Gather Multiple Perspectives

Gather Multiple Perspectives

Reading 2A

MONOLOGUE 1: THE MANIPULATOR

I’ve read plenty about the servant leader and the transforming leader and all the others of the sentimental stripe, and I wish them well. They make my personal advancement easier, for no one is more easily manipulated than the caring, nurturing, infinitely patient altruist, the manager nursemaid. So ambitious are such leaders for their followers, their ambitions for themselves have almost evaporated. Taking all the blame, passing on all the credit, they render themselves nonentities overlooked in every round of promotions.

Maybe in every breast there does lie some germ of talent awaiting the day when the saintly manager shoos away the doubts and fears that smother ability. If true, so what? Pearls before swine, I say. Servant leader? A more perverse notion is hard to imagine. My ambitions stretch far beyond those of my paltry team of followers. Strength lies in making your own way, even if you have to ride the backs of others.

Power is the flame that attracts the bravest and the best. Gain power, and all the other human needs—pride of achievement, human affiliations, respect—fall your way. And let’s be honest here. Without power, there can be no authority; without authority, there can be no discipline; without discipline, there can be no order; without order, there can be no production. No right-thinking leader has illusions about power.

How does one acquire power in an organization? There are many ways: insider knowledge, monopoly of resources, friends in the right places. . . . In short, by any legal means at your disposal. If you have any qualms about the means justifying the ends, get over them. Ends have been justifying means throughout human history. And besides, whose ends are we talking about? Yours, and mine, and those of any leader who is bold enough to act decisively. The real crime here is the failure to act when the advantage is yours, to let others earn the glory. Seize the day! In time leaders are judged by their achievements; their means slip into oblivion.

This is not to suggest that you should break the rules to meet your ends. Indeed, the trick is to use the rules for your own purposes.

The leader should always act on knowledge. When I say knowledge, I’m not talking just about the knowledge to do the work. That is a given. I’m talking about the knowledge of the human heart. Take me, for instance. I venture to say that I have a talent for collecting morsels of intimate information about my peers and managers. Can I help it if my disgruntled colleagues single me out to confess their insecurities and vulnerabilities, their peeves and crochets, their petty jealousies?

Over many a Bloody Mary I have soothed their wounded pride with a bit of flattery here, a sympathetic tear there. Sometimes I do them small favors, like putting in a good word in their behalf on some innocuous occasion or defending them against the rumor mill. They are always so grateful. Yet, they know nothing about my true agenda nor about my predilection for power and control. One can never prepare too discreetly.

Today, I have at my disposal innumerable friends who owe me small obligations and who, taken together, amount to a powerful network of allegiances. How blithely they come to my support at strategic turns. Managers and peers alike have learned they can trust me through and through. Oh, the irony of it! But as a result, they have heaped upon me more authority than I need to perform my job.

Power loves to rub shoulders with even greater power. I tirelessly search the organization chart for individuals with the most power—real power, not just fancy job titles. I single out those who are nearly blind with self-importance, for they are the ones who often think they are above the rules. Then, carefully, always indirectly, I ally myself in their intrigues. I make myself useful by gathering evidence of the iniquities of their—or, rather, our—enemies. We plot, we scheme. There is no band of brothers and sisters like those who conspire together. And thus we bond—emotionally, intellectually, politically—I and those who have the power to elevate my position in the organization.

Power, as you know, is never far from the purse. As I rise in the organization, my path has never strayed far from offices controlling the budget, I’m peculiarly pleased to find that, today, after serpentine maneuvers I won’t go into here, I am in charge of all project allocations. How satisfying, how affirming it is see my former superiors cozening up to me—me, of all people—for approval of their project budgets.

Do you object to my methods? Then you must somehow explain my success.

Yet, it is true that I am not content. I cannot be, for there are schemers in my organization who would have my job. Yes, there are others like me, and to keep them in their place, I judiciously dispense awards and discipline. Whether I increase or decrease salaries, promote and demote, approve or disapprove budget requests, I have only one aim: to secure my position from the wolves.

I am so very vigilant. Any manager on my staff who dares to question my decisions I dismiss forthwith. Such persons are frustrating, unpredictable, and dangerous. I replace them with competent, but submissive, employees whose ambitions go no farther than a decent take-home pay. Give me good little soldiers to carry out my plans.

Do I seem cocksure of myself? Of course I do. That peacock strut of mine and that know-it-all smirk is part of the design. Why should my subordinates—much less my enemies—ever suspect less of me than that I am the master of the situation? I’ll admit, occasionally, in a private moment, I may entertain a shadow of a doubt of my own infallibility. Before the gallery, however, I maintain an impeccable façade of self-confidence, or arrogance, if you insist.

They expect it of me, the leader, the master. They never see me struggling with quotidian details and alternatives. Always they see a leader driven by the loftiest of motives. I am the visionary, one who alone must wrestle with large organizational issues beyond the ken of ordinary humans. The ways of a great leader must always remain mysterious.

Questions to Ponder

1. What single element of leadership motivates the Manipulator?

2. How would you like to work in an organization headed by the Manipulator? Why or why not?

3. How would you like to have a person like the Manipulator working under you? Why or why not?

4. In what ways does the Manipulator support or defy your ideas of ethical leadership?

5. Do you think managers and leaders like the Manipulator are common or rare? What makes you think so?

6. The Manipulator holds with the principle that the end justifies the means. Do you find that principle ethical, unethical, or irrelevant to ethics?

7. What is the most positive thing you can say about the Manipulator’s brand of leadership? What is the most negative?

Sources

That source, in turn, drew heavily from the following:

McMurry, R. “Power and the Ambitious Executive,” Harvard Business Review, Nov.–Dec., 1973.

and, of course,

Machiavelli, N. The Prince. New York: The New American Library, 1980.