Aristotle’s Rhetoric as a Handbook of Leadership  
Summary by Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D.  © 2000 Jonathan Shay
– edited and revised for the student of public speaking.
See also: http://worldtraining.net/media.htm
and See also: http://worldtraining.net/Boyd2.html and http://worldtraining.net/Boyd2.htm
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2017/02/13/captain-wadell-advice-for-the-marines/#more-102400

Character [ ETHOS ] is a living thing that flourishes or wilts according to the ways that those who hold power use power. Specifically, character has  cognitive and cultural content—a person’s ideals, ambitions, and affiliations, and the emotional energy that infuses them—what Homer called thumos (Scroll down for definition). The speaker’s own thumos is critical to his or her capacity to motivate other people to act.   How does a speaker get his audience whether troops (soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen) or your fellow citizens—to commit themselves to a mission or a campaign to change a policy – i.e., the way we conduct our affairs?

Aristotle offers a mix of   empirical and normative observations in his Rhetoric that apply wonderfully to the speaker’s situation.  For starters, we must understand the context that he thinks his remarks apply to, what it means for a speaker to seek trust: It’s about dealing with fellow-citizens, where each looks the other in the eye and says, “you are part of my future, no matter how this turns out.” Some might scoff, and say, “an infantry company, or a ship, or a squadron is not a deliberative assembly, and decisions are not arrived at   by majority vote.” But you want a picture of speaking without undue reliance on coercion (a variable term your Professor uses considerably) and will see that Aristotle has real food for thought here.

 A speaker who mentally and in the heart constantly walks away from those he or she is supposedly motivating and says “I’m never going to see these jerks again after this class is over,” is just faking it from Aristotle’s point of view— a sophist ( “gums for hire”), not a true speaker, that is, a rhêtor.  (The root of the term rhetoric.)  So having established that the speaker and audience are part of one another’s immediate future, they now have to arrive at a shared, binding commitment to  a goal, clarity about the “big picture”  in the face of   conflicting, incommensurable information uncertainty.

Real military situations requiring real leadership invariably have these two elements. If everything can be done by formula, by the book, what’s needed is a supervisor, not a leader. Even in war, many of the things that need to be done preparing for battle can be done by the book (even von Clausewitz acknowledged that). And even in   peacetime, many critical decisions cannot be solved by the book, because they involve competing, incommensurable goods and uncertainty. The Rhetoric has no   Philosopher’s Stone that enables you to harmonize conflicting goods or to know what   is not known. It provides a descriptive and normative framework for leading one’s fellow citizens to some clarity under these conditions. Aristotle: speakers have three interrelated means of achieving his fellow citizens’ trust:
Appeal to their character (éthos)
Appeal to their reason (lógos)
Appeal to their emotions (páthos)

These three are interrelated, not separate, because the goals of action arise from the our ideals, ambitions, and affiliations —our character. Reason concerns the means to reach those goals. And the emotions arise primarily from their cognitive assessments of the   real-world improvement or deterioration of their ideals, ambitions, affiliations, and how fast they are changing in the world. Aristotle has useful comments on the leader’s need to build trust through appeal to the troops’ character and emotion. He even explains how it is possible to be "too rational," losing the trust of those you are trying to lead. (See Garver’s, "Making Discourse Ethical: Can I Be Too Rational?")

Aristotle goes on to say what we are looking for in a speaker. What makes the speaker trustworthy in the minds of the audience members? Aristotle   provides another triad. We extend trust to someone whose explanations (what A. called "arguments"), training exercises, and   decisions provide evidence for

Professional competence, spirited personal integrity (aretê)
Intelligent good sense, practical wisdom (phronêsis)
Good will and respect for people (eúnoiâ)

The centrality of rational explanation ("argument"), rather than coercion or deception, shows the speaker’s respect for the audience, who are fellow citizens. You can’t separate respect from good will. What reasons, examples, and maxims the speaker chooses from the infinity of available choices, provide evidence for phronêsis (good sense) and (competence) aretê. The persuasive power that comes when a speaker appeals to reason comes more from the degree to which it provides evidence for the speaker’s respect toward the audience than from the power of reason to compel assent, or having compelled assent, to guide or restrain behavior.

So as Aristotle famously says in Rhetoric I.ii.3, it is the ethos, the character of the speaker that is most compelling to the audience. I want to connect the old Homeric word thumos to what I now want to say about character. This word is most often translated by the single word "spirit." In modern times this has become rarified and if you forgive the play on words, spiritualized, so that we lose the sense that   is still preserved when we speak of a horse as spirited or an argument as spirited.   Professor Rorty at Brandeis gave me her best shot at translating the word as "the energy of spirited honor." I want you to listen to Aristotle’s explanation of thumos in Politics   VII.6.1327b39ff. He says, "Thumos is the faculty of our souls which issues in love and friendship….It is also the source … of any power of commanding and any feeling for freedom."

  The spirited self-respect that Homer called thumós becomes particularly critical to speaking in a combat situation. To trust the leader, troops need to feel that the leader is his or her “own person,” not a slave. In combat, trust goes to the leaders who give critical obedience, rather than blind obedience, to their own bosses.[3] A leader giving blind obedience to a militarily irrational or illegal order   gets the troops killed without purpose ["wasted"] or irretrievably tainted by commission of atrocities.

1. Eugene Garver, Aristotle's Rhetoric: An Art of Character, U. Chicago Press, 1994
2. Phenomenology of Spirit, Aristotle fans may balk at this as flying in the face of   Rh. I.ii.3, but it can be justified from the practice Aristotle shows us.  It should be   evident that I do not dispute the importance of the leader’s character.
3. U. F. Zwygart, “How Much Obedience Does an Officer Need?” U.S. Army Command and General Staff College pamphlet, 1993
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=On War #235 October 2, 2007 John Boyd's Book by William S. Lind [The views expressed in this article are those of Mr. Lind, writing in his personal capacity. They do not reflect  the opinions or policy positions of the Free Congress Foundation, its officers, board or employees, or those of   Kettle Creek Corporation.]

Colonel John Boyd, America's greatest military theorist, never wrote a book. But as a Marine friend of mine said, Col. Osinga's new book, Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd, is the book Boyd would have written if he had    written a book. (As someone who worked with Boyd for about 15 years, I think the reason he did not write a book is that he loved    giving his briefings, and he feared that if people could find his work in a book they would not ask him to brief.) The central point Osinga makes is that, contrary to what is widely believed, Boyd's work cannot be summarized in the concept of    the OODA Loop. The OODA Loop concept says that in any conflict, all parties go through repeated cycles of Observing, Orienting, Deciding and Acting, and whoever can go through the cycle consistently faster will win. At the tactical level, this is  often true. But as Osinga points out, as soon as one moves up into the operational, strategic and grand strategic levels, Boyd's theory grows far    more complex. There, accuracy of observation and especially of orientation become at least as important as tempo. Attaining    accuracy requires far more than "information." In Boyd's own less-than-simple words,      

 Orientation is an interactive process of many-sided implicit cross-referencing projections, empathies,            correlations, and rejections that is shaped by and shapes the interplay of genetic heritage, cultural tradition,            previous experiences and unfolding circumstances.  Orientation is the Schwerpunkt. It shapes the way we interact with the environment—hence orientation shapes            the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act.        In this sense        Orientation shapes the character of present observation-orientation-decision-action loops—while these present            loops shape the character of future orientation.

    To make sense of all this, and more, Osinga begins by studying what Boyd studied. He works his way through Boyd's vast    bibliography, which includes not only military history but also scientific thought and epistemology. Boyd immersed himself in    multiple disciplines, applying his own prescription of analysis and synthesis, intellectual openness and constant cross-referencing    to the creation of his military theories.

Osinga then proceeds to describe, discuss and analyze Boyd's vast briefings in chronological order, that is to say in the order in  which Boyd developed them. Boyd's most famous briefing was Patterns of Conflict, with its contrast between attrition warfare and    maneuver warfare. Again, Osinga notes that there is far more here than speed through the OODA Loop. Of key importance to    Fourth Generation war, Boyd introduces his three levels of war: not the traditional tactical-operational-strategic but    physical-mental-moral. As Osinga writes,  In Patterns of Conflict Boyd has thus offered his audience a new look at military history. With the conceptual  lenses science offered him, with uncertainty as the key problem organisms and organizations have to surmount, he sheds new light on the dynamics of war… Gradually he unfolds a novel conceptualization of tactics, grand tactics, strategy and grand strategy that revolves  around the process of adaptation in which open, complex adaptive systems are constantly engaged.

    Boyd's next briefing, my personal favorite, was Organic Design for Command and Control. It offers a devastating implied    critique of the way the U.S. military is using technology to "improve" command and control. Boyd argues that, from a maneuverist perspective, you don't even want command and control, but rather appreciation and leadership.

    From this point on to the conclusion of Boyd's work, each briefing becomes more theoretical and abstract. He offers one of the    few useful definitions of strategy: "The Strategic Game is one of Interaction and Isolation." He describes a "conceptual spiral" that    leads to a deeper understanding of how we can cope with uncertainty. Finally, he offers "the real OODA Loop," which is far too    complex to present here but supports Osinga's assertion that there is more to it than speed, at least above the tactical level.

The John Boyd who emerges from this outstanding book is the John Boyd I knew. He was the opposite of the narrow technician, the type our armed services seem to prefer and promote. He ranged across a vast intellectual landscape, drawing from the most    unlikely places ideas he could assemble in new ways to reveal more about the nature and conduct of war. (I must relate one    anecdote, one of the few occasions where I saw Boyd get shot down. Over dinner with General Hermann Balck, Boyd thought to    pay Balck a jocular compliment. He said to him, "General, with your extraordinarily quick reactions (still evident despite Balck's    80+ years), you would have made a great fighter pilot." Balck instantly replied, "Ich bin kein Techniker"—I am not a technician!)

I say unreservedly, "Buy this book!" Yes, it costs more than $100. But Col. Osinga (Royal Netherlands Air Force—truly, no    prophet is honored in his own country) told me that if he can sell just a few more, his publisher will bring it out in paperback. So let the kids go hungry for a few nights and plunk down the cash. If you have any interest in war, this is a book your library cannot do    without. Just as America cannot do without John Boyd's ideas, although our military has not yet figured that out.

William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress    Foundation.  To interview Mr. Lind, please contact:     Mr. William S. Lind    Free Congress Foundation     717 Second St., N.E.     Washington, D.C. 20002     Direct line: 202-543-8796    nnn@freecongress.org    The Free Congress Foundation is a 28-year-old Washington, DC-based conservative educational foundation (think tank) that    teaches people how to be effective in the political process, advocates judicial reform, promotes cultural conservatism, and works    against the government encroachment of individual liberties. ========================