The Daily Stoic - Plutarch on How To Be A Leader Part 2

Episode Date: March 14, 2021

Today’s episode features another excerpt from Jeffrey Beneker’s How To Be A Leader: An Ancient Guide to Wise Leadership. How To Be A Leader is a modern translation and collection of essays about successful leadership from the ancient biographer Plutarch.Jeff Beneker is a Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. His primary research interest is in Greco-Roman biography and historiography. In addition to teaching courses in Greek language and literature, he teaches lecture courses on Classical Mythology, Greco-Roman religion, and Greek civilization.This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you can find candidates with any hard or soft skills that you need. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit linkedin.com/STOIC to post a job for free. This episode is brought to you by Public Goods, the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients at an affordable price. Everything from coffee to toilet paper & shampoo to pet food. Public Goods is your new everything store, thoughtfully designed for the conscious consumer. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order with no minimum purchase. Just go to publicgoods.com/STOIC or use code STOIC at checkout.This episode is brought to you by Beekeeper’s Naturals, the company that’s reinventing your medicine with clean, effective products that actually work. Beekeepers Naturals has great products like Propolis Spray and B.LXR. Beekeeper’s Naturals created a whole hive of products packed with immune-loving essentials so you can feel your best all day, every day. As a listener of the Daily Stoic Podcast you can receive 15% off your first order. Just go to beekeepersnaturals.com/STOIC or use code STOIC at checkout to claim this deal.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic, something that can help you live up to those four for stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We reflect. We prepare. We think deeply about the challenging issues of our time. And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not rushing to work or to get the kids to school. When we have the time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with our journals, and to prepare

for what the future will bring. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wendery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. It's Ryan. We've got another special episode today.

This is a continuation of an audiobook we sampled recently Plutarchs How to Be a Leader from Princeton University presses ancient wisdom series. This is a great book. It's written by Plutarch, but translated and introduced by Jeffrey Bennecker, Tantormedia, Highbridge Audio, and recorded books were generous enough to give us this audio book sample. Plutarch is just, you know, the best that ever did it. He's influenced basically every leader and thinker from Napoleon to Alexander Hamilton to Marcus Aurelius. In fact, Plutarch's nephew or grandson was Marcus Aurelius' philosophy teacher, if you can believe that. Plutarch is talking nuts and bolts of leadership, and he himself

was a leader in the Roman Empire, so he knew what he was talking about. If you haven't read Plutarch's lives, I also recommend that you check that out. But today, we've got a great excerpt from his How to Be a Leader series. This is the essay to an uneducated leader. He's talking about the importance of why a leader has to pursue that stoic virtue of wisdom. I think you're going to like today's episode. And again, you should really read all of Plutarch.

This new How to Be a Leader series is fantastic. And the audiobook is what you're about to get a sample of right now. A leader should do anything but not everything. Now some people, such as Kato, involved themselves in every aspect of government, in the belief that good citizens, to the best of their ability, never abandon their concern and care for the state. And people praise Aparman Ondas, because he did not neglect his duty even when the Thebans appointed him to an insignificant office out of envy and to insult him.

On the contrary, he declared that not only does an office bring distinction to a man, but a man also brings distinction to an office. Then he proceeded to transform that insignificant office into a great and respected honour, even though previously it had involved nothing more than overseeing the clearing of Dung and the diverting of water from the streets. And no doubt even I myself provide a good laugh to people visiting our town when they see me out in public performing similar duties as I often do. But in this situation, Antistini's memorable remark comes to my aid. For when someone expressed surprise that he was personally carrying his salted fish through the marketplace, he said, of course I am, since it's for me. Conversely, when people reproach me for being on the job while tiles are being

measured or cement and stones are being delivered, I say to them, look, I'm not building these things for myself, but for my native city. And so it is with many other small projects. People would be petty and parsimonious if they oversaw these projects for themselves and carried them out on their own behalf. But when they undertake them as a public service on behalf of the city, they are not at all undignified. Indeed, the care and eagerness they devote to small matters becomes even more significant. Others, however, believe that the attitude of paracles was more honorable and appropriate to his high stature. Among them is Crittalouse, the parapetetic philosopher, who thinks that, just as the Athenians' state ships, Salamonia and Parallels were not

launched for ordinary tasks but were reserved for essential and great missions, so political leaders should apply themselves only to the most important and greatest matters, following the example of the King of the universe. For God lays hold of the great affairs, but lets the small ones be, leaving them to chance, as Euripides says. I do not agree. Neither, however, do I approve of the excessive love of honor and contentiousness of the Adgenies, a man who was victorious at the four great athletic festivals and in many other competitions, and who won

not only in the pancreatium, but also in boxing and the long race. After all this, he was attending a festival held at the Shrine of a certain hero, and after the feast had been served to everyone as usual, he leapt up to begin the pancreatium, believing that no one else ought to be victorious if he was in the contest. We've got a quick message from one of our sponsors and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think

you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Codopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight.

Together they discuss their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty. So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery app. As a result, he collected 1200 victory crowns, most of which you'd consider to be essentially worthless.

Those who strip for every leadership opportunity are no different from the agonies. They swiftly make themselves contemptible to the people, they become oppressive and envied when they succeed, and they bring joy to others when they fail. And the very attributes that earned them admiration when they first took office become the source of mockery and ridicule. And so we must not stand aloof from any public duty, but out of goodwill and concern we must be attentive and knowledgeable about everything. And we must not stow ourselves away like the sacred anchor on a ship, waiting for our city to experience an extreme need or misfortune. Rather consider the ship's

pilots. They manage the tiller with their own hands, but they also turn and rotate other devices by means of tackle handled by the crew, while they themselves sit at a distance. Thus, they rely on sailors, boasons, and their lookouts on the bow, and they often summon some of these crew members to the stern and entrust them with the tiller. In the same way, it is proper that politicians yield to others with goodwill and kindness, allowing them to govern and be summoned to the speakers platform, and they must not accomplish all the public's business by their own speeches, decrees, and actions, but having under them assistance what trustworthy and of good character, they should assign each one to the task for which

they are best suited. Thus Pericles employed Menipus in the Generalship, checked the power of the Aeropagus Council through the agency of Effialties, passed the decree punishing the city of Maghara through colonus, and sent out Lampon to found the colony at Thurai. When power appears to be distributed among many people, not only are we less troubled by an accumulation of envy, but we are also more capable of accomplishing what must be done. For just as the division of the hand into fingers does not render it weak but instead makes it a usable and practical instrument, so those who share political power with others make the work of government more effective

by their cooperation. By contrast, there are some who out of an insatiable desire for glory or power take full responsibility for the city upon themselves, and apply themselves to tasks for which they are neither naturally talented nor trained, as Clion did when he became general, or Philipoman as an admiral, or Hannibal when he addressed the assembly. Such people have no excuse when they fail, but they must moreover endure the criticism that we read in your epidemics. You're a carpenter, but you didn't work with wood. We might similarly criticize someone by saying,

you're an unpersuasive speaker, but you are leading an embassy. You're careless, but you became an administrator. You're inexperienced in accounting, but you are acting as treasurer, or you're old and infirm, but you are leading an army. Pericles, however, shared power even with Kaiman, governing in Athens while his rival recruited crews for the city's ships and made war abroad. Pericles was more naturally suited to politics, while Kaiman was better in war. We've got a quick message from one of our sponsors and then we'll get right back to the show.

Stay tuned. The people in every city can be malicious and inclined to find fault with their political leaders. Moreover, unless they observe some partisan ship or opposition, the people suspect many good policies of being implemented by conspiracy, which leads especially to criticism of their leaders' political connections and friendships. Now, politicians must not allow any real hostility or disagreements between themselves to persist, as on a medimus, the demagogue of Kiosk did. After emerging victorious from a factional fight,

he would not allow his party to drive all its enemies from the city, so that we don't begin to fight with our friends," he explained, once we've rid ourselves entirely of our enemies. That approach is simple-minded. But whenever the people are suspicious of some important and beneficial proposal, do not allow every politician to come forward and speak the same opinion, as if by prior agreement. Instead, two or three of your friends should openly disagree and speak calmly in opposition, and then acting as though their position has been refuted, they should change sides.

For by this strategy, your friends will bring the people along with them, because they appear to have been won over by what is advantageous to the city. In less important matters, however, there is no harm in allowing your friends to rely on their own reasoning and to genuinely disagree so that when it comes to the most important issues, they may appear to reach consensus about the best course of action without any pre-arrangement. It is natural, then, that politicians always provide leadership in a city. Just as the Queen is leader among bees, and bearing this in mind, politicians must manage public affairs.

Even so, they should pursue neither aggressively nor excessively those offices that confer power and a one-by-election, but there is nothing honorable or democratic in the love of holding office. But they should not refuse an appointment either if the people are calling them to serve and bestowing power lawfully, and they should accept and eagerly serve even in positions that are beneath their dignity. For politicians who enjoy renown because they have held the greater offices, are obligated in turn to elevate the stature of the lesser offices by holding them too. And with regard to the most impressive positions, such as the General Ship at Athens, membership on the City Council at Rhodes, and leadership of our allied

biotion cities. Politicians are likewise obligated to show moderation, giving way sometimes and yielding to others, while in turn adding honor and distinction to the lesser positions. In this way we may avoid being either despised or envied. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stood Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years. We've been doing it.

It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it, and this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you. download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.