Machiavelli Leadership Lessons for Ethical Leaders

Who was Machiavelli, and why do leaders still read him?

Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469 and died in 1527. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy records that he entered public life in 1498 as Second Chancellor of the Florentine Republic and spent about fourteen years as a secretary and diplomat. When the Medici returned in 1512 he was dismissed, and early in 1513 he was imprisoned and tortured on suspicion of conspiracy.

Out of office, he wrote. The Prince was written at the end of 1513 and, as Britannica notes, circulated in manuscript before it was printed in 1532, five years after his death. The Discourses on Livy, his long commentary on the Roman historian, was written over the following years and printed in 1531. The first is a short book about how rulers gain and keep power; the second is a long book about republics.

Leaders still read him because he refused to describe organisations as they ought to be. In W. K. Marriott's 1908 translation, he writes that "it appears to me more appropriate to follow up the real truth of the matter than the imagination of it." That is useful for any leader who has been surprised by a decision made in a room they were not in.

What does 'Machiavellian' mean, and is it fair?

Britannica observes that Machiavelli's claim that politics has its own rules so shocked readers that his name became a synonym for cunning, duplicity and bad faith. Psychologists use 'Machiavellianism' for a personality trait marked by cynicism and manipulation.

Whether that is fair to Machiavelli is debated. Some read him as a realist describing power without illusions. Some read The Prince as a warning: the Stanford Encyclopedia notes that Rousseau saw its real lesson as teaching ordinary people how princes behave. Others stress the Discourses, which praise free peoples and the rule of law, as the truest statement of his commitments.

For ethical leaders, the useful position is to take his clear sight and refuse his worst advice. He supplies the line himself: writing of a ruler who rose by murder, he says that "such methods may gain empire, but not glory." Power gained by bad faith is still power. It is not leadership.

What is power literacy?

Power literacy is the ability to read how influence really works so that you can use legitimate influence, protect your people and resist manipulation. It is the opposite of office politics as a game. A power-literate leader knows who shapes decisions formally and informally, what each person wants, and which honest levers are available.

A simple test keeps it ethical. For every lever you might use with a colleague, ask: if they read my notes, would they feel respected or used? If used, drop it.

What does Machiavelli say about preparing for crises?

Chapter XXV of The Prince is his most practical lesson. He gives luck a large share, but not all: "Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less." Then he compares fortune to a raging river in flood, and argues that "it does not follow therefore that men, when the weather becomes fair, shall not make provision, both with defences and barriers, in such a manner that, rising again, the waters may pass away by canal, and their force be neither so unrestrained nor so dangerous."

Marriott's words are 'defences and barriers'; the popular 'dykes and embankments' comes from other translations. Either way the idea is a modern risk register in one image. List the rivers that could flood your team (a key person leaving, a single supplier, a system outage, a regulator's question, an AI tool changing its terms), score likelihood and impact, write one defence for each with an owner and a date, and test one defence a month with a short drill.

Chapter III adds the early-warning rule every manager recognises: at the start, a problem is easy to cure and hard to detect; later it is easy to detect and hard to cure. Act on the first signal.

How should leaders handle flattery and advice?

Chapter XXIII is a short manual on counsel. Machiavelli writes that "there is no other way of guarding oneself from flatterers except letting men understand that to tell you the truth does not offend you". His remedy is a chosen circle: wise people given the liberty to tell the leader the truth, questioned on everything, after which the leader forms their own conclusions.

In a modern team, that means choosing four to six advisers who see what you do not (someone junior, someone from the front line, someone outside your function and at least one critic), telling them in words that honesty will never count against them, asking before you decide, speaking last in meetings, and thanking the person who brought bad news. One caution: his advice that advisers speak only when asked must never apply to safety, harassment or fraud, which are raised at once.

What does the fox and the lion mean for leaders today?

In Chapter XVIII Machiavelli tells rulers to imitate two animals: the lion cannot defend itself against snares and the fox cannot defend itself against wolves, so "it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares" and a lion to frighten the wolves. He goes on to recommend breaking faith and pretending. Ethical leaders should reject that advice, and use the passage as an anatomy of manipulation.

Fox signals are forms of deception: a claimed agreement that never happened, urgency without a reason, flattery just before a request, facts that shift, information shared selectively, an offer that looks too good. Lion signals are forms of intimidation: raised voices, veiled threats, punishing the messenger, isolating someone, pressure to decide on the spot.

When you notice them, slow down, move the claim into writing the same day, bring a trusted colleague to the next conversation, protect the person targeted, and escalate misconduct to HR or the speak-up channel. And run the check on yourself: under deadline pressure, any of us can roar. The AssessAll Social Engineering & Phishing Defence Judgment assessment is one way to test how well you spot pressure and deception tactics.

Is it better to be loved or feared?

This is the most quoted question in The Prince, and the bare maxim usually repeated is not what the text says. Marriott's Chapter XVII says one should wish to be both, and that fear is much safer only when one of the two must be given up. The next paragraph adds the limit most people forget. Even while recommending fear, he writes that "a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred". Ethical leaders keep the limit and drop the fear.

At work, fear produces silence, hidden mistakes and resignations, so neither fear nor love is the goal. Trust is: consistent standards applied to everyone, a fair share of the load, action on what matters, no threats or humiliation and no sudden swings from soft to harsh. The Discourses go further than The Prince here, arguing that "a humane and kindly action may sometimes touch men’s minds more nearly than a harsh and cruel one".

What do the Discourses add for leaders of organisations?

The Discourses show a Machiavelli concerned with institutions that outlast any leader. In Ninian Hill Thomson's 1883 translation he argues that a free state needs the power to accuse, because grievances need a lawful outlet: "unless an outlet be duly provided for these by the laws, they flow into irregular channels and overwhelm the State." He separates that from calumny, the rumour that spreads in streets and market places.

He also gives the idea of renewal its classic form: "For a Sect or Commonwealth to last long, it must often be brought back to its Beginnings." For a team or company, that becomes a monthly review: write the first principles, score how well you live each, find where excellence has worn away, choose one renewal and name a guardian besides the leader.

The phrase 'the end justifies the means' is not in The Prince in those words. A related argument appears in Discourses I.9 about the founder of Rome, and ethical leaders should reject it: bad means corrupt both the people who use them and the people who watch.

How can you start practising power literacy this week?

Start small. Each morning, ask which defence you are building today while things are calm, and write one line. When something feels off, take thirty seconds to ask whether someone is deceiving or intimidating, including you. Each evening, write the name of the person who told you the truth and thank them before Friday.

On Friday, spend twenty minutes on a power map of the ten to fifteen people whose decisions affect your team: formal and informal influence, what each wants and one legitimate lever, passing the respected-or-used test. Once a month, run a renewal review against your team's first principles. To turn the practice into goals with review dates, you can build your own development plan on Jobulary.

If you want the whole system ready to use, Bodhih Training's Machiavelli for Ethical Leaders: Power Literacy kit includes the e-book, the Power Map and Defences Register, a practice workbook, fillable forms, a 52-card deck and a 12-week programme calendar.