The Competitive Edge of Moral Leadership - Essay Example

One very important point that Patti makes in the post on Machiavelli’s advice is the fact that he clearly identifies that social life in those days is entirely different from what prevails in the present generation. Indeed, when considering advice made by a person for application in another situation, it is always important to be on the lookout for the setting within which the advice was given. According to Patti, social life in the days of Machiavelli was clearly based on a person’s individual appreciation and understanding for life, without looking much into the interest of other people around.

To this end, power became the highest priority for a city state’s survival (Cunha et al., 2013; Harris, 2010). It was very right that Patti looked into the effects of such a situation on the people involved in power such as the prince and other people around. Clearly, the end was very disastrous and met with much destruction instead of construction (quote). In today’s generation, however, much of a leader’s actions cannot be based on his will and thoughts about living alone.

Today’s world is more of a social unit where the actions of one leader at one end of the world greatly affects all people across the globe. I, therefore, disagree with Patti for heeding to Machiavelli’s advice that even in the 21st-century leaders can apply force in some instances to get their principles warranted. As the world becomes a global village, there are bodies that check acts of violence and crime that happen in other parts of the world and try to stop leaders from being dictators (Becker, 2007).

The best resolutions leaders should endeavor to use should thus be those that are based on the principles of peace and dialogue. Response to Wittner Jones Wittner gave a very vivid background to leadership between the two times in question, namely the Machiavelli era and the 21st-century era. In the background, we realize that in the Machiavelli era, Princes, and for that matter leaders were law-makers and possessed sovereign power (Galie & Bopst, 2006). However, in today’s world, real power is given to the ruled rather than the ruler (Hub Pages, 2013).

This is so because of the widespread of democracy in most parts of the world, where leadership is vested in the will of the people. To this end, I would perfectly agree with Wittner that the opinion held by Machiavelli that the end justified the means for a leader can no longer prevail in today’s generation of leadership. Indeed as the world becomes one through regional and global bodies such as the United Nations, leadership is expected to follow set of principles that give credence and regard to the respect of fundamental human rights (Nahavandi, 2012).

With the notion stated above, leaders who want to have their own way out with the rules will surely fail because they will be seen by the international worlds as going outside of the accepted order. There are clear examples with 20th century and 21st-century leaders who through wicked leadership such as the one advised by Machiavelli had to face global justice by being a drag to the international court of justice. In effect, I agree with Wittner on the fact that leadership in today’s era cannot be well-executed while holding on to the advice of Machiavelli because the world is becoming a more people-centered place rather than a leader centered place (Nahavandi, 2012).