Democratic systems of public administration draw on various schools of political leadership to promote administrative ethics and public responsibility. Contemporary public administrators justify their public leadership through a blend of ethics around pragmatism (Mill's utilitarianism), principle (Kant's deontology or duty-based ethics) and prudence (Aristotle's ethical and political theory). Prudential Public Leadership brings Aristotle back into the front rank of studies of administrative leadership, based in part on the now-neglected reliance on Aristotle by the innovators who shaped the system of democratic public administration in the late nineteenth century.