Leadership By Deception
Management By Manipulation
by
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It is easier to identify leaders than it is to create them. It is somewhat similar to the phenomenon called the common cold. Almost everyone knows what a cold is, and drug store shelves are stacked with cures, yet the very existence of hundreds of cures is testimony that a true cure has not been found. So it is with leadership. Everyone recognizes it, but no one really knows how to produce it. Most programs designed to produce leaders –– military academies, college management programs, technical schools, leadership books and lectures, etc. –– are actually identification devices, which operate as an elimination process. However, over time there has emerged two major philosophies of leadership which are diametrically opposed and become the antipodes of this phenomenon called leadership. The one pole could be termed that of the proud prince, and the other that of the servant shepherd. Both have literary anchors, which have great influence in the Western World. The proud princes have as their literary anchor Niccolo Machiavelli’s little book, The Prince. At the other end of the spectrum is the concept of the leader who is the chief servant of all - even unto death. The root of this philosophy is found in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. These two types occur at all levels of human endeavor, but are the most dramatic and influential at the pinnacle of power - political/military leadership. The servant shepherd has its inspiration in the recorded life of Jesus of Nazareth, mainly in the Gospel according to John. The prescription for the shepherd as leader is compressed into a few verses in the 10th Chapter of John. The concept of the leader as servant is depicted by an occurrence recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. The version in the 20th Chapter of Matthew relates the request of an ambitious mother of a boon for her two disciple sons. She asked Jesus to grant that one of the two of her sons sit at his right and the other on his left in His Kingdom. When the other 10 of Jesus’ disciples heard of this, they became indignant. Thereupon, Jesus called them together and laid down a different approach for leadership. He pointed out that rules of the Gentiles lord it over their subjects and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with the disciples. Instead, whoever wants greatness must be a servant, even as Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve. This was, and is, a revolutionary idea.
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About the Book
The book presents the role of deception in leadership to gain control of people and the manipulation of people and events in order to gain and maintain a position of power. It treats with deception in leadership in history, politics, diplomacy, the military, religion, culture and philosophy. This is important because a free people collectively choose and set the standards for their leaders. It appears that, in the upward striving for a better life, deceptive leaders are like black holes disrupting the part of human progress. So, isn’t it about time to tell the truth about leadership and lies?
About the Author
The author is a retired Army officer, a veteran of three wars with command experience. Also, he served on the Army General Staff and was the Army Advisor to the President of the Naval War College. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations, is a Master of Library Science and attended Chinese Language School at Yale. He was the Executive Director of the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the co-founder and president of The Newport Institute chairing their 1992 seminar in Moscow with lead speakers Nobel Laureates Michael Gorbachev and the Dalai Lama. He writes and plays golf and a jazz cornet in Florida’s Space Coast.