Michael Keeley has a new book just published by Georgetown University Press, Mirrors for Princes: How “Tips for Tyrants” Became Clichés of Leadership.

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Mirrors for Princes: How “Tips for Tyrants” Became Clichés of Leadership by Michael Keeley (Georgetown University Press, September 2, 2024)

Mirrors for Princes traces the history of a largely forgotten genre of books written to teach kings, queens, and other rulers how to manage their subjects. For ages, these formulaic books told much the same story: They claimed people were behaving badly—shirking duties, flouting authority, and sowing chaos. The problem, they said, was the selfishness of individuals who put their own interests above the public good; and the remedy was to redirect self-interest toward a common goal envisioned by an exemplary leader—the prince. Eighteenth-century revolutions spelled the demise of princes and the clichéd books that advised them. But the clichés of mirrors for princes live on in mirrors for corporate managers. In modern management literature, the rhetoric of common goals and transforming leadership has a pleasing resonance for top executives, affirming their authority just as it did for pharaohs, kings, and caliphs in mirrors for princes. Keeley’s book sensitizes readers of business literature to these clichés, and it shows writers on business ethics a way to avoid them by adopting a social-contract model of organizations.

Michael Keeley is emeritus professor of management at Loyola University Chicago.