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Having looked at George’s account of authentic leadership, I will now turn to Deleuze’s inverted Platonism. In his reading of Plato, Deleuze reveals not only the underlying motivation of Platonism, but also explores the possibility of overturning Platonism (1969/2004: 291). Deleuze remains sceptical of the Platonic procedure for separating the true claimant from the simulacrum, because it relies upon a myth. But Deleuze notices that there is one particular fragile point in which Plato’s philosophy disintegrates. This takes place in Plato’s (1997d) dialogue Sophist in which we find what Deleuze considers to be the ‘most extraordinary adventures of Platonism’ (Smith, 2006: 98). It is here that Plato (1997d) attempts to separate the true claimant from the simulacrum without appealing to a myth of the model. Deleuze (2004) notices that, in the absence of the myth, Plato is unable to tell the difference between the true claimant and the simulacrum. This is the case because Plato proposes a definition of the true claimant that could have been applied equally well to the simulacrum. In this way, Plato runs into a paradox. In effect, Deleuze argues that it was consequently ‘Plato himself who pointed out the direction for the reversal of Platonism’ (19868/2004: 294).

In the Sophist, Plato draws a distinction between Socrates and the sophist. While he considers Socrates to be the authentic bearer of knowledge, he views the sophist as a false claimant that pretends to be wise. At the end of the dialogue, he characterises the sophist as someone who ‘imitates the wise’ but does not possess knowledge of his own (Plato,

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1997d: 268c). The sophist is the simulacrum. But here, Deleuze remarks, Plato proceeds in a ‘paradoxical fashion’ (Smith, 2006: 98). Instead of reducing the sophist to a false copy, the simulacrum is suddenly conceptualized as a distinct person. In effect, Plato arrives at a conception of the ‘person who is really and truly a sophist’ (1997d: 268d, original italics) and thereby attributes to the simulacrum an authentic existence. By proposing this definition, the distinction between Socrates and the sophist is therefore blurred, because both have an authentic existence.

In light of this, Plato realizes, according to Deleuze, ‘that the simulacrum is not simply a false copy, but that it places in question the very notions of copy and model’ (1969/2004: 294). This insight, in Deleuze’s view, subverts the Platonic hierarchy between the model, the true claimant and the simulacrum. Instead of a false claimant that lacks resemblance to the model, Deleuze defines the simulacrum as a ‘system of internalized differences’ (1969/2004: 300) that should be evaluated on its own merits.

In Deleuze’s inverted Platonism, dialogue Sophist is of crucial importance, because it provides the basis for dismantling the Platonic hierarchy between the model, authentic claimant and the simulacrum. As we have seen, Platonism relies upon a hierarchy between the model, the authentic claimant and the inauthentic simulacrum. Yet, in Plato’s dialogue Sophist, this hierarchy breaks down, since the simulacrum is considered an authentic claimant. Consequently, the thing and the simulacrum cannot be evaluated based upon the resemblance to a transcendent ‘model’. This, in turn, provides the basis for a different understanding of the simulacrum that does not rely upon a circular myth of the model. As a consequence, Deleuze refuse to accept that different claimants should be evaluated on their degree of resemblance to a model.

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Instead, Deleuze believes that we need a different procedure for passing normative judgements.

Deleuze’s ‘inverted Platonism’ has important implications for how to understand authentic leadership. Following Deleuze’s inverted Platonism (1968/2004: 299), there is ‘no possible hierarchy’ in which we can categorize leaders according to the degree in which they are faithful to their core values. In line with Nietzsche, there is no ‘rational foundation’ of ethics (Knights and O’Leary, 2006: 132). For Deleuze, there is no true self underneath our social identities, because ‘behind every mask there is not a true face, but another mask’ (Smith, 2006: 104). As a consequence, Deleuze challenges us not to take values for granted by falling back on a circular myth of a moral compass. Instead, Deleuze’s ‘inverted Platonism’ involves a stance that actively engages in a critique of the ‘value of values’ (1962/1983: 1). Such a critique should examine what we are inclined to do given the values that we have.

While discarding the Platonic procedure that we have seen to underlie George’s (2003) account of authentic leadership, Deleuze (1997) does not dismiss the problem of selecting between claimants altogether. Deleuze’s ‘inverted Platonism’ does not dissolve into the nihilistic stance that everything goes (Smith, 2007b). Instead, Deleuze maintains that the challenge is to develop ‘completely different methods of selection’ (1997: 137). Such methods, Deleuze continues, should not be based upon a circular myth that lays claim to a transcendent model, but should instead explore our immanent ‘modes of existence’ (1970/1988: 23). As Smith explains, Deleuze’s alternative method prescribes selection based upon a ‘purely immanent criterion’ (2006: 115): that we pay attention to what we are inclined to do given the values that we have.

Ethics, in Deleuze’s accounting, therefore does not consist of unconditional committing to moral values. Quite the contrary,

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unconditional commitment to moral values is what blocks the development of ethics in the first place, because it prevents us from calling into question the value of values (Smith, 2007). Similar to Foucualt, Deleuze therefore contends that ethics ‘presupposes a distance from moral precepts and normative models of action and being’ that, in turn, fosters a ‘reflection of morality’ (Weiskopf, 2014: 155, original italics). Here we should be able to critical reflect on our own moral convictions and values. Consequently, Deleuze’s ‘inverted Platonism’ challenges us to provide an immanent assessment of authentic leadership rather than taking its moral values for granted. In what follows, I will argue that Deleuze’s ‘inverted Platonism’ can be used to revise the standard for judging leaders.