Narrator: What if the very tools we use to build our organizations—the metrics, the KPIs, the relentless drive for efficiency—are the same tools that are slowly dismantling our humanity at work? Imagine being Dolores, a dedicated HR manager in Colombia. For years, her local operation thrived on a culture of deep customer care and employee loyalty. It felt like a family. Then, the global head office, obsessed with cost ratios, initiated a massive restructuring. Her boss was reassigned, factories were closed, and Dolores’s job was reduced to overseeing benefits from home, a role she described as being a "head office spy." She felt homeless in the very place she once called her professional home.

This feeling isn't unique to Dolores. It’s felt by the ambitious MBA graduate who finds his prestigious consulting job is just a year of mind-numbing analysis on a tiny piece of a pension plan. It’s even felt by Barbara, a senior partner at a global firm, who, despite her success, confesses, "I feel like a cog in the machine." This sense of alienation, of being a resource rather than a person, is the quiet epidemic of the modern workplace. But what if the solution isn't found in another business framework or a new psychological trick? In What Philosophy Can Teach You About Being a Better Leader, authors Alison Reynolds, Dominic Houlder, Jules Goddard, and David Lewis argue that to solve this deeply human problem, we must turn to the timeless wisdom of philosophy. They propose a radical shift: to lead better, we must first think deeper.

Narrator: The book argues that our workplaces often fall into one of two dehumanizing traps, both of which can be understood through the lenses of two philosophical giants: Aristotle and Nietzsche.

First, consider the Aristotelian view. For Aristotle, the good life—or human flourishing—was achieved through reason. It was about finding the "golden mean," a virtuous middle way between extremes. Courage, for example, is the mean between recklessness and cowardice. This requires rational judgment. Yet, many modern workplaces actively suppress this. Think of the CEO who once told one of the authors he preferred to hire managers with large mortgages and several children. Why? Because he believed their financial obligations made them more compliant and less likely to question authority. In Aristotle’s terms, this is a workplace for "slaves"—people who are not expected to use their reason but simply to obey. It’s a culture that breeds groupthink, where, like in the catastrophic collapse of Barings Bank, board members privately harbor doubts but are too afraid to voice them, leading to disaster.

On the other extreme is the Nietzschean perspective. Nietzsche championed passion, individuality, and the "will to power"—the drive to overcome, grow, and create. He urged us to break free from the herd and live life as a work of art. But without a moral compass, this can devolve into what the book calls a workplace for "animals," driven by base instincts. The authors point to the Enron traders during the 2001 California power crisis. They gleefully manipulated the system to create blackouts, driving up prices and profits, all while people suffered. When CEO Jeff Skilling joked, "What’s the difference between California and the Titanic? At least when the Titanic went down the lights were on!" he revealed a culture devoid of reason and empathy.

The book’s powerful insight is that a truly humanized workplace needs both. It needs Aristotelian reason to provide a moral compass and a sense of fairness, but it also needs Nietzschean passion to fuel creativity and individual excellence. The leader's job is not to choose one over the other, but to create an environment where both can coexist and flourish.

Narrator: How do we typically think about business strategy? It’s often framed as a battle: gain a competitive advantage, capture market share, and beat the competition. The book argues this "value capture" mindset, rooted in a pessimistic view of humanity as self-serving and opportunistic, is fundamentally dehumanizing.

To see this in action, consider the Fishbanks simulation, a classic exercise run with business students. Teams manage competing fishing companies, and the goal is to be profitable. Almost every time, the simulation descends into a "tragedy of the commons." Teams see others building bigger fleets and, driven by fear and greed, they over-invest, over-fish, and ultimately cause the entire fishery to collapse, ruining it for everyone. Even the "winner" ends up worse off than if they had all cooperated. This is the "value capture" model in its starkest form: a zero-sum game that ends in collective loss.

The book offers a profound alternative inspired by Buddhist philosophy: a strategy of "value creation." Instead of seeing business as a war, we can see it as an ecosystem of interdependence. The "Malbec Miracle" in Argentina is a stunning real-world example. Two decades ago, the Argentinean wine industry was a mess of mistrust and exploitation. Grape growers, winemakers, and distributors were all trying to squeeze value from each other. The result was terrible wine and a failing industry.

Then, they shifted their strategy. They decided to work together to build the "Malbec" brand for the benefit of all. Distributors agreed to a code of conduct, the government supported the growers, and universities shared insights. They stopped fighting over a small, low-quality pie and started working together to bake a much larger, higher-quality one. Today, Argentinean Malbec is a global success story. This, the authors argue, is a humanized strategy. It’s not about defeating others, but about collaborating to create something of value for everyone involved.

Narrator: If you want to build a flourishing organization, where do you start? The book suggests looking not at grand strategies or complex processes, but at the simple, powerful forces of personal example and fairness.

The story of Max Perutz and the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge is a masterclass in this principle. Perutz, a chemist who fled Austria in 1936, founded a molecular biology research unit that would go on to produce nine Nobel Prize winners. How? Not through rigid control or top-down directives. Perutz believed that "creativity... cannot be organised." His leadership was about creating the conditions for brilliance to emerge.

He kept administration to a minimum, led by example by working at the lab bench himself, and fostered a culture of profound respect and independence. He created a space where scientists felt trusted and empowered. One of his most distinguished students, César Milstein, recalled the unspoken message from Perutz: "Do good experiments, and don’t worry about the rest." Perutz understood that his primary role was not to manage, but to be an exemplar of scientific curiosity and integrity. He demonstrated that true power lies not in authority, but in influence and inquiry, creating a spirit of fairness where the best ideas could win, regardless of who they came from.

Narrator: One of the most challenging ideas in the book is its re-framing of power. We tend to think of authority as something that comes with a job title, flowing downwards from the top of a hierarchy. The authors argue this is completely backward. Authority is a gift, bestowed upon a leader by the people they lead. It flows upwards.

When a team trusts a leader to coordinate their efforts, remove obstacles, and act in their best interests, they are gifting that person authority. To use that power without their consent isn't leadership; it's bullying. This transforms the role of a leader from a commander to a steward.

Nandu Nandkishore’s turnaround of Nestlé Philippines is a perfect illustration. When he arrived as CEO in 2005, the business was in crisis. Sales were plummeting and departments were siloed and dysfunctional. A traditional leader might have come in with a rigid plan and a set of commands. Nandkishore did the opposite. He saw his job as creating a space for his empowered people to solve the problems themselves. He literally removed the physical partitions between departments, forcing marketers, salespeople, and procurement teams to talk to each other. He didn't provide answers; he asked questions and role-modeled collaboration.

He operated from a deep belief that his authority was a gift, and his job was to use it to "enable others to flourish." The results were staggering. The business turned around in 18 months and became one of Nestlé’s top-performing operations globally. He didn't empower them by decree; he created an environment where their inherent power could be unleashed.

Narrator: "Employee engagement" has become a corporate obsession, measured by annual surveys and addressed with top-down initiatives. The book argues that this entire framework is flawed. Focusing on engagement often means treating people as objects to be managed or problems to be solved, a relationship the philosopher Martin Buber called "I-It."

The authors urge us to strive for something deeper: "encounter." An encounter, or an "I-Thou" relationship, is an unplanned, genuine connection where we see the other person in their full humanity. It’s in these moments that true transformation happens.

Consider the story of John, an IT manager at a social enterprise, who was asked to support Robert, a young man with a learning disability. Initially, John refused. He saw Robert as a problem, a task he didn't have time for—an "It." But his colleagues persisted, and John reluctantly agreed. He decided to spend the first week just building a relationship, discovering that Robert was a passionate gamer and camera enthusiast. He saw the person, not the disability.

As they worked together, a transformation occurred. Robert, once seen as incapable, became a skilled IT engineer. And John, through this profound encounter, discovered a deep passion for the organization's mission. He eventually became its CEO. This wasn't the result of an engagement survey or a management KPI. It was the result of one human being truly encountering another. The job of a leader, therefore, is not to engineer engagement, but to create the time and space in our organizations for these transformative, human encounters to happen.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from What Philosophy Can Teach You About Being a Better Leader is that the path to a more humane and effective workplace requires a fundamental shift in perspective—from controlling to creating. For too long, leadership has been obsessed with the tangible: the "Doing" of tasks and the "Knowing" of information. We've built systems of control, measurement, and efficiency that, while well-intentioned, have stripped the humanity from our work, leaving people feeling like cogs in a machine.

This book challenges us to embrace a third, neglected dimension: "Being." It asks us to stop trying to manage people and start creating the conditions for them to flourish. This means fostering environments of psychological safety, intellectual curiosity, and genuine human connection. The most challenging and vital question a leader can ask is not "How can I get my people to do more?" but rather, "How can I create a space where we can all become more?"