Of Cooking and Leadership
Cooking meals and leading people share some things in common.
Updated May 11, 2026 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
Nothing is known. –Francisco Sanches (16th Century)
Compared to what? –Herbert Stein (more recently)
Similarity: A false but necessary god
How similar is a cat to a dog? Or, should we ask how similar a dog is to a cat? How different is one from the other? Amos Tversky (1977) showed that it matters a great deal how the question of similarity is asked. Psychologists and neuroscientists have much to say about how the mind-brain construes and computes judgments of similarity, often intuitively, spontaneously, and without effort (Medin et al. 1993). Research on how we perceive similarity is all the more important because philosophers and other masters of the art of deduction have banged their heads against the wall trying to put judgments of similarity on a logically coherent foundation. Goodman (1972) famously asserted that similarity is an indeterminate construct. It cannot get off the ground without an application of massive background knowledge and assumptions that must be accepted even if they cannot be fully justified.
Our intuitive judgments often reveal the background on which they stand. When we say Joey looks just like his father, we reveal how we perceive other son-father pairs. When we compare cats and dogs, we reveal the breadth of the context in which we consider this similarity judgment. When we judge cats and dogs to be similar, we are probably thinking about a wide world of animals, perhaps all vertebrates; when we judge them to be different, we might be focused on domesticated mammals.
Occasionally, a question comes along that does not call forth intuitive judgment. We have to put our philosopher’s hat on, select features of similarity and difference, and prepare to defend that selection. Whether we declare similarity to be high or low, we can always ask, as economist Herb Stein does in the epigraph above, compared to what? Mindful of these complexities, we can now wonder: what of cooking meals and leading people?
The question of whether cooking and leading show some parallels was raised by a friend to whom I will refer as Mel. Mel is a high-ranking administrator and policymaker at a university on the West Coast. He also enjoys cooking simple meals that please the discriminating palate. When I told him about the seminar on behavioral economics and organizational psychology I teach at a small college on the East Coast, Mel wondered how the art of leadership might resemble the art of cooking. After a moment of puzzlement—for this question seemed to come out of nowhere—I told Mel I would let my students weigh in. I here review the gist of their answers. As a cautionary note, I admit that I do not know if or to what extent any student used artificial intelligence to help find an answer. I will not quote them directly, and as always, I declare that my own blog text is 100 percent mine, as it always has been and always will be.
I posted this question on the course website: “Is there a parallelism between leadership and cooking? Argue both the pro and the con perspective.” Seven students responded. Here are some of their points. (I refer to each student with a #.)
#1 notes that both cooking and leadership offer opportunities to be creative. A creative person can engage in deliberate ignorance by setting aside conventional routines to innovate. Both cooking and leadership bring responsibility to others, people whose needs and preferences must be respected (unless one cooks just for oneself).
#2 sees both activities as typically demanding a willingness and the ability to improvise. Leading is more complex because it requires reading others’ minds and understanding their interests. Leading, but not cooking, requires strategic thinking. A hunk of Parmigiano Reggiano does not perceive back.
#3 considers the two activities when performed under time pressure. Here, cooking allows more risk tolerance than leading does because the stakes tend to be lower and the results are seen sooner.
#4’s comments take the discussion to a higher level. We are reminded that chefs and sous-chefs form a hierarchy; the chefs’ cooking comes to fruition by way of the sous-chefs’ actions. A chef leads and cooks at the same time. In both roles, chefs find themselves in a dynamic learning environment; they must be vigilant lest the bouillabaisse burns or the sous-chef burns out. It’s an ecology demanding multitasking.
#5 shares that some similarities only emerged when they took the time to contemplate. The differences seem more obvious. Both activities invite overconfidence among their practitioners and demand some risk management.
#6 observes similarities in decision-making and specifically the context of bounded rationality. The differences lie mainly in the consequences, where incompetent or malicious leadership can affect a larger number of people than you may find at a dinner party.
#7 echoes these themes in their own words, suggesting that the points already made cover the domain well.
Was this exercise worth it?
The answers to a psychological question, such as the present one, do not tell us much about the normative questions surrounding similarity and difference, but they shed light on our intuitions and preconceptions. First, students had no trouble finding both pros and cons to the similarity argument, although the question must have struck them as unusual. Second, they drew on recent readings in the seminar (decision-making, deliberate ignorance, process vs outcome distinctions), just as standard cognitive theories say they would. Third, all responses stuck closely to the provided framing. None asked the Herb Stein question, “Compared to what?” What if leadership were compared to motorcycle maintenance or cooking to stamp collecting? Once the specter of irreducible relativity is invoked, responders may consider that to be a bummer and feel inhibited to explore the issue further. So, they find refuge in deliberate ignorance, just as they do when they are cooking or leading (Krueger et al., 2020).
My friend Mel, who brought the issue of comparing leading with cooking (or, is it the other way round? Again, according to Amos Tversky, 1977, this matters) to my attention may be a closet Taoist. In the Tao Te Ching , Lao Tzu observes that "Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish—too much handling will spoil it." Seeking action through inaction, Lao Tzu discovered that things, to an extent, can take care of themselves, and so, one should diligently avoid micro-management (Krueger, 2013). But there’s a limit to everything. Dinner does not prepare itself, and humans need guidance.
Goodman, N. (1972). Seven strictures on similarity. In N. Goodman (Ed.), Problems and Projects (pp. 437–447). Bobbs-Merrill.
Krueger, J. I. (2013). The new Tao of leadership. Review of ‘Do nothing! How to stop overmanaging and become a great leader’ by J. K. Murnighan. Journal of Economic Psychology, 35 , 108–109.
Krueger, J. I., Hahn, U., Ellerbrock, D., Gächter, S., Hertwig, R., Kornhauser, L. A., Leuker, C., Szech, N., & Waldmann, M. R. (2020). Normative implications of deliberate ignorance. In R. Hertwig & C. Engel (Eds.) Deliberate ignorance: Choosing not to know. Strüngmann Forum Reports , 29 , 257–287. MIT Press.
Medin, D. L., Goldstone, R. L., & Gentner, D. (1993). Respects for similarity. Psychological Review, 100, 254–278.
Tversky, A. (1977). Features of similarity. Psychological Review, 84 , 327–352.
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Joachim I. Krueger, Ph.D. , is a social psychologist at Brown University who believes that rational thinking and socially responsible behavior are attainable goals.
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