ABSTRACT
Leadership analysts acknowledge that what leaders say is an important part of what leaders do. In the case of public leaders, including generally those who lead public organisations but more particularly political leaders, public speech is an important part of their job. But leadership analysts differ when interpreting the ethics of leadership rhetoric, with some seeing it as the material for establishing the proof of ethical leadership and others seeing it as confirming the prevailing ethic or ethos of 'leading by lying'. The former are idealists and the latter are realists, with both schools engaged in debate over the nature of leadership. This chapter contrasts contemporary debates in the leadership literature with lessons on public leadership available in Plato's dialogues the Statesman and the Gorgias. Both dialogues deal with the language of leadership and with the way that leaders use language as an instrument of what I term 'rule through rhetoric'. Plato's perspective blends idealism and realism in ways that can contribute to contemporary debate over the language of leadership.
