The magician's supremacy

On August 08, 2010, in Leadership impact, by Neculai Fantanaru

Impose to people your ideas and beliefs, without creating a disharmony between the root-model of your leadership and the model of leadership that you want to highlight.

The emotion felt that night can never be erased from my memory. I was scared in that dark chamber; I felt a fear of death inside me. On the stage, through the gray smoke, you could only see the magician's silhouette, dressed in a black robe. When I took a better look at him, I saw he was wearing a mask that only covered half of his face, black as well – a mask of anguish or joy, which was haunted indiscriminately either by smiles, grins of pain, intense joy, either by a wave of melancholy – faces created by his own emotions, his own free will, his own laws.

An undeniable superiority

I tried to see his eyes through the mask, that mask of appearance. I could argue with anyone who would have said that his face was happy, sad or angry. Everything realistic and rational about him was overshadowed, deliberately hidden. He was the king of the show, the meeting point of all mysteries, and the mask helped him conceal reality. I was convinced that it was something fictional, that he created his own unreal world. I could look at him, but I could not guess his thoughts.

At a certain moment, the magician uttered aloud, on a firm, stern tone, some strange, obscure words. I was listening. The voice spoke very rarely, but his mysterious words, through the silence, stirred me harder than all the rest. Through the multitude of words he uttered, some sounded louder; then I felt that the room became even darker. He spoke like a judge of the highest authority who, without justifying his sentence, condemned to death those who have violated the laws of existence, and perhaps even like a madman who boldly put into his head to change these laws.

Alone at the helm of his own show

His figure constantly kept coming back under various looks. In every show, another mask, another role, another scenario. He sometimes wanted to look happy, sometimes sad, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, but, most of the times, terrifying. I remember that, at the beginning of that show, in order to cause the feeling of fear, he created a shocking and terrifying “picture”, recalling the frightful way in which Jupiter shot down the titans rebelled against his rule, crushing them under the mountains. Then, he did his relatively scary trick, the one with the knives.

A single face, a single way of thinking

Nevertheless, what was actually hiding under his masks, what seemed to be a fake identity, was nothing but a disguised ambition, heading towards higher interests, known only by him. And for this, he applied a single way of thinking, the same in each show. Where can I win? Where can I lose? What are the best tricks and what are the weakest? What more does the public want? Like any true magician, he had his own testing and control tool, which helped him clearly and measurably improve his results.

The fantastic rise of a leader

In order to increase your power of influence, you must be, in some respects, a magician, to create your own magic show, which you should lead mostly by yourself. You must own that force which influences people; to create a bridge between your soul and theirs, a bridge between fantasy and reality, a bridge through which you can always win them by your side. The ability to masterly project your beliefs and wishes to those around you is crucial in your success as a leader.

Even so, people must see in order to believe. If you appear under several identities in the show you are performing, people will never know what to believe. Always assuming a new expression, a new physiognomy, a new identity in order to appear what you want in the eyes of others and be believed will not bring you success in leadership, at least not for a long time. The mask you are wearing represents the face that you are showing to the world at any moment. If you show to people an inappropriate face or one that does not meet their wishes, they will no longer be able to distinguish the unreal from the real, yet more the unreal will begin to seem more real to them.

Just as the duty of an arbitrator is to require compliance with the regulation in his letter and spirit, so it is up to your duty to require from people specific ideas and beliefs in your letter and spirit, without creating a disharmony between the root-model of your leadership and the model of leadership that you want to highlight.

Conclusion: The supremacy of the leader is similar to the one of a skilled magician, wearing “the appropriate mask” in the appropriate situations. However, this does not mean playing and creating transitory illusions because, in the best case, you will not be credible, and in the worst, you will be considered a shammer, which will be immediately removed from his position as a leader or even from within the collective.

Do you put the appropriate mask in the appropriate circumstances? Are they providing to you a more power of influence? Do you have the power to inspire confidence in people always falsifying the reality? Are you willing to pay the price of the art to lead, always highlighting your true character? Are you a master on all and above all only when you have all the aces in your sleeve?

Are you continuously striving to improve yourself and to you use your full potential of an empathic person who always communicates his feelings? Or you have self-disciplined yourself to influence people through the lack of empathy, hiding your true nature?