What Machiavelli Wanted Us to Understand: The Human Psychology Beneath Power

What The Prince Reveals About Leadership, Psychology, and the Parts of Ourselves We Don’t Always See

Most people hear the name Machiavelli and think of manipulation, ruthlessness, or some shadowy blueprint for domination. But the truth is quieter, far more human, and—ironically—much more relatable. When Machiavelli wrote The Prince, he wasn’t sitting in a stone cell plotting world domination. He had already endured imprisonment, torture, and humiliation at the hands of the political powers in Florence. And when he was released, he returned not to influence or prestige, but to a small farmhouse outside the city—exiled, forgotten, and stripped of the identity that once anchored him.

It was in that exile that he wrote The Prince.
Not as a manifesto.
Not as a villain’s playbook.
But as a man trying to get his life back.

And that, to me, is where the story becomes psychologically profound.

When your identity is taken from you, you start writing your way back to yourself

Machiavelli spent his entire adulthood in public service. Politics was his arena, his identity, his purpose. When the Medici returned to power and accused him of conspiracy, everything he believed himself to be collapsed. So he did what many of us do when we lose the ground beneath our feet: He tried to reintroduce himself to the world. The Prince was, in many ways, a résumé disguised as political theory.
A plea.
A demonstration of usefulness.
A way of saying, “I still matter. Let me back in.”

I work with leaders who experience this same rupture in modern forms—job loss, team reorganization, betrayal within a company, a demotion, or a sudden shift in power that leaves them scrambling to remember who they are.

Identity doesn’t unravel quietly.
It shakes you.
It exposes you.
It forces you to confront the parts of yourself that were braided too tightlywith external validation.

Machiavelli’s exile reminds us:
When we lose our role, our title, or our power… we meet ourselves again.

Machiavelli wasn’t teaching cruelty. He was teaching realism.

What made The Prince revolutionary wasn’t its “harshness,” but its honesty about human nature. He observed something most people avoid admitting: People act from self-interest more than virtue. Not because they’re bad—because they’re human. This is not cynicism; it’s a matter of psychological awareness.

In therapy and executive coaching, I see the same patterns:

• Teams don’t follow leaders simply because they “should.”
• Trust isn’t built through charm; it’s built through consistency.
• Boundaries aren’t oppressive; they’re stabilizing.
• Leaders who avoid conflict dissolve their own authority.
• Love without structure creates chaos—whether in marriages or organizations.

Machiavelli translated human behavior into political language. I translate it into relational, emotional, and organizational language.But the truth underneath is the same: People reveal themselves in their needs long before their intentions.

“Better to be feared than loved” is actually about boundaries

We love quoting this line out of context. But Machiavelli never said to choose cruelty.
He said: If you must choose, choose to be respected—because love without boundaries collapses.

This is true everywhere:

• In romantic relationships
• In parenting
• In leadership
• In therapy
• In friendship
• In negotiation

Love creates connection.
Boundaries create safety.

Without both, nothing stable is built.

This is why so many executives, couples, and parents find themselves overwhelmed—they rely on warmth without accountability or accountability without warmth.

One creates chaos.
The other creates fear.

The balance creates trust.

A leader’s downfall is always self-deception

Machiavelli warned repeatedly:

Leaders fall not because the world changes, but because they refuse to.

That line could be a psychodynamic thesis

Every leader I work with struggles, at some point, with:

• Blind spots
• Ego defenses
• Wishful thinking
• Old survival patterns shaping new decisions
• Emotional reactions masquerading as strategy
• The illusion that confidence replaces self-awareness

We all live with the tug-of-war between who we believe ourselves to be and who we actually are under pressure.

Machiavelli wasn’t shaming leaders—he was reminding them that reality doesn’t bend to our fantasies.

In my world, this becomes:

If you don’t understand your inner world, your outer world will expose it for you.

Image matters—but not the way we think

“Appear virtuous,” he wrote, “even when you cannot be.”

This is not about faking goodness.
It’s about understanding that leadership is relational.

Your presence matters.
Your communication matters.
Your emotional self-awareness matters.
Your predictability matters.

People need to know who they’re following.
They need a sense of stability, even when you are internally navigating complexity.

In therapy and executive consulting, we call this:

• Executive presence
• Consistent emotional signaling
• Thoughtful self-disclosure
• Reading the emotional climate
• Managing how your inner world affects     your outer leadership

Machiavelli simply used the language of politics.
I use the language of psychology.
But again, we’re pointing to the same truth:

Power is relational.
And relationships are emotional.

The unexpected gift Machiavelli left us

He wrote The Prince to survive.

But what he accidentally created was a timeless manual on

• human behavior under stress
• the psychology of influence
• leadership identity
• emotional realism
• strategic communication
• boundaries
• vulnerability
• self-deception
• and the relational cost of power

Not as a cold, ruthless thinker—but as a man whose life had been stripped down to the bone.

When you understand the humanity behind the book, you read it differently.
Not as a guide for manipulation, but as a mirror for how we move through the world, how we lead, and how we try, often imperfectly, to become someone worth following.

If you’re a leader, a creator, or someone rebuilding after a personal or professional rupture… this is your reminder:

You don’t need your old title to reclaim your power.
You don’t need perfect conditions to define your voice.
And you don’t need anyone’s permission to write your way back to yourself.

Just start with what you already know.
That’s what Machiavelli did.

And history remembers him not for the power he lost—
but for the truth he dared to write once it was gone.

Ready to deepen your leadership, emotional awareness, or personal growth journey?

Book your complimentary consultation:

👉 www.IliriaTherapy.com

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Reference:

Machiavelli, N. (2003). The prince (G. Bull, Trans.). Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1532)