The 50th Law - 50 Cent [56]
In essence, Moses learned to play a role for the Hebrews—the man who is possessed of a vision from God, indomitable in spirit, and acting for the greater good. A normal tribe member would have to ask him- or herself if this Promised Land was not something that existed merely in Moses’s mind. But the force of his conviction and the determination to lead people to the Promised Land made it hard to doubt him. He had to play this role to the hilt to convince them his top position was legitimate and sanctioned by God. His ability to lead such a fractious group for some forty years has to be considered the greatest masterpiece of leadership in history.
We moderns believe we have moved far beyond our primitive, tribal origins. After all, we live in a secular, rational world. A leader today needs to possess certain technical and managerial skills. But three thousand years of civilization have not altered human nature, and in fact the endless difficulties that plagued such leaders as Moses have become only more acute. Whereas before we humans might think first of the tribe, we now think primarily of ourselves, our careers, and our narrow interests. Office politics is the extreme endpoint of this trend.
We are now more distracted than ever, with thousands of bits of information competing for our attention in the course of a day. This makes us less patient and capable of seeing the larger picture. If we were being led out of slavery, we would not be able to focus on the Promised Land for more than a few minutes. We are much more skeptical when it comes to those in authority. We still feel the ancient ambivalence towards rulers; instead of sacrificing them, we feed them to the press and secretly gloat in their downfall. To be a leader now means overcoming these aspects of human nature while still seeming to be fair and decent—an almost impossible task.
At the same time, however, people feel this division and selfishness as a depressing phenomenon. They desperately want to believe in a cause, to work for the greater good, to follow a leader who imbues them with a sense of purpose. They are more than receptive to the kind of quasi-religious leadership that Moses embodies. As the one on top, you must rid yourself of your modern prejudices, your fetishism of technical means. To be a leader still means that you are playing a role, out in front, fearlessly driving the group forward. If you fail to unify the group around some glorious cause, some equivalent of the Promised Land, then you will find that you are having to push and pull your followers, who are constantly splitting up into factions. Instead you must assume a prophetic air, as if you were merely chosen to lead them towards some higher goal. You are compelling them to follow on their own, making less a show of personal power and more a demonstration of the cause that unites them all. This will give you the proper authority to lead and an aura of power.
To master the art of leadership you must see yourself as playing certain parts that will impress your disciples and make them more likely to follow you with the necessary enthusiasm. The following are the four main roles you must learn to perform.
THE VISIONARY
By the beginning of the twentieth century, Thomas Alva Edison was seen as America’s preeminent inventor and scientist. His research labs were the source of some of the most important technological breakthroughs of the time. But the truth is that Edison himself had only a few months of formal education and was not really a scientist at all. Instead he was a mix of visionary, strategist, and shrewd businessman.
His method was simple: he scoured the globe, looking at all of the latest advances in science and technology. With his understanding of business and the latest social trends, he thought long and hard about how some of these