Political Leadership under the Classic Thinkers: Lessons for Education

In a moment of social disenchantment with our political leaders, it might be worth recovering some of the historical grounds for political leadership and trying to extrapolate and apply them to our studies on education. The authors recover a few features of leadership from the perspective of some of the classic thinkers up to the Renaissance in order to draw some applied conclusions for a theory on how to educate potential leaders. First, the education of leaders needs to be put at the forefront of society’s concerns. Second, those leaders need to ground their policies on solid values and on the concept of service to the people. Third, the obsession of excellence of the political leaders is worth reconsidering. The authors will claim that the leaders’ excellence through education is crucial. The paper will be interdisciplinary.