Life at the Top Done Wrong

Life at the Top. On book tour, my "media handler" told me she'd just been with a famous CEO whose organization was loved by some, hated by many. She said he had four former secret service agents as his armed bodyguards all the time. They had to get on elevators first, check out rooms before he could enter, and on and on. I had spent the day once with a wonderful CEO who had just gone through a downsizing that agonized him. Later I was on a train, in the dining car, and a man asked me why I'd been in town. I mentioned the CEO. "He's lucky nobody's killed him yet," the guy said.

One of Plato’s students was Xenophon, a great military leader as well as a good thinker. He wrote a novella about a poet, Simonides who goes to see a tyrant, or despot, Hiero. I’ll summarize what happens when they talk.

S: It must be great to be a tyrant.

H: No, no, no, not at all, we have fewer pleasures and more pains than normal people.

S: How can that be?

H: You can go to any spectacle you’d like, concerts, games. I can’t go because it’s not safe for me to be in crowds, or to leave home, where valuable things might get stolen.

S: But you can bring games to you.

H: Yeah, at huge expense. People charge me more.

S: But people praise you all the time and that’s great.

H: The praise is false. I’m always being manipulated.

S: But you get to have banquets all the time and massive luxuries.

H: Those like me get so used to it all that it doesn’t please. It’s the hedonic treadmill, man. These things delight most only when they’re rare. When you have it all the time, it gets boring.

S: Sex?

H: What I just said. No. Everybody fears me or is infatuated with me but nobody actually loves a tyrant.

Chapter 2

S: You make big plans, huge plans, and get them done. You have the best of everything.

H: You just see what’s on the outside, not the inside where the tyrant has his troubles. We have the least peace and live in a constant state of war. We can’t go anywhere without armed guards. You can. Regular people can have peace through treaties but tyrants never have treaties with those they oppress.

Chapter 3

H: Friendship is the greatest good and most pleasant for human beings. Tyrants rarely have real friends.

Chapter 4

H: Trust is important in life. A tyrant can’t trust anyone. He can’t trust his food and drink and has to have a taster.

Plus, you think a tyrant has more possessions than his people, so he feels good about that. No again. He compares himself not with other citizens in his realm but with other tyrants and obsesses on what they have that he doesn’t.

Chapter 5

H: Any tyrant fears the strong, the wise, and the just, so we get rid of them. Then who do we have to use to help us to our ends? The weak, the foolish, and the unjust. Try making that work.

Chapter 6.

H: When I was a private person I used to hang out with my friends, having fun, talking, relaxing. Now I have slaves instead of friends. Now I fear being alone, and being with people. I fear the unarmed and the armed. I fear even sleep.

Chapter 7

S: But honor is a very great thing, and you have that. People rise for you, applaud you, make way for you, defer to you, out of honoring you.

H: No, people display the outward signs of honor out of fear, not admiration. They are not protective of me, but wish to be free of me.

S: Then why don’t you step down?

H: One cannot. It’s too dangerous. And I could never pay back all the money and life I’ve taken.

Chapter 9

S: We can fix this. Consider the value of a tyrant’s pleasant greeting vs a commoner’s. Now, praise. Now, gifts. You can benefit people in a way that a common man can’t. And your good deeds generate greater gratitude.

H: I’m burdened by things that don’t bother the ordinary person. I have to tax. I have to punish. I have to make people go to war. I’m hated for these things.

S: Well, you should give out prizes and let others do the unpleasant things.

Chapter 10.

H: But I have to have guards and mercenaries to protect me.

S: Yes, but have them guard all the people, not just you. And have them join citizens in military campaigns and support them. That will change the people’s attitude toward mercenaries.

Chapter 11

S: Spend from your private wealth for the common good. Won’t you look better to other tyrants and peoples if it’s not just your private home that looks great, but the whole city? If it’s not just your guard that’s well equipped but the entire city? And what if you sponsor more athletes? You can’t complete with your own people but you can compete with other leaders. Try to be the best leader! Enrich your people and you’ll enrich yourself! Then people will love you not hate you.

The invention of servant leadership.