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1 Contreras
Francisco Contreras
Bus 100w Section 035
Corinne Knight, Akshaya Suresh
March 4, 2019
The version used: Everyman's Library W.K Mariott
Applying Machiavelli’s Leadership Ethics to Adobe Inc.
In a world that possesses such competitiveness within aspiring leaders who wish to take
their organizations above and beyond others around them, we must give importance to
ideologies and observations of those who have been prosperous. In The Prince by Niccolo
Machiavelli, a renowned philosopher and statesman of the Florentine public, we're introduced
to a set of ideologies derived from personal experience and years of observing both success and
failures of those who have been in power. Niccolo Machiavelli provides guidance as an offering
to the Medici family who was in power at the time. Machiavelli originally intended The Prince as
foresight; fitted with valuable insight on past rulings and examples of success to ensure the
betterment of ruling by the Medici. Although ancient ideas, These principles can be applied to
modern organizations allowing them to find great market dominance. Although Adobe Inc.
does not follow every characteristic provided by Machiavelli, the general theme of leadership
can be found throughout Adobes operations allowing them to strive over their competitors and
stay advantageous. Adobe Inc. applies Machiavellian ideologies throughout several segments of
their organization such as team building, research and development, and prowess, allowing
them to keep their position as the most dominant creative software provider on the market.
Niccolo Machiavelli first gives importance to those who surround the prince, as they are
the foundation for prosperous rulings. A prince, as Machiavelli states, must have followers who
will give their full engagement and loyalty in order to ensure efficient practices throughout a
ruling. Machiavelli introduces the concept that a great prince will be recognized immediately by
those who surround him. He explains how a great leader will be considered wise “when [his
followers] are capable because he has known how to recognize the capable…”(Machiavelli XXII).
As for their faithfulness will ultimately be a product of a great leadership represented by the
2 Contreras
prince. In modern applications, most organizations pride themselves on having strong
employees with mindsets and values similar to those of the organization in order to strengthen
operations. The first example of Adobe Inc. implementing leadership ideologies shared with
those of Niccolo Machiavelli is the importance given to the initial team building within the
organization that allows leadership roles to excel. Adobe has become the market leader in the
creative software industry, taking over 60% of the market share, such success would not have
been possible without the dedicated members of the Adobe team. Since the founding of Adobe
Inc., founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke took pride in stating that their “people”(Adobe
Diversity) are their “most important asset”(Adobe diversity). Through this value given to the
