Leaders mistakenly assume obedience among their own group must be automatic

Evidence

For the belief is common that obedience must be automatic, once it is a question of the same group; and that not only must it come about without any demonstration of necessity or rationality being needed, but it must be unquestioning. (Some believe, and what is worse act in the belief, that obedience “will come” without being solicited, without the path which has to be followed being pointed out.) Thus it is difficult to cure leaders completely of “Cadornism” 184 or the conviction that a thing will be done because the leader considers it just and reasonable that it should be done: if it is not done, the blame is put on those who “ought to have …”, etc. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 654

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘Cadornism’ — the fatal leadership assumption that a thing will be done merely because the leader deems it right.
• XREF: Cadornism as leaderly self-deception echoes how Gramsci later distinguishes ‘domination’ from ‘hegemony’ — consent within a group must be actively won, not presumed.