Plato, the Greek philosopher, is
described as one of the most influential
leadership thinkers because he
thought a great deal about leadership.
He develops a structure on the nature
of leadership in an absolute state.
According to Plato,
rulers motivated by
self-interest were not
suitable for leadership.
Plato states that a city
should be governed by
the lovers of the wisdom
or the philosophers.
According to him, only philosophers
acquire the technique and skills
of ruling and only they are
intellectually and morally suited
to lead and govern the states
because they are the only ones who
are able to attain knowledge on
the beauty, goodness and virtue.
Furthermore, they have a
passion for truth and learning.
Philosophy and leadership of Plato
Plato presented a systematic
administrative and
political model to arrange
life in a perfect state.
The idea behind this state is to
educate people to become good.
Thus, this state acts as a
moral function in people’s life.
Plato proposed that a state
is like the body of a human
being where part acts as harmony
and complement each other.
According to him, in an ideal institution,
there is no conflict between the parts.
He states that, politicians must have the
real knowledge of the leadership and what
is good for the people and they must have
the skills to rule according to the aims.
But political leaders who have
the knowledge of political science
thoroughly and have moral strength
too are very difficult to find.
Plato’s thinking on
democracy was disapproving.
He proposed two tasks that
a good leader must fulfill.
He should know to control the
implementation of education.
He should be able to control
the propagation of thoughts.
Functions of the controllers
are essential; therefore
he suggested that the
controller must be philosophers.
The main objective of Plato was to
raise the power of the guardians.
Plato’s leaders are not like normal human
beings; they belong to the world of gods.
Plato’s view was that as a
normative standpoint a leader must
be a person with power and with
a sincere truth-seeking vision.
He proposed that to be successful, a leader
must have the gift of grace, which he
calls charisma and charisma is something
mystical which is not obtained by learning.
Final words on Plato’s theory
From Plato’s world of ideas,
execution has been made
that his considerations consist
of many different areas.
A long time ago Plato presented many
things that people thought were modern and
during the early 20Th century he developed
his ideas by the leadership theoreticians.
Firstly, Plato presented the theory of an
organization as a harmony seeking entity.
Second, the concept of
management of meaning evolved.
Third, attributes of the powerful
leader come into consideration.
Plato was ancient, but he is still
fresh in people’s mind because
he was the actual developer of
the leadership in the society,
and he gives the theory
about the leadership
that was always
required by the society.
