often used in the interpretation of the contemporary leadership styles chosen by political leaders all over the world. As it has been noted in the work of Frederick Lewis Schuman (1933) titled “International Politics”, the main essence of Machiavelli’s idea is that “monarchies must be conquered by a superior force” – thus marking out the philosophy of war and tough instruction (36). However, it may also help conduct a literary analysis of another genius work – the one of William Shakespeare titled “Richard II”.

The character of King Richard II

The present work includes a narrative about two kings, Richard II and Bolingbroke, juxtaposing them and analyzing the peculiarities of their philosophy of power and its influence on their destinies. Richard II loses the war for the throne and is killed by Bolingbroke in the fight for power. It is also significant that Richard II, still being a king, had Bolingbroke in his power but did not use the chance, paying for this failure with his life later. Hence, it is necessary to correlate the actions of both kings from Shakespeare’s drama to the vision of a leader expressed by Machiavelli.

The first failure of Richard II was to exile Bolingbroke for such a short period, showing weakness and increasing the threat for his retaining the throne. He showed himself as a merciful leader but doomed himself to death this way (Shakespeare, 1595). According to Machiavelli’s viewpoint, it is important that the leader takes care of his power and destroying the rivals without mercy:

A prince must have no other objective, no other thought, nor take up any profession but that of war, its methods, and its discipline, for that is the only art expected of a ruler. And it is of such great value that it not only keeps hereditary princes in power but often raises men of lowly condition to that rank (Machiavelli, 1868:147).

Nevertheless, it is important to judge the reign of King Richard from the very beginning, looking more deeply at the way he conducted his state affairs and to what it consequently brought him. He was paying attention only to court affairs, despotically tortured his people with ever-increasing taxes to satisfy his growing ambitions, and spent the state money for his whims and personal pleasures (Shakespeare, 1595). Bolingbroke was more favored by the English people because of his being firmer and understanding the way power should be executed, in contrast to King Richard. The financial side of the conflict decided everything and initiated an invasion Henry Bolingbroke undertook to retain the power and to get back what Richard had stolen from him.

The character of Bolingbroke

Bolingbroke is a strong and non-hesitant leader who knows what he wants. He firmly conquers England at the time of Richard’s absence and becomes the new King. He is violent with his enemies, killing them to protect himself from any new threat, from any conspiracy, like a good ruler, according to Machiavelli, should have. He also imprisons Richard and then assassinates him in a cold-blooded way to ensure his safety at the throne. However, Henry takes care about his reputation as well, understanding that the King should be not only feared by his people but also loved:

A prince must be prudent enough to know how to escape the bad reputation of those vices that would lose the state for him and must protect himself from those that will not lose it for him if this is possible… carefully taking everything into account, he will discover that something which appears to be a virtue if pursued, will end in his destruction; while some other thing which seems to be a vice, if pursued, will result in his safety and his well-being (Machiavelli, 1868: 52-53).

Of course, the method Henry chooses to show his grief and to win the sympathy of the common public is hypocritical – his pilgrimage is nothing more but a trick, hypocrisy used to conceal the cold-blooded murder of the former monarch. Nevertheless, the choice is wise, as, according to Machiavelli, there is no black and no white for a leader – he should always act the way circumstances dictate him to do to preserve the power and love of the nation. He undertakes all actions that will lead to the increasing popularity of the new king, which is so important for him to build strong foundations for his future activities in the country:

Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse… since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved… Love endures by a bond which men, being scoundrels, may break whenever it serves their advantage to do so; but fear is supported by the dread of pain, which is ever-present (Machiavelli, 1868: 147).

This way, Machiavelli shows the importance of nurturing both feelings in the subordinate nation, as it is the indispensable condition for creating strong ties with the nation that will lead to his further successful reign. The King has to be firm and merciless to his enemies, but strict and just in terms of handling the affairs of his people. This is the key to the success of a leader who can use lies and hypocrisy, tyranny, and egoism, but only for the sake of his unified, homogeneous reputation that will do him a good favor. It is impossible to be only hated by the nation and at the same time to remain a successful governor.

A new beloved ruler

As in the case of Richard II, it was seen that the English people gladly and warmly welcomed a new ruler who came to change their lives and to administer justice, to protect the people from unbearable taxes and unexplainable cruelty of the young King with whims. The population of England did not produce any resistance to the intrusion, this way marking the failure of Richard even without a single battle. This was the secret of success of Henry which brought him to the throne – he learned this lesson and decided to treat his nation the same way further – there is a no larger and stronger force than the content or dissatisfaction of the people.

Many historical turning points proved that there is an extent of the nation’s indulgence, and people may raise and destroy the ruler even despite the feeling of subordination nurtured in them for centuries. Logically, there can be no ruler without his nation, but the nation can choose another ruler in case they are not satisfied with the current one, as it happened with King Richard. Bolingbroke fully coordinates his actions with the opinion of Machiavelli about the truly successful mode of treating the nation – he was a newcomer so he had to be extremely cautious with the population of his country:

it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things (Machiavelli, 1868: 41).

Conclusion

Of course, the concept of a leader as described by Machiavelli is not accepted by all critics as the only successful and profitable one – there is much criticism of the writer’s viewpoint because some thinkers argue it is doomed to failure and full of discrepancies. Such researchers as Louis Althusser, François Matheron, and Gregory Elliott consider the prince as depicted by Machiavelli to be deprived of individuality and to be omniscient:

No class membership disposes him to assume his historical task; no social tie binds him to this person whom he must unify into a nation (Althusser et al., 1999:26).

Despite this controversial vision of the figure of a ruler as depicted by Machiavelli it proves to be highly efficient in the analysis of leadership roles, as it has already been seen in the example of “Richard II” and gives much material for consideration and application for analyzing other political figures of the past and present as well as for creating a successful model of political power for future.

Bibliography

Althusser, L., Matheron, F., and Elliott, G. (1999). Machiavelli and Us. Versu.

Machiavelli, N. and Ferrari, C. (1868). The Prince. Plain Label Books.

Schuman, F.L. (1933). International Politics. McGraw-Hill.

Shakespeare, W. (1595). Richard II. Web.

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