7 Habits of Highly Productive Sith Lords
Say whatever you want to say about the Dark Side of the Force, their leaders know how to get shit done.
Think about it, we’re talking about an inner circle of no larger than two people at a time, and one of those is trying to kill the other to take over their position. Every book on leadership will tell you an enterprise will only be as successful as its leader, and those leaders need support. A community. A network of competent peers to bounce ideas off of. Preferably a network that doesn’t consistently murder the leadership for kicks.
Yet Sith Lords thrive in an environment that would end most startups before they’re even self aware enough to yell “Pivot!”.
Here are 7 habits that will help you be as effective as Sith Lords.
Knowledge
Knowing the playing field better than the other guy is half the battle. Emperor Palpatine manipulated, played, and eventually eliminated the entire Jedi Order by staying one step ahead of the game. By controlling the narrative and injecting yourself in a position of power you can wield your own opponent as a weapon. Arrogance, like the one that would blind and eventually bring the downfall of the Jedi Order, is easy to identify and easier to exploit.
Delegation
While Sith Lords can take over a galaxy with an upper management workforce of two, they rely on effective and capable specialists to carry out their orders. Tarkin is a perfect example of what an ambitious specialist can do with the right leadership. Sure, the Death Star was ultimately destroyed by a bunch of galactic Antifa terrorists, but Tarkin ended his run having finished, deployed and tested his product. That counts as a success in any product development cycle.
Personal Branding
One of the strongest skills in the Sith toolset is their ability to stay on message and project it that way. Case in point, they all use red lightsabers. Jedi promote a confusing message by having individuality mixed in with dogmatism. The Sith don’t have this problem. Every single one switches to a red lightsaber at their earliest convenience. They stay on target, they stay on message, they announce to the world that yes, they want to look like a team here and their colors are red and black.
It sends a powerful message when you see someone light up a red saber. You know exactly what they’re about. There’s no confusion like with off brand purple sabers.
Spirituality
Sith Lords commune with The Force with the best of them. Their dedication to it is what gives them their powers. The Dark Side of the Force has been called “easy” by many, mostly cause it needs to sound cheap. But in reality, the mangled bodies and scars that the Dark Side of the Force leaves on successful Sith Lords is a testament that it is anything but a shortcut. Sith Lords know where their power lay and work daily at furthering their connection to the Force.
Patience
While quick to anger, a successful Sith Lord will also wield a powerful sense of patience. Taking over the Galaxy takes a massive level of planning. With goals as lofty as those, it could take a lifetime, or possibly even two to achieve everything the successful Sith Lord has set out to do. Some people call it cold and calculating, but in reality it’s nothing more than a good eye for business. Strike when the iron is hot, but also strike when the iron is looking in the other direction.
A good Sith Lord knows to wait for an opening.
Loyalty
A successful Sith Lord inspires loyalty. Mostly through fear, certainly, but also through awesome displays of power. If the guy signing your checks also shoots lightning bolts from his fingers, you get results. There are always opportunities for promotions under the command of a Sith Lord, mostly cause high level positions tend to have a heavy rotation. You might have to step on a few bodies to see your loyalty rewarded, but hey you didn’t kill them in the first place.
Actually, after watching your senior officer choke to death all by himself, you’re not entirely sure what did kill him.
Drive
Sith Lords have clear goals. Plans. Allies that are privy to certain parts of these plans. Milestones are clearly defined and if Death Stars need to be bigger and built faster, they know exactly who to hire. Sith Lords are an unstoppable managerial workforce and they take great pride in following your career with great interest.
When things go wrong, they adapt, they pivot, they murder an apprentice. What matters is the end goal, and the project plan must be strictly followed to achieve this.
In conclusion, there’s a lot to learn from people who are able to build Empires that inspire entire planets. If you take a moment to think past the progressive agenda and fake news coming out of the Rebel propaganda machine, you’ll find there is a lot more to the Dark Side of the Force.
It’s a challenging environment. But Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Neither was the Galactic Empire.
