An Ideal Leader - the Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli - Book Report/Review Example

An Ideal Leader - the Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli The prince describes an ideal leader according to Machiavelli who is perfect and competent in all the ways. The types of politics he have mentioned in his book came as a shock to readers, some believe that his writings were influenced by the time he lived in which was full of political conflict and instability. The book starts by describing different types of states, republics and principalities. He further exaggerates the concept of principalities by framing it with “new”. The new principalities in a leader which are not a result of heritance. He explains it using the example of sultan and rajas where the leadership was passed from father to son different from the new concept. Further he explains how he views these different principalities and how it should be ruled, what challenges and hurdles a ruler face. He explains that a new prince actually needs to define his role to the public with hard work and efforts however in case of hereditary price it is easier for them to establish because people accept them as legacy rulers. Next he explains how more land can be obtained for principality; “ to desire to acquire is truly something natural and ordinary and always, when men do it who can, they will be lauded, or not blamed; but when they cannot, and want to do it anyway, here is the error and the blame.”1 (Machiavelli, Machiavelli, THE PRINCE, translated by Donno, Daniel, Bantam Books, New York, 13, 1996.) He discusses basic 4 ways to acquire land: 1. your own arm and virtues, 2.fortune, 3.other’s arms and 4.inequality. He further continues to explain the strengths and weaknesses of other principalities and the ecclastical principalities of the Pope and churches. Machiavelli protest against the mercenaries saying:".if one holds his state on the basis of mercenary arms, he will never be firm or secure; because they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, unfaithful; gallant among friends, vile among enemies; no fear of God, no faith with men; and one defers ruin insofar as one defers the attack; and in peace you are despoiled by them, in war by the enemy.”2In next chapter he deals with money, to be generous in spending money ruler needs to tax his people heavily. He writes that it is better to be feared but not hated to control people. He has said:"...a prince must not care about the infamy of cruelty in order to keep his subjects united and faithful; because with very few examples he will be more merciful than those who, because of too much mercy, allow disorders to go on, from which spring killings or depredations: because these normally offend a whole collectivity, while those executions which come from the prince offend an individual.”3He takes support from Borgia to proof his point saying: “Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; nonetheless, that cruelty of his had fixed up Romagna, united it, and reduced it to peace and reliability. Which, if were to be well considered, would be seen to have been much more merciful than the Florentine people, which, in order to escape the name of cruel, let Pistoia be destroyed.”4 He recommends the prince to make his image such that people fear him but not hate him saying: "...he keeps himself from his citizens' and his subjects' possessions, and from their women: and even when he might have need to proceed against someone's blood, he should do it when there might be convenient justification and manifest cause; but, above all, [he should] abstain from other people's things; because men sooner forget the death of the father than they do the loss of patrimony”. According to him cruelty when used well is justified because it is for benefiting people eventually.5 He also recommends the prince to stay protected from flattery because he never knows when the tables may turn towards him, there is very few trust worthy people not all. Prince should be keen in selecting his sources. It is important to know whom to trust and whom not to. It is important for the price to gain good reputation in the eye of his people to gain their trust. Prince is a practical guide with examples of rulers to make the reader comprehend the qualities a good leader should posses and how he can use them in new principalities. In his book he defines how a manager should control over his people, what strengths and weaknesses them posses and how they can use or undermine them to overcome challenges during their period of control. Management today is defined as the work individuals or teams to in an organization to accomplish goals and their objectives. Henri believes that management plays a critical role in government undertakings of all religious industrial large small organizations. (D. Ravindra Prasad) It basically comprise of five basic elements that are: 1. Planning: that is to lay out in advance the work to be done, a draft of what one wishes to do. Fayol believes that experience is the key asset to frame a realistic plan. It is important to have an outline before starting a project because it gives a brief to an individual or a team what they are suppose to work on and how. Like in Prince Machiavelli explains that a leader should plan out his way into the zone.he says: “He who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building.” It is important to have a background knowledge of one is about to attempt to make things work in correct direction. He tries to explain it here by saying that the foundation should be laid before though it could be done later too but then it will be in haste which may cause danger to building that has been constructed. The main duty of the architecture when designing a building is to provide an outline and if he doesn’t do so the building may get build but with weak pillars as in haste one might miss on something. Therefore planning is the initial key element for management. It gives the basic idea of what the team or an individual needs to do, how and what will be his requirements. 2. Organize: to give the sequence the work needs to be done. To arrange the resources and assets required to begin the work. On should have the required assets in order to begin the work to manage it on time. In Machiavelli’s terms “Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed. He says by referring to the prophets at the time of war that who were armed and equipped came out victorious and the ones unequipped were lost. According to him one should be able to make the most of the resources available to him at the right time with the right mind. For any leader or manager it is important that he allocates the available resources in an efficient way to make the work done. By organize it isn’t the resources he indicates to but also the team, a prince should always know the strengths and weaknesses of his army and should use his cards accordingly to win the game. The leader should know how to organize his team in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. 3. Coordinate: that is to lay the sequence, time and people to do the work. It is to keep the things moving simultaneously. As discussed in Prince by Machiavelli it is important to have a trustworthy and determined team with the ruler whom he can trust with the confidential. For instance in Prince as the author says: “A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.” It explains that the person in charge should be an influential personality which has the power to make people work his way by his actions. His team would deliberately follow him believing in him who is beneficial for both the prince and the people following him. It is important to have people working as one in a team. At another point in the book he says that a prince should trust only few reliable sources because it’s easy to create a misunderstanding or cause a conflict if someone tries to create one. It is important the team members have faith in their leader and the leader should make sure that they all move in one direction for accomplishment of their goals. 4. Control: to monitor and control deviations or errors from the desired results. Here the problems and mistakes are to be identified and rectified for gaining accurate results. It is important to enroll these five elements to have an efficient management in any organization be it on any level. Machiavelli says: “He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.” According to him to get obeyed one first posse the influence to be obeyed by people. A prince gets an automatic authority of getting obeyed however Machiavelli says that it is not only matter of gaining the power, one need to earn it. It is important to know how to command over people such that they fear you and obey you. As he says: “It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.” According to him it is better if his team fear him instead of loving him because this is more efficient way of extracting the desired results and performances out of them. One should know how to keep the command over his people to keep everything managed. However Machiavelli had provided the rule of management 500 years before in his historical book, The Prince. It stores examples of the qualities a successful leader should have to be a good manager and have efficient results. It gives example from a politically conflicted environment and mismanagement. It directs the leaders of today to see how they can manage and adapt to changes for betterment with a certain attitude towards his people to accomplish all the goals and objectives. Bibliography D. Ravindra Prasad, V.S. Prasad & P. Sathyanarayana. Administrative Thinkers. New Dehli: Sterling Publishers, 2008. i Machiavelli, Niccolò, Ed. Angelo M. Codevilla. The Prince, 1997 Yale University Press (used for footnotes) Read More