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How to be a Leader: An Ancient Guide to Wise Leadership by Plutarch

As part of my 2025 mission to explore and share powerful leadership books, this month I'm bringng you some ancient wisdom with modern relevance: How to be a Leader: An Ancient Guide to Wise Leadership by Plutarch.

“A leader should do anything but not everything”

Plutarch was a 1st century Greco-Roman historian, biographer and philosopher. His “Parallel Lives” is a fantastic set of 48 biographies, comparing leading Roman and Greek figures, it is, however, pretty heavy going. This short collection of essays draws on many of those great figures by way of example and to illustrate his lessons.

I've compiled my favorite quotes from the book to illustrate its key lessons and historical insights, which you can explore here.

Whilst centred around political leadership and governance, the book is nonetheless of use to leaders of all kinds. In particular, I found the section on whether elders should be active in politics full of great insight for leader of any age.

The translation is accessible (that’s often the downfall with ancient texts in my view), and whilst Plutarch assumes some knowledge of ancient history (after all it wasn’t ancient at the time of writing), you can pick up the key lessons without knowing anything about the figures he discusses, or you may enjoy being sent down a rabbit hole of research.

As with most of the writing on leadership from antiquity, and particularly from philosophers, there are no “life hacks”, this is much more about how to think about the role of leader and cultivating your character for the role. That said, there are some practical and actional insights on topics such as building allegiances and dealing with unrest.

A lot of the key lessons, as emphasised in the quotes I compiled, are around delegation, being an example, prioritisation…….perhaps nothing new there, but a great reminder with some examples from great historic figures. 

If you can find some time to read this, I hope you find it as insightful as I have.

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