Doctors and Teachers

Abstract

This chapter examines the way the models of the doctor and the teacher can be combined, where the leader as doctor makes their remedies more palatable to their followers by rational persuasion. The first part describes this combined model in Plato’s last work, the Laws, where the legislator is compared to a doctor who listens to his patients and then educates them about the nature and origin of their disease. Combining the two models anticipates our notion of ‘informed consent’: if the patient/follower is addressed rationally, they will be more inclined to take the remedy. The second part uses two case studies from previous chapters: Roy Vagelos, who appeared as an example of the corporate doctor, can also been seen as a teacher; and Indra Nooyi, who educated her stakeholders at Pepsi and can be seen as a corporate doctor, trying to ween the company off short-term thinking.