ArazAkowab

Professor Baronian

English 1A Tue, Thu 7:45-10:00

09/26/2011

The leader

Introduction

The community exists in place in the surrounds where people actually reside. Every community encompasses a leader, to facilitate the people living in that community because it is a fact that people live under a definite leadership in order to spent a better live in present. Leadership is an essential module for administrating and managing the government. Machiavelli in “The Qualities of a Prince”, and Lao-Tzu in “Thoughts from the Tao-Te Ching” presented the notion of becoming principled leaders. Both writers offered more or less contrasting perspective on best personality and character of a leader that should be demonstrated in times of war, under mercy conditions, and techniques during peace time.

Ways to become a prominent leader

Machiavelli proposed methods of becoming an influential prince in the course of many instance and case "in point of the kings". Whereas, Lao Tzu recommended entirely diverse approach of becoming a great leader based on the Tao. Machiavelli and Lao Tzu, both have the same intentions to discover and explore the out of the ordinary approaches to become a great leader standing on the feature of war, technique, and mercy.

This paper contains the comparison of the similarities and dissimilarities among Lao-tzu and Machiavelli's approaches of becoming an influential leader. This particular section consists of different ways and approaches of becoming a great leader holding the elements of war, mercy, and techniques. As far as war concerned both the writers have different approaches, according to Machiavelli war is a profession of a prince, he further said,” A prince who does not understand military matters, besides the other misfortunes already noted, cannot be esteemed by his own soldiers, nor can he trust them” (page 40). It is evident from the quotation that a leader should possess qualities such as he should be powerful, controlled, prearranged, and disciplined which is the most important feature a leader should have.

Therefore, a prince, who does not know military matters, might “never the raise his thought from this exercise of war, and also cannot be trust by his own military therefore, a prince must train himself in a timely manner before the time of war” (40). According to him powerful military and arms should be available all the times. A prince should always consider himself as a part of the military. A prince allowed and should use historical facts to support and have encouragement of trained, he should read old war history and accomplishment stories of successful leaders. One of the facts that would be achieved by being in to military is that the people and citizen of the country would trust his prince more than anyone else.

Comparing on the other side, Lao- Tzut suggested a carefree and smart leadership style that can be used in war times. He refused to accept the theory of war in society, and affirmed that war should be the last resort for resolving any problems and issues in society. Lao-tzu contends that “the more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous ...