Leadership Decision Making: Northerner Plato vs Eastern Sun Tzu - Essay Sample

Introduction

Decision making is a crucial thing that must take place with a lot of considerations in any position of leadership that an individual is involved. There are several views presented by the northerners and easterners in regard to the whole process of leadership and making of decisions that matter in the lives of the people being led. The Northerner Plato in his discussion gave his ideas about the decision making paradigms in the leadership sector and Sun Tzu of the east also argued about leadership and decision making in his own perspective. The two theories presented by the two theorists have so much of contradiction or rather conflict in the way that the theorists have argued them out. Presented in this scope is how the two theories of decision making have ended up in conflicts.

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Discussion

To begin with the theory of decision making described by Plato, he focused so much on the social theory whereby the argument was that the society that one leads has to be so much involved in the whole process of making important decisions. Experience and the expertise of an individual who is in leadership does not apply so much in the theory presented by Plato because the leader has to consider the will and opinions of the societal people he is leading before they can make and pass any decisions that may affect the lives of the people (Plato. & Jowett, 1998). In this regard, the leader has got the authority to make decisions that matter and that can bring change to the situations prevailing in this particular society but they are bound by certain limits which are limits of social involvement and participation.

In other words, this theory by Plato means that the leaders have to involve the people they lead in almost any decision that they make concerning certain matters of the social, political and economic lives of the people. The leader can come up with a decision but then they will have to wait for the approval of their opinion by the people they lead so that the decision made can be put into practice (Plato. & Jowett, 1998). This is where Plato talks of the characteristics of leaders like charisma in that the leaders will have to possess good qualities of interacting with the lesser people and mingling with them closely among other such characters like openness, being mindful of others, respect and wisdom.

Turning to the leadership and decision making paradigm by Sun Tzu of The Art of War, it is clear that it conflicts with that of Plato because in the art of war, the leaders are given the mandate to make any decisions that they want to make about certain matters and pass them without considering to involve the people below them. This decision making is with no consideration of what the people may think or what may happen afterwards as long as the leaders making this decision think that it is the best decision for their people (Tzu, 2010). This decision making theory is not a good way to lead the people because it includes things like authoritarianism and dictatorship of some kind rather than allowing the social participation of all the people and listening to the ideas that they have before any action can be taken especially in cases where the society might be affected negatively by the decisions.

Conclusion

The two theories conflict in the way leaders make decisions and rule out in their positions because one advocates for involvement of all the people while the other one calls for decision making and leadership style where the leader has all the powers depending on their experience and expertise. The art of war may be a dangerous practice for any society because the opinions of the people are not taken seriously.

References

Plato., & Jowett, B. (1998). The republic. [Boston]: Internet Classics Archive, MIT.

Tzu, S. (2010, April 23). Art of War. Retrieved from http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html