Everyone Expects Better
People welcome a new leader because they expect improvement — which means disappointment is built in from day one. Machiavelli opens with why new power is the hardest kind to hold.
The Prince begins with a cold observation: hereditary rulers coast on habit, but a new ruler inherits nothing except expectations. Everyone who helped him rise expects to be better off — and no one can satisfy them all.
“Men change their rulers willingly, hoping to better themselves, and this hope induces them to take up arms against him who rules: wherein they are deceived, because they afterwards find by experience they have gone from bad to worse.”
The new ruler is doubly bound, Machiavelli notes: he cannot fully reward the allies who raised him, yet he cannot act against them either, because he owes them. Meanwhile, everyone displaced by his arrival is watching for a stumble.
The lesson is not cynicism but arithmetic: goodwill at the start of any new role is a loan against expected improvement, not a gift. Repay it quickly, or it converts to resentment.
Survive your honeymoon
Map the expectations you inherited
In any new role, list who supported your arrival and what each of them privately expects to gain. Unspoken expectations are the ones that curdle.
- Who backed this change, and what do they expect from it?
- Who lost ground, and what are they watching for?
Deliver a visible improvement early
The welcome is a loan with a short term. Pick one improvement people actually feel — not a reorganization they must endure — and ship it in your first months.
Don't mistake the welcome for loyalty
Early warmth measures hope, not commitment. Build real alliances deliberately — through delivered value — before you spend political capital you only appear to have.
The welcome a new leader receives is a measure of hope, not of loyalty — and hope expires.