A Tale of Two Princes
Both princes were infamous for their bizarre edicts, but only one of the princes engaged in careful one-on-one meetings with his advisors, and this was the prince who survived
For this essay, a bit of parody:
In ye olde and ancient days, in the kingdoms of Peridison and Katechon, the two ruling kings died in the same year, and were replaced by two young princes, both of whom became infamous for their bizarre edicts.
The Prince of Peridison confounded his court with his strange decrees so after a few years his advisors and military leaders organized a rebellion, had the new king slain, and replaced by another. By contrast, the prince of Katechon was equally odd, yet he remained popular with the court, with the advisors, with the military leaders and with the leading merchants, and he enjoyed a long reign.
What made them different?
The Prince of Peridison was obsessed with uniforms. On his first day he declared to the crowd assembled before him that, from that point forward, all officers of the court would have to wear a white rose, freshly picked. A few weeks later he declared they must also wear wigs made of silk. A few weeks later he declared that they must all wear boots made only of pig leather, and belts made only of beaver. Each of these new demands was an annoyance to the staff, and a minor expense, and so they were already in a bad mood when he announced he was imposing a tax on paper and ink, which angered the merchants and bookmakers. And so, when the merchants and court officers spoke, they were in agreement that the new King made arbitrary and odd decisions. Soon after, the King demanded that the navy seize a small island that had no strategic value to anyone, and the navy did so, at great expense, and to little gain. Again the King's advisors met privately and they agreed they had an unwise King who would lead the nation to ruin. When next the King began to talk of a major war against a great power, the officers of the court deposed and assassinated the King.
The prince of Katechon was more successful, though in public he seemed like an imitation of the other prince. Katechon, like Peridison, was obsessed with uniforms. He decreed that all officers of the court must wear a red rose, freshly picked. A few weeks later he declared they must wear an armband made of gold, a jacket made of mink's leather with every button made of larch wood, along with hats made of silk. The officers of the court grumbled about the large number of odd and arbitrary decisions, as well as the additional expense of these various accoutrements. A bit later, the new King of Katechon imposed a tax on paper and ink, which angered the merchants and bookmakers. Soon after, he then began talk of renewing a war with the nation's old enemy.
What gave the prince of Katechon greater success than the prince of Peridison? Everything they did in public was the same, but what they did in private was different. Whereas the prince of Peridison ignored his advisors, and only spoke to them when they were assembled as a group, the prince of Katechon spent all of his private moments talking one-on-one with the staff, and the leading citizens of the nation. When he spoke privately with his chief military general, he learned that the general's wife was sick, and so the King sent the court doctor to heal the general's wife. And when the King spoke with his chief of staff, he learned that the chief of staff had a cousin whose farm had been destroyed by devastating floods, and so the King suspended all taxes in the flooded region for two years, to allow all of the farmers in the region to recover. And when the King spoke to the nation's leading merchant, the King learned that the merchant was hoping to get his son into the nation's best university, so the King wrote a letter of commendation that guaranteed the son would get into the best university. So, when the King considered action that some advisors viewed as dangerous, they felt they had some rapport with the King, and they could express their concerns. If the King was still set on some particular path, even after the advisor had expressed their concern, the King could depend on the advisor being loyal, even when disagreeing with the new path.
In short, one King tried to use his official power to inflict one arbitrary decree after another, upon a court and nation that had no particular reason to love or trust the king in return. The other King worked tirelessly to build goodwill with his court and with the leading citizens of the nation.
No leader has ever operated with an infinite bank of political capital. A wise leader knows that, even under the best of circumstances, one's political capital is limited, and therefore one should earn more when one can. This is a complex subject, but we can start with this simple rule: Small favors to key people is one successful strategy for building political capital.
Here is a bit of true history: in 1649, during the English Civil War, the forces loyal to Parliament captured the King and put him on trial for violating the laws of England. The King, Charles I, defended himself by saying "The law is in my mouth" meaning that since he was the King, whatever he said was automatically the law, and therefore he could never break the law. The English responded by putting him to death. Whatever the merits of his argument, he failed to address the reasons why people were angry with him. Charles I had been in power for more than 20 years, and during his reign he was very much like the prince of Peridison, always giving odd decrees, and expecting to be obeyed, while never doing anything to try to build real bonds of loyalty and affection with the key people in England.
Some people will read this parable and conclude "The only mistake made by the Prince of Peridison is that he made so many odd requests. Boots made only of pig leather, and belts made of beaver? If he hadn't made so many odd requests, then people would have trusted him more."
That is incorrect. When you are a leader, you will make many decisions, and someone in your organization will dislike your decisions and find them odd. I recently had a client where, for various complex reasons, I recommended the use of MongoDB in a situation where other consultants would probably recommend the use of Kafka, and one of the engineers reacted exactly as if I had told her that from that moment forward, she had to come to work wearing boots made only of pig leather, and belts made only of beaver. I was not able to win her over at all. But I was able to win over the rest of the engineering team. Most decisions are like that: you cannot win everyone over, but if you communicate your vision well, you can win many over. For the rest, it has to be sufficient that you've built up a bank of political capital that you can draw down when you make controversial decisions.
Where does political capital come from? That’s too large a subject for this book, but we can say, simply, that it starts with one-on-one conversations. Such conversations are the most basic building block of leadership.
For other clues about leadership, there are many good books, and here I list three of my favorites:
History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides.
The Prince, by Machiavelli.
Leadership in Turbulent Times, by Doris Kearns Goodwin.