Napoleon - The Greatest Manipulator in History and What We Can Learn from Him

There's a famous painting of Napoleon Bonaparte hanging in the Palace of Versailles in France. If you saw it, you might even recognize it. It's not the one of Napoleon looking heroic on a rearing horse or the one where his hand is tucked weirdly in his jacket. This painting is of a young Napoleon, the thin and sharp-chined Napoleon in an oppressed military uniform. It depicts him with wispy, platinum hair and a saber as he waves a French flag with smoke in the background. Other similar paintings depict him crossing a bridge with his flag or standing triumphantly on the bridge as Austrian soldiers flee before him. These are National symbols of victory and pride of French bravery and dominance.

However, most of these paintings are baloney. Nonsense, made up, and complete bull, and aggrandized.

Napoleon was at the battle you see in the paintings, the Battle of Arcole in 1796. But he never touched the flag and never even came close to it, according to historian Philip Dwyer, author of Citizen Emperor. Quoting the biography, “Napoleon is portrayed on a bridge with the flag, but he didn't get within 60 meters of it. In fact, at one stage, he was pushed or rather blown into a ditch. Faced down in the water, he had to be saved by his grenadiers. If it weren't for them, he may well have drowned.”

You see, the Battle of Arcole was part of a more extensive siege, the siege of Mantua and the siege of Mantua was part of a larger campaign to kick Austria and England out of Northern Italy. It was during that campaign, in March of 1796, when Napoleon was first promoted to Commander and given command of the whole French army in Italy: a sick, weak, crumbling army, with a brand-new commander.

And then the Battle of Arcole happened, and against ridiculous odds, Napoleon managed to hold his own at a little bridge for three days. Then he sent to Austrian generals fleeing with their tails between their legs. But here's the critical part; right after the battle, the newly promoted Commander, Napoleon, rushed back to Milan, and he commissioned a painting from a famous artist named Baron Antoine Jean Gros. It's a painting that puts Napoleon himself in the center of the action, holding the flag that was dropped at the bridge in Arcole. Because as much as Napoleon was France's greatest military genius, he might secretly have been history's greatest manipulator. He was a military genius we can admire, but the manipulator? That's someone we could learn from.

Every one of us knows a manipulator. It's a salesman who makes us feel like he's doing us a favor, giving you the friends and family discount for an overpriced laptop. It's a co-worker who uses kids as an excuse to duck out late every day, and it's a politician who paints himself as a hero of the people so he can pass bills that favor his interest. Put merely, manipulation using fear, guilt, or a sense of obligation is the ability to get something without directly asking for it. Today, we want to know how to spot a manipulator and where they learn their best tactics from. So, we're starting with a few myths about manipulators.

Myth 1: Good manipulators are subtle. So how do we spot a manipulator? And how do we know when they're manipulating us?

We will go through a Time Magazine article and their take on manipulation, and it breaks down how manipulation works and what side people land on. To start, we will define manipulation. Manipulation is an emotionally unhealthy psychological strategy used by people who are incapable of asking what they want in a direct way. After reading this article, I realized that asking for what you want separates a manipulator. For example, if I were a manipulator, I would say, "this episode will never get done while I'm away," and then I would discretely guilt you into doing it. Manipulators don't feel like they can ask for something because it's too big, so they get someone to do it for them. The article goes on to say that when somebody is manipulating you, you are being psychologically coerced into doing something. You probably really don't want to do it but may feel scared, obligated, or guilty about not doing it.

Now, there are two common types of manipulators: the bully and the victim. The bully makes you feel fearful, and they use aggression and threats to control you. The victim usually acts hurt. They play the victim, but the reality is they are actually causing the problem. However, they make you feel bad for that problem existing. Overall, an excellent way to spot a manipulator is to observe how they treat other people. According to this same article, manipulative tactics work because they abuse social norms. It's normal for us to reciprocate favors. But even when someone does one insincerely, we still feel compelled to reciprocate.

Side Note: Have you ever heard about the study involving babies and how much of a sense of justice they start out with? They would show babies shapes that were on a hillside, and one shape would push another shape, like a red ball would push a yellow triangle down the hill. Then they showed them the other shape getting revenge, and the babies would laugh. That's indicating we understand justice early on.

Moving on, the Times article goes on to say that manipulators trying one of these two tactics:

1.    Using the foot in the door technique in which somebody starts a small and reasonable request, making it hard to say no. Then they will later ask you for something bigger because you already helped them before. This is commonly used in street scams.

2.    The door in the face technique, which means somebody makes a big request, and you naturally reject it. They then make a smaller one (the one they really want), enticing you to say yes.

Branching out a bit, do you remember that movie 'Catch Me If You Can' with Leonardo DiCaprio? His name is Frank, Abigail, and this guy was a colossal con artist, but he isn't this slick, smooth talker. This guy was very vanilla; even his voice was really dull. He started with little stuff like shoplifting and writing bad checks. He then got a little bit more seasoned. All his warrants caught up with him. He was in prison for quite a long time, and then the feds cut him a deal to release him from prison, which I think he manipulated them to make this deal because this was never done before.

Now, Frank said two things go into every single manipulation scam. It doesn't matter if it's a five-million-dollar scam or a fifty-dollar scam. These are the two things I want everyone to hear. The first one the need for money (urgency) right now and if they want any of your personal information. They also tend to ask a lot of questions as well. Furthermore, we usually assume that a good manipulator will make us feel good, but oftentimes it's a skilled manipulator who will raise their voice or use strong body language to show they're upset. They may even give you the silent treatment. They will deliberately stop responding to make you feel bad enough so you do what they want.

Myth 2: How do some people get so good at manipulation? It's not like there's a well-known, best-selling book that allows them to hone their manipulation skills, is there?

What if we actually want to become manipulators? I looked into an article called the Dark Side of Emotional Intelligence. I found through this article that emotional intelligence is hugely vital for manipulation on a large-scale. Napoleonic manipulation means understanding the emotional weight that you are conveying to somebody. You have to be very self-aware. The article also mentioned that one of the most influential leaders in the 20th century spent years studying the emotional effects of his body language. He watched his own hand gestures, analyzed his own images, and his movements to become an absolutely spellbinding public speaker, and his name was Adolf Hitler. He worked very hard on the emotional manipulation part of it.

This means by understanding emotional intelligence and how it's used against us can help us diffuse it. If somebody tries to make you feel powerless, even if it's just showing you scary images on the TV, just think about how small that actually is. Realize that they really had to send a cameraman in and capture just the right shot to get that image. They're posing that so that you can feel fear. The second way manipulators operate is deception. No, duh, but think about it in a different way. If we say we wanted to become good manipulators, we would get better at spreading misinformation without it. For example, managers and employees who purposely spread unconcerned rumors and gossip to gain advantage. They make themselves look more than they really are. The strategy to go against this is simply not believing everything you hear and base your decisions on reputable sources. You should always have that in the back of your mind that somebody could be deceiving you even if you've trusted them and been rewarded for that.

Myth 3: Is it ever okay to manipulate other people? Is gossip inherently manipulative? Is lying?

For this point, we are using a Times Article on why people gossip, and they look through a 20-19 meta-analysis. The research found that 52 minutes a day on average, between 467 subjects went into gossiping. In that 52 minutes a day, only about three quarters were neutral, meaning that three out of four times, that somebody would gossip. It actually wasn't negative. They weren’t trying to roast somebody; it wasn't manipulative. It wasn't trying to get something out of each other. I think this mostly means gossip is actually getting to know each other and establishing social boundaries. Dunbar argues gossip gives humans the ability to spread valuable information over vast social networks that we usually wouldn't have access to.

Research shows that social groups look like chemical bonds. You have clusters and then connectors and then more prominent clusters after that. And if you are a connector, gossiping means you spread information from group to group like a chemical chain. So, we're going to identify what is manipulative gossip. It's when you're not learning anything, and no one is benefiting. So, it’s when people talk about someone being promiscuous, overweight, etc. It's not something they can change, and it's not something anybody benefits from. It's just trying to ostracize somebody.

According to a psychology study, honesty can cause better health. So, lying may keep you more comfortable, but according to this article found that participants could purposefully and dramatically reduce their everyday lives by doing so. In a nutshell, people who don’t feel the need to lie as much generally lead healthier lives. To summarize, gossip isn't inherently negative, and lying is not inherently harmful. Most of it is social calibration and social grooming. But if you decide to lie big, you'll be slightly less healthy.

Final Thoughts

Whether the manipulator of your life is a small fry or the reigning Emperor, it all works the same. Manipulators want to get something out of you by using guilt, fear, or social obligation without directly asking for it. If you knew how much money your sibling really planned to borrow or how many years your new Commander wanted to wage war on your neighbors, you'd tell them to buzz off and drink poison.  

Gossip and lies are not on their own manipulative. In fact, most gossip isn't even negative. It's more of a social calibration tool. Gossip is how social species groom each other. And while lying less may keep us healthy, not all lies are intended to manipulate. Finally, emotional intelligence isn't the sole domain of those seeking self-actualization. Sometimes, emotional intelligence skills are hijacked by master manipulators who use false empathy and social awareness against us.

Emotional intelligence can be a manipulator’s ultimate lever to maneuver us into feeling fear, outrage, or panic. They may pressure us into acting quickly and not asking too many questions, like Napoleon. A manipulative leader will tell you that asking questions is unpatriotic. So, we're here to ensure that you don't have to fall for that manipulation.