Aristotle’s Rhetoric as a Handbook of Leadership

Summary by Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D. © 2000 Jonathan Shay

Character is a living thing that flourishes or wilts according to the ways that those who hold power use power. Specifically, character has cognitive/cultural content—a person’s ideals, ambitions, and affiliations, and the emotional energy that infuses them—what Homer called thumos. The leader’s own thumos is critical to his or her capacity to lead others.

How does a leader get the troops— soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen—to commit themselves to a mission? Aristotle offers a mix of empirical and normative observations in the Rhetoric that apply wonderfully to the military situation.

For starters, we must understand the context that he thinks his remarks apply to, what it means for a leader 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 many of you want a picture of leading without undue reliance on coercion and will see that Aristotle has real food for thought here.

A leader who mentally and in the heart constantly walks away from those he or she is leading and says "I’m never going to see these jerks again after this assignment is over," is just faking it from Aristotle’s point of view—a sophist for hire, not a true leader, a rhêtor. (The root of the term : rhetoric.)

So having established that the leader and led are part of each other’s future, they now have to arrive at a shared, binding commitment to mission in the face of conflicting, incommensurable goods 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 under these conditions.

Aristotle shows us that leader has 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 troops’ ideals, ambitions, and affiliations—their 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 the troops are looking for in a leader. What makes the leader trustworthy in their eyes? Aristotle provides another triad. The troops extend trust to someone whose explanations (what he 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 the troops (eúnoiâ)

The centrality of rational explanation ("argument"), rather than coercion or deception, shows the leader’s respect for the troops, who are his or her fellow citizens. You can’t separate respect from good will. What reasons, examples, and maxims the leader chooses from the infinity available, provide evidence for phronêsis and aretê. The persuasive power that comes when a leader appeals to reason comes more from the degree to which it provides evidence for the leader’s respect toward the troops 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 leader that is most compelling to the troops. I want to connect the old Homeric word thymos 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 thymos in Politics VII.6.1327b39ff. Aristotle states, "Thymos 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 thymos becomes particularly critical to leadership in a combat situation. To trust the leader, the 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.

[The exam question is where and what does Aristotle regard as the most compelling trait of a great leader… in business or combat. The treatise is A’s Rhetoric and ethos or character is most important.]

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

STOP READING HERE FOR THE MID TERM EXAM QUESTION

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On War #235 October 2, 2007 John Boyd's Book 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. Frans 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.

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