How to be a leader with Plutarch

Part III of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series

[Based on How to Be a Leader: An Ancient Guide to Wise Leadership, by Plutarch, translated by Jeffrey Beneker. Full book series here.]

Most human societies are hierarchically structured. At least, all non-nomadic, agriculture based, literate societies characterized by division of labor. If there is a hierarchy, then we need leaders. Good leaders, preferably. While these days the word “leader” is more likely to bring to mind the CEO of a multinational company, my concern here is with sound political leadership which—perhaps the gentle reader might agree—has been sorely lacking of late, both nationally and internationally.

Indeed, I am so concerned with the issue of what makes for a good political leader that I wrote a book about it, The Quest for Character: What the Story of Socrates and Alcibiades Teaches Us about Our Search for Good Leaders. In it, I reach two conclusions about what we should do as a society: (i) get rid of most current leaders who, after all, were elected by us; and (ii) focus our attention on raising a more ethically oriented next generation, by teaching kids about practical moral philosophy (see an example here).

But of course I’m not the first one write about leadership (nor, certainly, will I be the last one). One of my most illustrious predecessors was Plutarch (46-119 CE). He hailed from Chaeronea, in Boeotia (Central Greece), travelled extensively throughout his life, made many friends in Rome (eventually obtaining the Roman citizenship), and was ordained priest at the ancient sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. His influence spans two millennia, and extends to both Shakespeare and the founding fathers of the American Republic.

Plutarch is famous for having written the Parallel Lives and the Moralia, or moral essays. The three essays collected in Princeton University Press’s How to Be a Leader, translated by Jeffrey Beneker, are from the Moralia: To an Uneducated Leader, How to Be a Good Leader, and Should an Old Man Engage in Politics?

Plutarch’s general approach is based on making his moral points on the basis of good and bad biographical examples from Greek and Roman history. His Parallel Lives are explicitly (he tells us so) not biographies or works of history. He is not concerned with most details of the lives of his chosen subjects. Rather, his attention is squarely on their moral character, and he selects both his protagonists and episodes from their lives with this objective firmly in mind.

Plutarch, image from Wikimedia.

This may sound strange at first glance, used as we are to biographies as either glorification or hack pieces. But in fact still today a major serious reason to read a biography is to learn about the good and bad aspects of the character of historically relevant figures, to see where they went right (or wrong) and why. At the moment, for instance, I’m reading Andrew Roberts’ biography of Churchill because I got curious about the man after visiting the War Rooms in London from which he directed the British defense against Hitler.

Do you want to be a good leader, asks Plutarch? Then you first and foremost need to gain the confidence of your fellow citizens, as Churchill certainly did during World War II. However, this needs to be accomplished for the common good—“city before self,” as Plutarch often puts it. Instead, then as now, it is too often the case that wealthy people get into politics in order to show off and compete with their peers, turning the whole thing into an exercise of narcissism. (Sounds familiar? It should!)

Like Cicero before him (in On Duties), Plutarch argues that there is no contradiction between what is beneficial to the individual and what is virtuous, and more broadly that what is good for us is good for the polis and vice versa. There are echoes of Marcus Aurelius as well: “Remember that nothing that harms not the city can harm him whom Nature has made a citizen.” (Meditations X.33)

Of course that assumes that an effective political career is founded on the good character of the politician, a position defended by both Socrates and Cicero, and famously rejected by Machiavelli. The difference among these authors stems in great part from what they see as fundamental to human nature. For Machiavelli, as for Hobbes later on, human beings are essentially self-centered egotists that need to be tricked or forced to live in precarious harmony with each other. For Socrates, Cicero, and the Stoics, on the contrary, humanity’s defining characteristics are reason and social cooperation, while extreme self-centeredness is pathological and often the result of a bad upbringing.

In the first essay in the Princeton collection, To an Uneducated Leader, Plutarch rejects the “commonsensical” idea that what one gets out of being in office is to exercise power to his own advantage. (Again, sounds familiar?) An educated leader knows better, and leaders (just like everyone else) become educated through exposure to philosophy, especially moral philosophy. It is the uneducated person, according to Plutarch, who is affected by “greed, paranoia, and a sense of grandeur,” as Beneker puts it.

The bottom line is that good leadership does not lie in the formulation and execution of particular policies, as what is appropriate depends on the times and circumstances. Rather, good leadership stems from the good moral character of the leader. This is an interesting insight. Recently I have come to believe that I’d rather have a leader whose policy choices don’t always align with mine, but who has a good character, rather than one with whom I agree but who turns out to be untrustworthy and fickle because of his questionable character.

How to Be a Good Leader, the central essay of the collection, is dedicated to Menemachus, a young man hailing from Sardis, in modern Turkey. He was about to begin his political career, so Plutarch gives him some practical advice regarding his chosen profession.

One of the basic ideas of the essay is that the way to become a good leader is to learn from the example of good leaders, both in person and through the study of their biographies. So in perfect Plutarchian style we are treated to a gallery of heroes and rogues from Greco-Roman history and lore. Plutarch covers a wide range of topics, including persuasion of one’s fellow citizens, the dangers of rivalry and envy, how to behave with respect to one’s superiors, and the importance of friendship and personal integrity.

The last of the three essays, Should an Old Man Engage in Politics? may sound particularly timely to the contemporary American public, who has recently witnessed a Presidential campaign featuring contenders in their late ‘70s and early ‘80s. But we need to keep in mind that for Plutarch “old” means being in one’s fifties.

He considers whether an older politician should retire, and unequivocally answers in the negative. Rather, older individuals can profitably put their experience, wisdom, and calmer demeanor to the service of the polis, both directly and as mentors to younger people. Interestingly, this essay features a number of congruences with Cicero’s How to Grow Old, on which I will comment later on in this series.

The temple of Apollo at Delphi, where Plutarch was a priest. Photo by the Author.

Here are some highlights from the actual text, with accompanying brief commentaries:

“Those who govern must first achieve governance of themselves, straighten out their souls, and set their character aright.” (To an Educated Leader, 2)

Governing is a matter of wisdom, and wisdom is the hallmark of a mature character. And one certainly cannot govern others if one is incapable of governing oneself. Think of it in terms of the four cardinal virtues recognized by Plato as well as the Stoics: prudence, courage, justice, and temperance. Prudence is the knowledge of what is good and what is evil, without which we would lack a moral compass. Courage is the willingness to do the right thing even at a personal cost. Justice means treating others with dignity and respect. And temperance is about doing things in right measure, neither too much nor too little.

It would follow from Plutarch’s approach that the notion of a young leader is rather oxymoronic, or at least dubious. That’s because young people cannot be wise, since wisdom requires experience. However, it does not follow that just because one is older one is also wiser: wisdom accrues by critical reflection on experience, not by passive accumulation.

“Depravity, once combined with political power, races to give expression to every emotion: it converts anger into murder, love into adultery, and greed into the confiscation of property.” (To an Educated Leader, 6)

This is a major reason why we should make sure that our leaders have a good character. Contra the popular saying, power per se does not corrupt, but it does amplify one’s pre-existing tendencies. If someone is generous and comes into possession of wealth then that person will be even more generous. But if someone is inclined to be self-serving, then wealth will make them into even more greedy individuals, prone to use their resources to corrupt others into doing their bidding.

That is why I believe even many modern commentators on Stoicism are incorrect when they class wealth under “preferred indifferents.” Wealth is (morally) indifferent, meaning literally that it makes no difference to a person’s character. But whether it is preferred or dispreferred depends on what the person will do with that wealth.

“First of all, let conscious choice, like a firm and strong foundation, be the basis of your political activity. Moreover, let your choice have its origin in judgment and reason, rather than in the excitement aroused by the vain pursuit of glory, a sense of rivalry, or a lack of other meaningful activities.” (How to Be a Good Leader, The proper motivation for a political career)

Plutarch here is recommending two things. In the first place, the leader should never act on impulse, or as a result of a “gut” feeling. Guts are made for digestion, not for thinking. Rather, a leader’s decisions ought to be the result of careful and rational deliberation, within the limits of what is made possible by the inevitability of human cognitive limitations and biases.

In the second place, the leader should avoid at all costs to make decisions on the basis of self-serving impulses, like the search for glory or a sense of competition with others. Notice also that Plutarch mentions the lack of other meaningful activities as a hindrance to the politician. Politics—says Aristotle—is one of the highest activities human beings can engage in, and so it needs to be pursued seriously and deliberately, not just because one doesn’t have anything better to do, as a number of modern politicians seem to.

“For politicians do not give an accounting only for the things they say and do in the public sphere, but we even inquire into their dinners, sexual activity, marriages, amusements, and all their interests. Do I have to mention Alcibiades?” (How to Be a Good Leader, The character of the citizens and the leaders)

I love the reference to Alcibiades in this excerpt. The book I referred to earlier, The Quest for Character, was inspired in part by this fascinating figure of Greek antiquity. Alcibiades very much wanted to be a leader of Athens, and indeed managed to accomplish his goal. But despite being impossibly handsome, uber-rich, dashing, and brave, he was afflicted by what his friend Socrates called a very bad form of stupidity: he did not realize that, lacking wisdom, his choice of getting into politics would likely spell trouble for himself and for his city. Which it certainly did.

Some modern commentators argue that we should keep a politician’s public and private lives separate. That we hire them—so to speak—to do a job, and consequently what they do outside their job is none of our business. This is profoundly misguided. We are not talking about a celebrity, or a plumber. We are talking about someone whose job is to exercise virtues like prudence, temperance, courage, and justice in their day to day job. So of course what politicians do when they are not in the spotlight matters. It’s indicative of whether they are trustworthy people or scoundrels, whether they are wise or reckless. And therefore whether we should trust them or not.

“For the habit of thinking does not persist in those who otherwise neglect themselves, but diluted and dissolved little by little through disuse, it constantly yearns for some exercise of the mind, which rouses and purges the logical and practical elements of the soul: ‘For it shines when being used, like fine-looking bronze.’” (Should an Old Man Engage in Politics?, 8)

The quotation at the end of this passage is from a lost play by Sophocles. The point is that if we want to be effective and useful in our old age we need to keep using the faculty of thinking critically. Without constant use and refinement, that faculty will go the way our muscles and aerobic capacity go if we don’t keep exercising them, and we’ll end up being useless to ourselves and to others because of sheer self neglect.

There is actually a significant amount of evidence from modern scientific research that Plutarch’s advice—which again echoes that of Cicero in How To Grow Old—is sound. Save for the possibility of a degenerative disease of the nervous system, exercising our mind throughout our life is the best guarantor of a sharp old age. And as Cicero has his chief character, Cato the Elder, reminding us, our best hope to remain relevant and useful as time passes lies in our brain, not our brawn.

[Next in this series: How to drink with Vincent Obsopoeus. Previous installments: I, II.]