attack by fire, and the use of smoke’’ (Griffith, 1971 : 34–35). In
summary, the armies of the Chinese Warring States were large organi-
zations with the emergence of professional generals, similar to the
development of large business corporations with the emergence of
professional managers in the West as described in the scientific man-
agement literature. Such organizational characteristics allowed Sunzi
to develop a science (or art) of warfare and a theory of leadership and
administration, which we will elaborate later in this chapter.
The third significant development of the Warring States Period was
the existence of the divergent philosophies that Sunzi was able to draw
upon in developing his theory of strategy and leadership. The ultimate
objective of the policies of the powerful states was an empire and,
to gain competitive advantage in accomplishing that goal, the state
kings encouraged scholars of different schools of thought to provide
counsel on military and war strategies, which were an integral part
of the power politics of the time. The schools of thought that had
most impact on Sunzi and his writings in theArt of warseem to be
primarily Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism. We refer the reader
toChapters 1and 2 of this book for Confucianism,Chapter 3for
Daoism, andChapter 4for Legalism. Here it suffices to say that Sunzi
drew upon Confucianist thoughts on benevolence, righteousness,
ritual propriety, and wisdom. These concepts are used in theArt of
warto define, evaluate, and guide leadership, strategy, and tactics.
Among the Daoist ideas that have the greatest impact on Sunzi’s
strategic leadership theory are the dialectic relationship between the
contradictory forces ofyinand yang, and the significance of the
five basic natural elements of water, fire, wood, metal, and earth in
warfare. The Legalist ideas of law (fa), authority (shi), and tactics
(shu) were also key concepts used by Sunzi in discussing leadership
strategies and tactics.
The themes of theArt of war
Although many of Sunzi’s sayings have been widely popularized in the
West as well as in China, they tend to be quoted out of the context of
the complete work. Here we attempt first to conduct a content analy-
sis of the book to abstract the themes of each of the thirteen chapters
that make up the book. Our analysis is conducted on the original
ancient Chinese version of theArt of waras edited by Wu, Wu, and
Strategic leadership of Sunzi in theArt of war 145