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Principles of effective leadership according to Niccolo Machiavelli

      

Principles of effective leadership according to Niccolo Machiavelli

  

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Faith
1. To gain cooperation from subordinates or peers, show how it will benefit the individual.
Most managers worry about how to motivate people. It can't be done.
2. Plug into and monitor the grapevine. It‘s the best way to establish an early warning system. It's imperative that you know how people think about organizational issues. Too many managers (though not the truly powerful) are disdainful of office gossip. "Petty stuff" or "personal trivia
Test your level of knowledge: Has anything happened in your organization in the past month that you learned about from your boss before you heard it in the grapevine? If so, there are gaps in your intelligence system. Fill them by identifying the entrenched power people, usually long- term support staff, and building alliances with them.
3. Always exhibit absolutely predictable behavior. If you asked workers at every level, everywhere, which boss (and/or co-worker) bothered them most, they would say, "The one that goes crazy over a missed deadline one month and does not respond that way next month. I can never figure out how he/she will react." Predictable responses allow subordinates to manage up, peers to mesh effectively and teach everyone how to manage you.
4. Give all the credit and take all the blame. The power position is always giving credit, never receiving it. People who solicit praise for their work either have ego deficits or no desire for power or both. The grapevine knows who did what. The need for adulation is an infallible sign of insecurity and undermines the troops' confidence in management.
Taking the blame means that people will hurt themselves scrambling to work with and for you. They will realize that a mistake that may have been as much an organizational as a personal
failure won't trash their careers. You, at least, don't believe that blood sacrifice must follow every disaster to placate the organization. Don't be surprised, as you shoulder the blame, when people rush to share a portion of the disaster. No one is allowed to hog the spotlight for more than 10 seconds, good or bad.
Without this attitude, getting people to take the risks needed to make changes or get the result would be difficult, even impossible. Why should anyone put herself on the line personally?
5. Anticipate needs before they go public. Here's another reason to listen to the grapevine: Every gripe you hear represents an unmet need and an opportunity to go one-on-one with someone and meet his/her needs in exchange for whatever you want done.
6. Keep your ego hermetically sealed in an old mayo jar. Effective people are (relatively) ego- free. Nobody can aggravate you unless you agree to be aggravated. No one can insult you without your willing participation. Remember, work is a role. You are not what you do for a living. The people you work with don't know you well enough to dislike you personally. That privilege is reserved for family and close friends. Disliking your plans for change or reorganization isn't the same as disliking you personally. By the way, why do you care whether you're liked? Isn't respected and followed the key?
7. Keep score from results only. The motto for the new millennium is "Get the result." Effort never counts and there is no such thing as a magnificent failure. All failures look pretty much the same. Process-oriented people, those determined to do things the "right" way, are rarely flexible or creative enough to dream up the solutions that will get the result.
Titany answered the question on October 26, 2021 at 06:04


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