Plato and Modern Leadership Models

This chapter looks at the relation between Plato’s models and modern leadership approaches. Unlike many recent theorists, Plato avoids trying to find a single definition, but seeks to isolate the different strands in the complex phenomenon of leadership. In this way, his approach anticipates Wittgenstein’s idea of ‘family resemblances’: leadership is not treated as a simple ‘universal’, but a complex with several overlapping strands. Another feature of Plato’s approach is the importance of ethics to leadership. To compare Platonic and modern approaches to leadership more specifically, this chapter looks at four recent theories, and shows that each one has close affinities with one or more of Plato’s models: Burns’ ‘transformational’ leadership resembles the artist and the navigator; Collins’ ‘Level 5’ leadership the weaver; Greenleaf’s ‘servant’ leadership the doctor and teacher; Gardner’s ‘thought’ leadership (in his book, Leading Minds) the sower.