What Makes a Good Leader?

On virtue, character, and the burden of guiding others

The question "What makes a good leader?" assumes we know what goodness means in the context of power over others.

This assumption may be our first mistake.

We live in an age that has confused leadership with performance, influence with entertainment, authority with popularity. We elect charismatic speakers and mistake them for wise governors. We follow confident voices and confuse them with principled guides. We admire those who accumulate followers and assume they must be worth following.

But consider this uncomfortable possibility: most of what we call leadership today would have been recognized by ancient philosophers as its precise opposite. The pursuit of power for its own sake. The cultivation of image over substance. The manipulation of emotions rather than the elevation of character. The promise of easy solutions to complex problems.

True leadership, the kind that actually improves the human condition rather than merely organizing it, operates by entirely different principles. It …