The idea that leaders should be role models – should themselves model the character and behaviors they want their followers to emulate – goes back to ancient times.
Confucious wrote in the Analects that the sage, Master Zeng, said, “I examine myself three times a day. When dealing with others, have I been trustworthy? In intercourse with my friends, have I been faithful? Have I practiced what I was taught?” And when he was asked by a leader what he could do to make his followers “respectful, loyal, and zealous,” Master Zeng replied that he himself should set the example. “Approach them with dignity and they will be respectful. Be a good son and a kind father, and they will be loyal.”
Similarly, in Plutarch’s classic, Lives. The intent of Lives was to instruct. To compare leaders so that others would copy those of good character. As I wrote elsewhere, “Plutarch’s work is timeless primarily because he trains his lens on personality rather than on politics, on private dispositions as opposed to public deeds, and on the importance of character in addition to capacity.* For instance, unlike Brutus, Dion was “a commander without fault improving to the utmost those counsels which he himself gave.” Dion was a role model. He was what he wanted others to be. And he did what he told others to do.
Now it’s the American military that most clearly and consistently articulates the idea that leaders should be, that they must be, role models. At the United States Military Academy, for example, cadets are advised or maybe forewarned: “From the moment that you arrive as a plebe to when you graduate as a commissioned officer everything you do here is designed to develop your character and leadership.” Character first, who you are; leadership second, how you behave.
Well over a century after West Point was founded (1802), the so-called father of modern management, Peter Drucker, saw fit to point out, approvingly, that the academy’s “core competence was its ability to turn out leaders who deserved trust.” Though Drucker himself was a realist, not an idealist, he nevertheless believed that good leaders earned the trust of their followers. How exactly? By being themselves of good character and setting high ethical standards.
In their popular book, The Leadership Challenge – the 7th edition was published in 2023 – James Kouzes and Barry Posner reiterate yet again the importance of leaders as role models. In a section they title “Model the Way,” they emphasize that leaders should be who they want their followers to emulate. This makes it essential that leaders know themselves – that they are aware of what they stand for and what their priorities are. Once this work is done, they can lead others, presumably relatively wisely and well.
The idea that good leaders should be good role models is timeless. It goes back thousands of years – and still it’s alive and well. At least in theory.
*Barbara Kellerman, ed., Leadership: Essential Selections (McGraw-Hill, 2010), p. 32.