Make Others Respect You | The Philosophy of Niccolo Machiavelli

According to Machiavelli, if you wanna lead effectively and live in glory, you need to follow three principles:

Number one: the people must respect you. This means they fear you but don’t hate you.

Number two: fear means fear of punishment. You must be willing to be firm and quick in your punishments when someone violates your rules. If you over-reward and under-punish people, they will not fear you.

Number three: keep hatred at an arm’s length—because tyranny has a small shelf life and history has proven that time and time again. People hate you when they are over-punished or under-rewarded by your actions as a leader.

Now let’s take a look at these principles in action. Imagine you’re sitting at your desk, working on reports. It’s a day like any other. Today your boss Steve comes by and asks, ‘Hey Joe, I need you to work on some extra reports. I know this’ll take up your weekend, but it’s really important.’

You sit and think for a moment. If I agree, I can climb up the corporate ladder faster. If the company succeeds, I succeed. So of course, you agree. “Sure Steve, anything for you.”

‘Thanks Joe, you’re really a good sport. I can’t get Nancy to ever go the extra mile! Plus, my boss is on my case ever since we missed our Q2 numbers.’

As you buckle up for another weekend of work you look over at Nancy’s desk. She’s packing up earlier than usual, and she’s passed half of her workload onto you. How has she not been fired, you think. It wasn’t always like this. Under Don, your last boss, she was always on time and completed her work ahead of schedule.

And you rarely had to stay overtime on the weekends, and if you did, Don always made sure to give you time off later. But with Steve, it’s almost expected that you’ll just pick up Nancy’s slack, with no future rewards.

You start to regret your decision. You realize that you do more work than Nancy, but you’re compensated equally. This makes you resent Steve. So eventually, you start to neglect your work and pass it on to someone else too. And this creates a downward spiral where, eventually, under Steve’s weak leadership, the company starts to fail.

So why is the company less effective under Steve than Don? Under Don – a Machiavellian leader – no one acted out of order. Don rewarded and punished in proper measures. Under Don, Nancy couldn’t slack off. He would either fire her or reprimand her immediately. A strict punishment, a thorough tongue lashing – whatever it may be, she feared him.

And if Joe ever had to work overtime, Don always rewarded him with time off later on. So Joe never hated him. Don was respected. He was feared but not hated.

Steve is the opposite. He does not reward or punish in right measure. He over-rewards and under-punishes Nancy, and as a result, she doesn’t fear disobeying him. He over-punishes and under-rewards Joe, so Joe ends up hating him. Steve was not respected by Joe or Nancy.

So a great leader keeps his people united and leads them to success. The people support him when they respect him, and they respect him when they fear him but do not hate him. If he under-punishes and over-rewards them, they will not fear him. And if he over-punishes and under-rewards them, they will hate him.

A great leader rewards and punishes in right measure. But what are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with Machiavelli’s view on leadership? Let me know in the comments.