Reading Machiavelli in preparation for educational leadership: towards a secure and realistic perspective on organizational politics

A New Perspective on Machiavellian Leadership

“…1 Witnessing the political tumult of his own time, Fathei (2018) argues, led Machiavelli to develop this view—to believe, having become “disillusioned with ineffective leadership,” that rulers “sometimes had to set aside ethical concerns” in order to do what was needed to maintain a stable and successful state (104). Scholars who accept this framework (e.g., Ledeen 1999; Harris 2010; Kessler et al 2010; Pina e Cunha, Clegg, and Rego 2013; Cosans and Reina 2018; Harris 2020) present the Machiavellian leader not as utterly corrupt, but as eminently pragmatic and adaptable. Such a ruler, they maintain, possesses a “flexibility of character” that allows him to move between morality and immorality (Cornell and Malcolmson 2009, 83), boldness and caution (Coletta and Carrese 2015), and humanity and harshness (Hunsicker 2013) as circumstances require.…”