Best Practices & Enduring Leadership Lessons from the Ancients

© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.

By E. Stratton Horres, Jr.
Special Contributing Writer

To avoid a future of war, crime and bankruptcy, the individual must begin to plan his own destiny, and the best source of the necessary information comes down to us through the writings of the ancients.”
Many P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages.

People ask me all the time, “Why do you study the ancients?” It’s because the lessons they taught are as fresh today as they were thousands of years ago. They are highly relevant to all modern walks of life, whether they be in our living rooms, boardrooms, war rooms or courtrooms. There is nothing new under the sun: history repeats and what has been done can be done again, perhaps even better.
So, I believe we have much to learn from the best practices of past leaders. There is virtually nothing going on in the world today that they didn’t face and overcome such as:

1. Constant, very bloody and costly wars;
2. Extreme weather/natural events-floods, storms, earthquakes, famines, plagues, tornadoes, typhoons, droughts, volcanic eruptions and meteors; and
3. Social upheavals and unrest.

You name it, they faced it and their lessons are instructive on how to deal with these man-made and natural calamities.
Maybe it’s the lawyer in me, but I prefer reading the original sources and traveling to the places where the events occurred to seek what they have to tell us. After all, aren’t we taught in law school that original sources are the best evidence and that on-site inspections reveal secrets pictures can’t convey?
I like to imagine a time when candles and oil lamps illuminated words etched in stone or written in ink by the hands of the great leaders themselves on parchment or papyrus scrolls. The leadership lessons discussed here should ring familiar, for they are but a distillation of the lessons of leaders past. I believe that the obscure art and science of leadership can be taught so let’s travel back in time to examine nine of the great leadership lessons of the Immortals.
LESSON ONE: LIVE IN TRUTH – THOTH/HERMES
Thoth was an ancient Egyptian sage whose wisdom transformed him into a god, but did you know he was also the first lawyer? “I am Thoth, the skilled scribe whose hands are pure, a possessor of purity who drives away evil, who writes what is true, and who detests falsehood, whose pen defends all; Master of Laws who interprets writings, I am the Lord of Justice, one truly precise to the gods, who judges….”1 He was depicted with the head of the sacred Ibis bird and a male human body, wearing a horned head-dress bearing symbols of the moon. No, he really didn’t look like that as the ancient Egyptians were masters of symbolic description and this was symbolic that Thoth walked between the worlds of the living and the dead, just as the Ibis’ long stalk legs straddled the waters of the Nile and the surrounding banks.
Ma’at was the ancient Egyptian goddess of truth, balance, order, law, morality and justice. Ma’at was portrayed in hieroglyphic writing as a woman with a feather on top of her head. As master of physical and moral law, Thoth was charged with making proper use of Ma’at. In other words, he was charged to live in truth, or ankh em Ma’at. Thoth was devoted to a steadfast philosophic aim to live in a true spirit or in the purity of authenticity. He became the embodiment of the belief that it is knowledge, not brute force, that is true power.
He created hieroglyphic (sacred) writing and as lord of divine words he preserved all of his knowledge and wisdom in 42 papyrus scrolls that were supposedly transferred onto an emerald tablet for preservation and to symbolize their priceless nature.
According to the Emerald Tablet, the universe is completely saturated with soul. Soul is illuminated by Mind, and Mind is permeated by God. In other words, the universe is one Big Mind of God and we are each a part of that Universal Mind, separated from it only by a false sense of “self.” The concept of “oneness,” or unity of all things, is the core belief and it is God’s Mind that unites everything.
When the Greeks discovered Thoth and his writings they were in awe of him. They identified Thoth with their own god Hermes, the messenger of the gods and guide of souls to the realm of the dead. They gave the “Egyptian Hermes” the title “Trismegistus”, meaning “Thrice-Great” to do justice and honor to his greatness and sublime wisdom.
How many historical figures, ancient or modern, are known as “Great?” Catherine the Great, Alexander the Great and Peter the Great come readily to mind. But how many have earned the title three times great? None, so great was he.
The Egyptian Thoth and the Greek Hermes thus became intermingled and the writings attributed to him became collectively known as the Corpus Hermeticum, or simply the “Hermetica.” The Hermetica became a cornerstone of Western culture; profoundly influencing the Greeks and, when rediscovered in Florence, Italy in the 1400s, helped awaken Europe from the Dark Ages and ignite the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Nicholas Copernicus and William Shakespeare were among those who were inspired and heavily influenced by the Hermetica.
LESSON TWO: LEAD FROM THE FRONT – ALEXANDER THE GREAT
Alexander was the supreme motivator of his men and the ultimate leader as performer. He put himself in harm’s way numerous times as he led his Macedonian army into battle from the front against the greatest army yet assembled in the history of the world, a massive force led by the Persian King Darius. “You couldn’t miss the king. The battle was already a muddle of men and horses in motion yet he was unmistakable…he sat on a huge black steed. Shining in his splendid armor, with tall white plumes affixed on either side of his helmet, Alexander, King of Macedon led the second wave of the Companion Cavalry…galloping across the shallow Granicus River…under the waiting eyes of Persia’s finest horsemen.”2 In his conquest of the known world, he had seven recorded wounds, three critical, and one illness.
“Two Persian brothers zeroed in on Alexander….[They] were both aristocrats. The brothers charged and Spiththridates split Alexander’s helmet with his scimitar and grazed Alexander’s hair. Alexander struck back and drove his wooden lance into Spiththridates’ chest. As Spiththridates’ died, his brother swung his sword at Alexander’s naked head and aimed a deathblow. In the split second before he made contact his arm was sliced off by the deft sword of Cleitus the Black, a Macedonian officer. Alexander was saved.”3
Leading from the front and fighting in the bloody trenches with his men created a fierce and lasting loyalty among his men. This is leading by example. They literally would do anything he asked of them because they knew he never asked them to do what he would not do himself. He led the charge of the cavalry as it crashed into the enemy lines and he was the first over the enemies’ walls. It was his inspired leadership by example that enabled Alexander to conquer the world before he was 33 years old.
More about Alexander later.
LESSON THREE: IT’S UP TO YOU! – MARCUS AURELIUS
The personal meditations of Marcus Aurelius were so powerful and uplifting that his sheaves of notes were probably saved by his friends and admirers, and kept alive by philosophers, Christian theologians and medieval scholars. Although his reign was 120-180 C.E., the Meditations wasn’t published until 1558, and it has been in wide circulation and use ever since.
He wrote his meditations amid bone chilling, dark winter nights as very personal exhortations to himself for his own spiritual enlightenment and development. They were a highly personal, inner dialogue never meant to be shared. In fact, the Greek title for the book was ‘To Himself’.
His 59-year reign was a Golden Age for the Empire. Although he detested war as a disgrace and calamity of human nature, he found himself personally involved in eight winter campaigns against Rome’s enemies.
As Commander-in-chief, he personally defended the frontiers, eschewing the comfort and splendor of Rome to be with his troops. He was constantly occupied with the preservation of the Empire, as barbarians repeatedly tested the vast Roman borders. While at the front, he lived among his men in a tent camped beside the Danube River and he was determined not to return to Rome until the endless campaigns were over and the Empire secure. When he returned, he was hailed a saint for his courage and strength of character.
Devoid of war recollections, he wrote his meditations as a man, not as an emperor or conqueror. He wrote honestly, sincerely, from his heart, trying to understand the chaotic events happening to and around him and put them within context, perspective and the philosophy taught by his teachers. He attempted to reconcile the gore of war with the natural beauty he saw in the world.
He relied on this philosophy to give him strength to sustain him in life and prepare him for his death. His writings ring of truth and wisdom. He wrote with no motive except to try and understand the meaning and purpose of existence. His guiding leadership principle was self reliance and self mastery, “It’s up to you!”4 He assumed personal responsibility for whatever situation he found himself.
He wrote poetry amidst the horror of war: “Fly with the stars in their courses, and swim among the ever-changing elements in their fluid transmutations. Imaginings like these will wash away the filth and grime of this earthbound existence.”5
He trained himself to live in the moment, not past or future: “We live only in the present, in this fleet-footed moment. The rest is lost and behind us, or ahead of us and may never be found”.6
Attitude was everything to Marcus Aurelius: “Your mind is colored by the thoughts it feeds upon, for the mind is dyed by ideas and imaginings.”7 Thoughts to him were living things, and actions the blossoms of thoughts. Actions spring from the thoughts we plant in the garden of life. We see this everywhere in everyday life. If we get up in the morning in a bad mood, thinking negative thoughts, chances are we will have a bad day and people will avoid contact with us because they sense the negativity around us. Conversely, if we rise in a positive, joyful frame of mind, we are likely to encourage people to have contact with us and help us get things done. We are the end product of our thoughts and actions taken as a result of those thoughts. Thoughts lead to actions and positive thoughts lead to positive actions.
He believed in humility, character and honor: “Don’t be a Caesar drunk with power and self-importance: it happens all too easily. Keep yourself simple, good, pure, sincere, natural, just god-fearing, kind, affectionate, and devoted to your duty. Strive to be the man your training in philosophy prepared you to be. Fear God; serve mankind. Life is short; the only good fruit to be harvested in this earthly realm requires a pious disposition and charitable behavior. To live each day as if it were your last without speeding up or slowing down or pretending to be other than what you are–this is perfection of character.”8
There is a great deal to be learned about leadership and personal development from this philosopher Emperor.
LESSON FOUR: BE VIRTUOUS AND ETHICAL IN ALL THINGS – CONFUCIUS
The Analects (“Selected Sayings”), or Amorphisms of Confucius, is among the most influential books in history. In fact, Will Durant, in his book The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time listed Confucius as the greatest thinker of all time. The Analects is a sourcebook for governing nations and managing enterprises for dealing with society and friends, for maintaining family and mastering oneself. Unfortunately, Confucius’ name is better known than taught today. He worked for cultural revitalization as means of cultivating human feelings. Confucius taught four things: culture, conduct, loyalty, and faith.
Confucius said to a pupil, “Do you think I have come to know many things by studying them?” The pupil said, “Yes, isn’t it so?” Confucius said, “I was not born knowing anything, I was fond of the ancient and sought it keenly.”9 In other words, he did what we are doing now, learning from the past as a guide to the future.
Confucius said, “Heaven gave birth to virtue in me; what can opponents do to me?”10 If you live an ethical and virtuous life no one can harm you. You become bullet proof! Being ethical makes a person strong – it becomes an armor and shield against enemies.
Confucius taught that everything we do matters. He taught that whatever we have done in our lives makes us what we are when we die. And everything, absolutely everything, counts. He believed that here is an ultimate accounting at some point, a great reconciliation, a personal karma and business karma.
LESSON FIVE: STAY BALANCED AND IN HARMONY WITH ALL THINGS – LAO TZU
A contemporary of Buddha and Confucius, Lao Tzu meant “Old Master”. He wrote down his eighty-one Amorphisms, which became the famed Tao Te Ching, the basic teachings of Taoism. He taught that it is possible to become completely natural and spontaneously act well from a deep innate goodness.
He was appointed Keeper of the Imperial Archives by the King of Zhou in Luoyang. He studied the archive’s books avidly and his insight grew. Again, he studied ancient wisdom, and himself became wise.
Tao means “way” or “road” in Chinese and Taoism is “The Way” – the spiritual path. Tao is the way things are; the way life works; the harmony of life; the natural processes of becoming. Taoism is sometimes called the way of water, because it teaches us not to resist life, but, like water, flow around obstacles. Do not fight life. Resistance = unhappiness. Follow your bliss, as Joseph Campbell would say.
Lao Tzu advised: “Shut up! Look inside! Soften your sharp edges. Simplify your thoughts. Follow your own light. Be ordinary.
Then you will see for yourself that you are part of the Whole.”11 The Tao Yin-Yang motif is the dramatic Tao symbol of life. It represents the resolution of all opposites and the reconciliation of all paradoxes. Taoists aim to become part of the natural flow of the universe and urged to surrender to the cycle of things and transcend separate identities.
LESSON SIX: HAVE A VISION AND STAY TRUE TO IT – AKHENATEN
A leader must have vision, whether it be over the battlefield, matters of state, or beyond. It was clarity of vision that allowed Akhenaten, pharaoh of Egypt, to see one true god amid many impersonators. Egypt had a millennia-old worship of a pantheon of gods before Akhenaten became pharaoh. Their religion had literally thousands of gods. But Akhenaten saw and believed in just one, a god of pure, radiating light. Thirteen-hundred years before Christ, this Egyptian heretic pharaoh, his vision most unusual for his time, gave birth to the modern concept of monotheism, of one God.
Akhenaten, born to rule as Amenhotep IV, was a religious visionary who sought to overthrow and revolutionize centuries of polytheistic accretion of Egyptian religion. After a time, there grew to be so many gods, and so many aspects of the many gods, that they often contradicted each other and intense rivalries broke out among the many cults and groups of followers. In addition, the official Egyptian state religion of Amun (the “Hidden”) had become quite a complex and extremely lucrative business as the centuries passed, losing the vision that could have united everyone.
Akhenten saw the popular deities as rigid, isolated and limited, devoid of true divine inspiration. He was gifted with the unique vision that all divine principle is birthed from a single godseed.
While Akhenaten did not believe that God, his Aten, could be adequately drawn or depicted, his mind’s eye saw Aten as the dazzling sun disc, radiating brilliant rays of light, each terminating in a human hand as if to reach out and physically touch humankind. He did not worship the solar disc itself as an object but rather a divine power immanent in the rays of the sun. The solar disc was but a symbolic representation of God and the rays His blessings. Alas, Akhenaten, like many visionaries, was far ahead of his time and he found himself virtually alone in his devotion to Aten, and his vision nearly died with him after a tumultuous seventeen-year reign. While many of the splendid images survived the numerous attempts to blot Akhenaten and his one god from the historical record, the old religious order was restored with the new pharaoh, Akhenaten’s own adolescent son (by his wife Tiye) Tutankhamen, King Tut.
Akhenaten introduced what is known as the “Armana Period” in Egyptian history in about 1350 BC. It was an age of enhanced creativity and beauty. He wrote the magnificent Great Hymn to Aten – one of the classics of poetry to survive from the pre-Homeric world. His hymn is a forerunner of our Bible, written hundreds of years before the Bible was written during the Babylonia captivity.
Akhenaten’s Great Wife was the lovely and iconic Nefertiti. Nefertiti literally means “The Beautiful One Has Come.” She was immortalized in the bust now on display in the Berlin Museum.
A mere one hundred years after Akhenaten’s death, another man appeared to champion the vision of one God; his name was Moses. Interestingly, Sigmund Freud believed Akhenaten and Moses to be the same person.
LESSON SEVEN: NEVER STOP ASKING QUESTIONS – SOCRATES
From Socrates we inherited the Socratic Method – a form of pure, relentless inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and illuminate ideas. Socrates believed that truth was immanent in the world and men, to be drawn out through reasoned questioning. He saw himself as a midwife who delivered truth and not a depository of wisdom. He urged people to periodically question their aims and motives and the beliefs that underpin them. His interrogation method was aimed at the most general kinds of truth, the “bigger picture”.
He believed in the theory of recollection: each person contains all that is known as memory and it is the teacher’s job to assist the student in bringing out the truth that is embedded in memory. If the teacher asks the right questions and puts them to the student in the right way, the student will answer correctly and remember. In other words, we already know the truth, we just need to ask the right questions to bring it to out.
The Socratic Method is the main weapon in a lawyer’s arsenal and we all have it hammered into us in our law schools. By constantly asking questions, we don’t become complacent or comfortable. Creativity and ingenuity spring from asking questions and change comes from questioning everything. An inquisitive mind is a sharp tool. Scott Peck, in his book The Road Less Traveled,12 wrote “the path to holiness lies through questioning everything.” I would modify this great quote slightly, “the path to holiness, wisdom and understanding lies through questioning everything.”
LESSON EIGHT: TOLTEC WISDOM
Like Troy, mythic Tula, the great ancient capital of the Toltec civilization in central Mexico, has evolved into a fabled story book city, shrouded in its own halcyon haze mixture of truth, myth, fairy tale and legend spiced with a dash of magic. Don Miguel Ruiz wrote a little book he entitled the Four Agreements with a big message. In this book, he set down the esoteric traditions of the naguals or Toltec masters to save them from obscurity and preserve their knowledge for future generations. Although Tula was the legendary birthplace of the righteous god Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent, Toltec wisdom was not so much an ancient religion but a way of life Tula, which is located about 90 minutes north of Mexico City.
A. BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD
The first and most important agreement, be impeccable with your word, may also be the hardest to honor. Through our word we express our creative power. Through words we manifest everything. Impeccability means “without sin” which means to go against ourselves.
When we are impeccable we take responsibility for our own actions. Self-rejection is the biggest sin we can commit. Gossip is “black magic” and pure poison but it has become the modern way of communicating.
So speak with integrity and say only what you mean, using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
B. DON’T TAKE THINGS PERSONALLY
By taking things personally we set ourselves up to suffer for nothing, and we won’t be hurt by what others say, do or think of us. In this way, we will avoid many upsets and disappointments. So don’t put trust in what others do or say, be responsible only for your own actions.
Anger, jealousy, envy disappear when you don’t take yourself too seriously. The reality is that nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
C. DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS
The problem with making assumptions is that we think they are the truth. When we make assumptions we are asking for problems because we misunderstand, take things personally and misinterpret. When we do we are creating a drama for nothing.
The way to avoid assumptions is to ask questions and communicate clearly. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
D. ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST
When we do our best we accept ourselves, we practice and learn from our own mistakes. It’s not work when we do our best because we are enjoying what we are doing. Action is living fully. Inaction is denial, death.
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
LESSON NINE: NEVER GIVE UP BUT KNOW WHEN TO QUIT – ALEXANDER, HANNIBAL, CAESAR
Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar were master conquerors, not master statesmen. Three great men, one pattern: a life of great accomplishments on the battlefield but true statecraft eluded them off the field of combat. Conquerors march forward until they and their men drop from exhaustion or die. Statesmen know when to stop.
Alexander
When Alexander returned to Babylon from India, he had conquered an empire spanning 2 million miles and 3,000 miles across from Greece to India. It included dozens of different peoples and languages.
He was unequaled at conquering huge chunks of territory but not so good at governing them. An administrator and manager he was not. He couldn’t hold his empire together and at his death at a mere month shy of 33 years, it disintegrated into fragments, divided among his ambitious and greedy Macedonian generals.
At one of his many parties while preparing for yet another war to conquer the Arabian peninsula, he came down with a fever on May 31, 323 BC. He never recovered and 11 days later he died on June 10. The Book of Daniel recorded that “the great horn is broken”, a reference to the unexpected shock of his untimely death at such a young age.
One minute he was the all-victorious conqueror and then he was suddenly gone from history’s stage. But he is far from forgotten.
Hannibal
During the Second Punic War, after fifteen years of fighting the Romans up and down the boot of Italy and winning a great victory at Cannae but never ultimately defeating Rome, Hannibal was recalled home to Carthage in 203 BC. A year earlier, the Roman General Scipio had invaded Carthage’s empire in West Africa while Hannibal was busy in Italy and brought Carthage to its knees. Carthage accepted and but then rejected peace with the Romans, choosing to put their faith in their great general and recalling him to Carthage to fight Scipio on their home ground. But Hannibal had stayed too long in Italy and his army was exhausted and worn out by the time it arrived to defend its own homeland. Carthage could have had peace but didn’t know when to stop. Scipio was a great general and in the fifteen years of fighting he had studied Hannibal’s tactics, mastered them and ultimately used those same tactics to defeat him at the battle of Zama.
Caesar
We all know what happened to him on the Ides of March in 44 B.C.
CONCLUSION
We have journeyed across time through the ancient world to the present. Yet, we have but scratched the surface of the lessons the great leaders of the past have to teach us in our own time of troubles. The truth is that our modern technology hasn’t made us safer, happier or wiser. We must admit that we don’t know everything and we still have much to learn.
As we’ve seen, few have faced more difficult circumstances than Marcus Aurelius. He regarded the many obstacles he faced as opportunities for creative problem solving. He refused to let calamities get the best of him, meeting them head on with dignity, style and grace, adhering to the maxim, “Face the stormy winds that blow from God with steady oars and uncomplaining hearts.”13 Now, as Marcus would say, “It’s up to you!”

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