#20
“Be feared” is the single most fundamental, most enduring principle by which every leader must live. There is no more reliable way of obtaining the obedience of your peons.
#19
Humility is a wonderful quality in a peon. Humility correlates strongly with timidity, and timidity with that most precious of all peon qualities: compliance.
#18
These days it is vitally important for leaders to know how their peons feel. If you don’t understand their feelings, how will you ever manipulate their feelings?
#17
It is pointless calling out a peon’s trivial mistakes and flaws. They are generally not actionable in this form. Instead, save them up so you can unleash them all at once. “Shock and awe.”
#16
There is no statute of limitations or double jeopardy in the workplace. Your peon’s missteps and mistakes from the distant past can be brought up time and time again to remind them of their failures.
#15
If peons are in conflict, always always ALWAYS pick a side, but never explicitly say so. Just make sure that one party’s suggestions and initiatives always succeed, and the other party’s never do. Divide and rule.
#14
Inventing some new title that a peon can put on a business card is a very cheap way to buy some loyalty and goodwill. The same goes for “Peon of the Month” awards and all such invented honors.
#13
When a peon complains about being overloaded, increase the frequency of how often they must report their progress. So that you can see where they need “help” of course! They won’t complain again!
#12
Look into complaints against peons very thoroughly. Let investigations take a long time and be as secretive as possible. The eventual finding is irrelevant; the sense of dread and suspicion will break almost anybody.
#11
Active listening is a powerful skill. Paraphrase the peon’s points back to them, then follow with “…but I’m not convinced that’s quite correct.” Show them that you disbelieve them, not that you’ve misunderstood them.