It’s Better To Live With Dirty Hands Than To Die With Clean Ones

“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.” - Niccolò Machiavelli

“In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” - Winston Churchill

“The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.” - Otto von Bismarck

“If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.” - Niccolò Machiavelli

The Contradiction Is Timeless

What makes you "good" in your private life can make you "bad" in public. We see it all the time in politics, especially in USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. This is evident in the political corridors of Congress and the White House, where the federal government's daily operations are carried out by fifteen executive departments, each directed by a member of the President's Cabinet. Machiavelli clearly saw this. Politics is open warfare; it is not controlled by the values of friendship, family, or church or mosque or synagogue, etc. When adversaries sharpen their blades, it is a blueprint for disaster to hesitate, to forgive, to hold onto morality.

When adversaries plot, use logic rather than force. Choose persuasion when danger calls for ruthlessness. Goodness turns into weakness, which leads to the collapse of the government or organization it is meant to save as well as its downfall.

In retrospect, Jimmy Carter's moral appeals and compassion left him helpless in the face of humiliation overseas. Neville Chamberlain's efforts to bring about peace gave Hitler more confidence and contributed to the start of WWII. Business-wise, Apple's merciless innovation of a full screen smart phone overshadowed BlackBerry's faith in its secure keyboard phones, redefining the market overnight and causing a collapse of BlackBerry clinging to a declining niche. Every case demonstrates the same reality: goodwill turns into a burden when it lacks support by decisive action.

The truth about leadership is that, in order to safeguard the whole, you frequently have to make unacceptable decisions. In some cases, holding onto virtue while in a position of authority is like giving your adversaries a weapon. Private morals and public duty are not the same thing. Even if it requires performing actions that others would find objectionable, protect your state, your business, and yourself. Allow morality to flex if it needs to. As a politician, it's better to live with dirty hands than to die with clean ones, as Machiavelli would say.