The Nature Of Leadership In Tao Te Ching And The Prince

Kim Jong Un, Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Abiy Ahmed Ali, Jacinda Ardern, Angela Merkel are the names of some of the most influential people and leaders in current world. All of them are powerful but first four of the mentioned politicians are known for their cruelty and extremism, while the remaining three are known for their noble views and beliefs. Clearly, power can be achieved using either of the strategies. Which strategy is better? The leadership advice of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching and Machiavelli’s The Prince offers two opposing views that are giving grounds for the two mentioned camps of the leaders.

One of the main questions discussed in Tao Te Ching and The Prince is if the leader should be feared or loved. While Machiavelli’s firm answer is that “it is much safer to be feared than to be loved”, Lao Tzu’s answer to the notion of a good leader is when “the people / are hardly aware that he exists”. The difference in two arguments comes down to the choice between moderation and extremism in the actions of a leader. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is a great example of being moderate and cautious in introducing the new policies. She has been leading Germany since 2005 and was able to get her country through a lot of challenges, such as crises and wars in the region. She is known for her moderate style and was described as “a woman who personified caution”. Angela Merkel waits for the situation to become perfect and she makes a move when it is strategically appropriate. As Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook once said: “In the German vernacular, we have this expression that has become a verb merkeln, which is “to wait for the strategic opportunity, or see how the chips lie, or how a landscape presents itself, and then make a strategic move.” For example, shortly after Fukushima disaster, Angela Merkel announced phasing out 17 German nuclear power plants. She has always been holding the position of switching to alternative fuels, but the heartbreaking post-disaster moment helped her in changing the minds of energy leaders of the country, who were reluctant to switching to alternative fuel.

Not only Angela Merkel is a good example of introducing changes slowly and at the right moment, but she “was not willing to abandon her principles for the sake of political gain”, which is yet another example that speaks in opposition with Machiavelli. During the refuge crisis in 2015 Merkel was one leader who was touched by the circumstances of Syrian refugees. Knowing that this decision may hurt her politically, “She welcomed the asylum seekers to her country with a hearty “we can do it!”. This act is in complete disagreement with the core of Machiavelli’s principles, which is based on the indisputable belief that any decision should be done in support of keeping the power. Machiavelli states that “it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good”. On the contrary, Lao Tzu argues that a Master should always be peaceful and noble and such a behavior would lead to people following the same position: “Thus the Master is content / to serve as an example / and not to impose her will”. A Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had shown such an example after the March 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand. She did not show anger, but only utmost compassion to all who were touched by the tragedy. While other leaders build walls and respond with wars, Jacinda Ardern chose to highlight the sympathy and love for all Muslim communities during this time, and she promised to tighten gun laws. She explained: “we represent diversity, kindness, compassion, home for those who share our values. Refuge for those who need it.” She believes that this unity in the nation will not allow terrorism to survive. When people are united and live in harmony and love with one another, a person who thrives for opposition will not get the support he needs. That creates the atmosphere where the terrorist action doesn’t have place because his disrupting actions will not cause further separation.

Tao’s stance on violence and weapons agrees with Ms.Aderns: “Weapons are the tools of fear, / a decent man will avoid them / except in the dirtiest necessity”. That was also the belief of Abiy Ahmed Ali, who is currently a Prime Minister of Ethiopia. Just two months after he came to power, he brought 20-year war to an end by signing the contract that was created in 2000 and fully following it. This was his main agenda and he did it quickly to avoid any more suffering and death.

Interestingly, on the opposite side of the war President of Eritrea Isaias Afwerki, had been building his power based on the war. He created a large army and imprisoned thousands of people for political crimes, which was all in support of the war for independence of Eritrea and led to his power growing stronger, which is in exact agreement with Machiavelli’s principles. Machiavelli states that the war is something that every leader should master: “A prince, therefore, must not have any other object nor any other thought, nor must he take anything as his profession but war”. Kim Jong Un, Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are all leaders that don’t turn away from killing and cruelty to stay in power. According to United Nations Human Rights Council “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”, where Kim Jong Un is in power. President Barak Obama criticized Bashar al-Assad in that he “has chosen the path of murder and the mass arrests of its citizens”. Finally Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan are both known for murdering and violently suppressing any opposition that could hurt their power. Not only it created the negative atmosphere in Turkey and Russia but it also hurt the economies of the countries due to the sanctions placed by the other countries, such the United States and the countries of the European Union on Russia and Russian sanctions on Turkey.

The leaders of Turkey, Russia, Syria and North Korea are powerful and difficult to overthrow, just as Machiavelli describes, but their leadership is not centered on the the care about the citizens, instead it’s centered on simply keeping power by any means. That results in the nations and citizens that suffer from poverty, separation, wars and death. On the opposite side, maybe more vulnerable, but the leaders that are inspiring, such as Abiy Ahmed Ali, Jacinda Ardern and Angela Merkel. The first two leaders were nominated for Nobel Peace Prize which is awarded for outstanding contributions in peace. And Angela Merkel takes 1st place in the Forbes’ ten most powerful women in the world list. I believe this is the legacy that every person should strive for. Although Lao Tzu’s teachings can be too idealistic for current world, Machiavelli’s principles are just as pessimistic in the same hard to implement way. After all, “people like Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, James Madison, and Charles-Louis de Secondat (that is, Montesquieu), not to forget Plato and Aristotle, thought about government mostly in the narrow context of their times.” They were concerned with the situations and environments that existed at their time at their place. They had a relatively small data set and less access to the happenings at the other ends of the Earth. We now are able to analyze more countries, politicians and events, and we can come up with new guidance for good leadership. However, in my opinion Tao Te-Ching should be placed at the base of our new set of rules, rather than The Prince, because the power is meaningless if it comes without the happiness of the citizens.