Large organizations are interested in identifying men and women with leadership abilities. They spend a lot of time and money hiring outside experts to deliver leadership training. Such training can range from one-hour inspirational sessions to off-site retreats lasting several days. The presiding leadership guru may have written a book, which is distributed to one and all. There will invariably be a PowerPoint presentation supported by a binder with tabs; and, commonly, a laminated card summarizing the “10 secrets of an effective leader.”
Middle- or senior-level executives at global firms are familiar with all this, but here’s the interesting thing: Ask them what they remember from this training and you will probably be met with blank stares. In fact, they don’t remember much. They are apt to say that they picked up what they know about leadership from on-the-job experience.
Does this mean that there is no place for theory when it comes to leadership? No. Check out the shelves of most bookstores and you will find an extensive range of books on management and leadership. However, if you buy one of these books, you may discover that you have been looking for leadership inspiration in the wrong place. Why not try the biography section? A well-written life story is much more likely to grip your attention than any how-to leadership books.
Let’s take the example of someone about whom many books have been written and who is generally recognized as a leader: Winston Churchill. Obviously one could write a book on the topic of Churchill and leadership (and doubtless many already have). Anyone who reads a decent biography of Churchill will find it hard not to remember some of the anecdotes relating to the great man’s leadership qualities.
Churchill did not make his living as a leader. He made it as a journalist — winning the Nobel Prize for literature, not for peace. But he, far more than most, exemplifies the dos and don’ts of authentic leadership.
Herewith, some lessons from his life.
Have confidence in your own leadership abilities: As a young man, Churchill told a dinner companion, “We are all worms but I do believe I am a very glowworm.” Later in life, Churchill upbraided one of his domestic servants for rudeness. The man responded that Churchill had been rude to him. “Ah yes,” said Churchill, “but I am a great man.”
Knowledge is power: Churchill encouraged (as we say in today’s parlance) upstream communication. When he was out of power in the 1930s, he listened to whistleblowers — young men who had access to confidential information about Germany’s growing might and who risked all to provide Churchill with confidential briefings using classified information. Churchill then used this information to embarrass government spokesmen in the House of Commons as he carried on his one-man fight warning the world about the Nazi threat.
Avoid making empty threats: Advantage seldom comes of it. This was a lesson Churchill learned from his brilliant but unstable father, Lord Randolph Churchill. Lord Randolph was a rising star in the government of Lord Salisbury. The two men had a falling-out and Lord Randolph submitted his resignation, confident in the expectation that Salisbury would beg him to re-consider. Salisbury did no such thing. Sick of the posturing, he accepted Lord Randolph’s resignation — and ended his political career.
Be patient in achieving your goals: From an early age, Churchill wanted to be prime minister. He did not achieve this goal until 1940, when he was 65 years old — official retirement age. He overcame adversity that would have felled lesser men. Churchill’s example must surely give comfort to all of us of a certain age who feel we have not yet achieved our goals.
Be flexible: Churchill started his political career as a Conservative. He crossed the floor of the House of Commons to become a Liberal. He then crossed the floor yet again to return to the Conservatives. “Anyone can rat,” Churchill said, “but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat.”
When you want something, lobby for it: As a young man, Churchill had no compunction about using his mother to pull strings in high places to get him where he wanted and what he wanted. His mother, the beautiful Jennie Churchill, was an American socialite with excellent connections. At Churchill’s urging, she used her connections to get postings for Winston as a war correspondent on the front lines of late-Victorian conflicts — the last cavalry charge in the history of the British Empire at the Battle of Omdurman in North Africa, the Boer War in South Africa and the Spanish-American war in Cuba.
Do not be discouraged by adversity: Churchill got off to a shaky start. His parents were remote and unloving. He did not do well at his boarding school, Harrow. He was not very successful when he went on to the English military college, Sandhurst. Lord Randolph was furious when Winston did not get high enough marks at Sandhurst to qualify him for an infantry regiment. Winston had to sign up for a much more expensive cavalry regiment. His ambition was in no way dented by his inauspicious start in life.
Avoid worldly pleasures: The record is not so clear here. On the one hand, Churchill was not a womanizer. He remained devoted to his wife, Clementine, for his entire life. On the other hand, he smoked and drank a lot. However, later in life, his trademark cigar was not lit for much of the time and, while he continued to knock back prodigious amounts of champagne and cognac until the day he died at the age of 90, he was never seen drunk. Churchill was an expert at pacing his intake of booze: “I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.”
Work, work, work: Churchill worked like a Trojan. He had no choice. He enjoyed a lifestyle of the rich and famous but he inherited nothing and had to finance this lifestyle from his own writing. He employed a staff of researchers and a squad of secretaries who had to be at his beck and call day and night. He would dictate work after dinner, and into the early hours of the morning, and he would dictate work early in the day as he took his breakfast in bed.
Read biographies of great men: Although Churchill was an indifferent scholar at school, he prescribed for himself, as a young man, an extensive course of reading in classical and modern history. One of his favourites was the monumental Plutarch’s Lives. He read Macaulay’s History of England, which was essentially a history of the deeds of great men and women. His favourite lines of poetry were from Macaulay’s famous poem on leadership, Horatius at the Bridge:
Then out spake brave Horatius
The Captain of the Gate
‘To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods?’
Is not this sort of thing more helpful and memorable for aspirant leaders than what may be gleaned from leadership seminars or from reading contemporary leadership manuals?
James Hunter is a Toronto-based writer.
