The Artist
Plato also models the leader on an artist trying to realize a vision. Looking to a model of how things could be, they seek to transform their organization or state. It is important that leaders who do this mould their own lives around the vision before trying to impose it on anyone else. Also, they have a willingness to ‘wipe the slate clean’, which may involve ruthlessness in removing people who do not conform to the vision. The first part looks at Plato’s account of the political artist and at the way his proposal to wipe the slate clean raises the spectre of totalitarianism, a criticism made by Karl Popper. In the second part, the chapter turns to two case studies: Elon Musk, visionary CEO and entrepreneur, and Ataturk, who tried to wipe the slate clean in founding modern Turkey.