The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

auctoritas, the root meaning “to increase or augment.”
To the ancient Romans, those who had founded their republic
possessed tremendous wisdom. Their ancestors had demonstrated this
wisdom by how strong and long-lasting were the institutions they had
established, and how they had transformed their provincial town into
the preeminent power in the known world. To the extent that Roman
senators and leaders returned to this basic wisdom and embodied the
ideals of the founders, they had authority—an augmented presence, an
increased prestige and credibility. Such leaders did not have to resort
to speeches or to force. Roman citizens willingly followed their lead
and accepted their ideas or advice. Their every word and deed seemed
to carry extra weight. This gave them greater leeway in making hard
decisions; they were not judged merely by their latest success.
The Romans were notoriously fractious and mistrustful of those in
power. Their politics could easily descend into civil war, which in fact
happened on several occasions. Having leaders who exuded authority
was a way to control this combativeness, to get things done, to
maintain a degree of unity. And it required that such leaders embody
the highest of ideals, ones that transcended the pettiness of daily
political life.
This Roman model, which represents an adherence to a higher
purpose, remains the essential ingredient for all true forms of

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authority. And this is how we must operate if we wish to establish such
authority in the world today.
First and foremost, we must understand the fundamental task of
any leader—to provide a far-reaching vision, to see the global picture,
to work for the greater good of the group and maintain its unity. That
is what people crave in their leaders. We have to avoid ever seeming
petty, self-serving, or indecisive. Showing signs of that will stir up the
ambivalence. Focusing on the future and the larger picture should
consume much of our thinking. Based on this vision, we must set
practical goals and guide the group toward them. We need to become
masters of this visionary process through practice and experience.
Attaining such mastery will give us tremendous confidence in
ourselves, as opposed to the fake confidence of those who are merely
grandiose. And when we exude this confidence, people will be drawn to
us and want to follow our lead.
At the same time, however, we must see leadership as a dynamic
relationship we have with those being led. We have to understand that
our slightest gesture has an unconscious effect on individuals. And so
we must pay great attention to our attitude, to the tone that we set. We
need to attune ourselves to the shifting moods of the members of the
group. We must never assume we have their support. Our empathy
must be visceral—we can feel when members are losing respect for us.
As part of the dynamic, we need to realize that when we show our
respect and trust toward those below us, such feelings will flow back to
us. The members will open up to our influence. We must try as much
as possible to engage people’s willpower, to make them identify with
the group’s mission, to want to actively participate in realizing our
higher purpose.
This empathy, however, must never mean becoming needlessly soft
and pliant to the group’s will. That will only signal weakness. When it
comes to our primary task—that of providing a vision for the group and
leading it toward the appropriate goals—we must be stern and
immovable. Yes, we can listen to the ideas of others and incorporate
the good ones. But we must keep in mind that we have a greater
command of the overall details and global picture. We must not
succumb to political pressures to seem fairer, and so dilute our vision.
This vision of ours is beyond politics. It represents truth and reality.
We have to be resilient and tough when it comes to realizing it, and
merciless with those who try to sabotage this vision or work against the

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greater good. Toughness and empathy are not incompatible, as Queen
Elizabeth I demonstrated.
When leaders fail to establish these twin pillars of authority—vision
and empathy—what often happens is the following: Those in the group
feel the disconnect and distance between them and leadership. They
know that deep down they are viewed as replaceable pawns. They
sense the overall lack of direction and the constant tactical reactions to
events. And so, in subtle ways, they begin to feel resentful and to lose
respect. They listen less attentively to what such leaders say. They
spend more hours in the day thinking of their own interests and future.
They join or form factions. They work at half or three-quarter speed.
If such leaders, sensing all of this, become more forceful and
demanding, the members become more passive-aggressive. If the
leaders become pliant and plead for more support, the members feel
even less respect, as if the group were now leading the leader. In this
way, the members create endless forms of friction for leaders, who
might now feel like they have to drag the group up a hill. This friction,
caused by their own inattentiveness, is why so many leaders get so
little done and are so mediocre.
On the other hand, if we intuitively or consciously follow the path of
establishing authority, as described above, we have a much different
effect on the group dynamic. The ambivalence of the members or the
public does not go away—that would violate human nature—but it
becomes manageable. People will still waver and have moments of
doubt or envy, but they will more quickly forgive us for any mistakes
and move past their suspicions. We have established enough trust for
that to happen. Besides, the members have come to dread what could
occur if we no longer were the leaders—the disunity, the lack of clarity,
the bad decisions. Their need for us is too strong.
Now we are no longer dealing with the invisible friction from the
group but the opposite. The members feel engaged in the larger
mission. We are able to channel their creative energy, instead of having
to drag them along. With this loyalty in place, it is easier to reach goals
and realize our vision. This gives us the augmented presence of
authority, in which everything we say and do has added weight.
It is always within our capacity to reach this ideal, and if the
members lose respect and trust in us, we must see this as our own
fault.

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—
Your task as a student of human nature is threefold: First, you must
make yourself a consummate observer of the phenomenon of
authority, using as a measuring device the degree of influence people
wield without the use of force or motivational speeches. You begin this
process by looking at your own family and gauging which parent, if
any, exercised greater authority over you and your siblings. You look at
the teachers and mentors in your life, some of whom distinguished
themselves by the powerful effect they had on you. Their words and the
example they set still reverberate in your mind. You observe your own
bosses in action, looking at their effect not only on you and other
individuals but also on the group as a whole. Lastly, you look at the
various leaders in the news. In all these cases, you want to determine
the source of their authority or lack of it. You want to discern moments
when their authority waxes or wanes, and figure out why.
Second, you want to develop some of the habits and strategies (see
the next section) that will serve you well in projecting authority. If you
are an apprentice who aspires to a position of leadership, developing
these strategies early on will give you an impressive and appealing aura
in the present, making it seem as if you were destined to be powerful.
If you are already in a leadership position, these strategies will
strengthen your authority and connectedness to the group.
As part of this process, you need to reflect on the effect you have on
people: Are you constantly arguing, trying to impose your will, finding
much more resistance than you expect to your ideas and projects? Do
people nod as they listen to your advice and then do the opposite? If
you are just starting out, sometimes this cannot be helped—people
generally don’t respect the ideas of those lower down in the hierarchy;
the same ideas promulgated by a boss would have a different effect.
But sometimes it could stem from your own actions, as you violate
many of the principles described above.
Do not take people’s smiles and expressions of assent for reality.
Notice their tension as they do so; pay particular attention to their
actions. Take any grumbling as a reflection on your authority. In
general, you want to heighten your sensitivity to others, looking in