Machiavellian pragmatism, based on instrumental rationality, an avoidance of speculation and an eschewing of idealism. This kind of realism is unstable, though, because the more effective an elite is in acquiring and consolidating power, the more they're liable to be corrupted by it, so they'll descend into narcissism, for example, and thus subject themselves to a special type of self-serving delusion. You see this in dictatorships, for example, in which a dictator like Saddam Hussein or Putin is surrounded by sycophants, so they end up living in dream worlds, whereas they had to be Machiavellian in their ascent to power.