A historical look at the roots of management theory reveals its flaws and offers important lessons for today's leadersFor four thousand years, kings and queens ruled the known world, while management experts-in the guises of sages, clerics, and courtiers of all kinds-told them how to do it. These proto-experts in leadership, ethics, and strategy wrote books describing the perfect prince. In such books, rulers could seek and polish their own reflection, as in a looking glass. These books were called mirrors for princes. Mirrors for Princes documents the clich-of this genre of literature. Typical mirrors taught the same formula, over and over: that people behave badly because of their pursuit of self-interest, which needs to be harnessed to a common goal by the ruler or leader. Eighteenth-century revolutions spelled the demise of princes and led to books that sought instruct them. Today, the clich-of mirrors for princes live on in modern mirrors for managers. The rhetoric of common goals
