alexander

Leadership Process Four: Directing Symbols 115
of anything. Tyrants throughout history have effectively
used such knowledge to their advantage. It enabled him to
conserve scarce human resources at the cost of the innocent.
You may prefer this example be put in a chapter called
‘‘Lesser Great Acts.’’ It is less great, but the logic is unimpeachable.
Leading Lessons
We can (and historians do) quibble and debate about the
horror of the one town and whether such behavior was ‘‘appropriate’’
to the times, but such debates are beside the
point for our learning from Alexander. Does history remember
Alexander as a mass murderer or a victorious general?
This lesson is extremely difficult to convert to modern
times. Although Alexander’s action demonstrates how you
can successfully manipulate human nature, if he were a general
today, he would be court-martialed for such action. An
executive today using similar civilian actions would be
under scrutiny for illegal or unethical behavior. Having said
that, sometimes legal and ethical behaviors that get things
done are not nice behaviors and today would be avoided by
most—but not all—executives. A classic example is that of
Robert Moses, who was responsible for reshaping New York
City and the surrounding boroughs so thoroughly over the
course of decades. Moses resorted to blackmail, physical
threats, intimidation, and other ‘‘hardball’’ tactics. In some
circles, Moses is considered a monster, and the heaping of
abuse upon him and his reputation is warranted. In other