Winston Churchill, CEO
By Alan Axelrod
Sterling, 276 pages, $24.95
The Leadership Secrets Of Genghis Khan
By John Man
Bantam Press, 184 pages, $24.95
It seems almost sacrilegious to mention Winston Churchill and Genghis Khan in the same breath. One is known for saving the world from an invading Hitler, the other for invading neighbouring countries and ruthlessly trying to construct a huge empire.
Indeed, to even suggest that we can learn leadership from Genghis Khan seems scandalous. He was a mass murderer - indeed, used mass murder as a strategic weapon - and a tyrant.
But new books are out focusing, separately, on each of them, and twice in The Leadership Secrets of Genghis Khan, historian John Man links the Mongolian leader to Churchill. Both leaders forged a firm bond with compatriots by sharing suffering, defeat and death. And both were the right man for their nation at a critical moment in history. "Great leaders do not spring from nowhere. They arise in response to urgent problems," Mr. Man observes.
In Winston Churchill, CEO, Alan Axelrod, a prolific writer of books on leadership lessons from historical figures, identifies 25 main lessons for business leaders from the legendary British prime minister. The book is essentially a compressed biography, with lessons pulled from every juncture of his life, many of them obvious but still fascinating reading because of the vigour with which Churchill attacked the world around him, his ability to always seem at the centre of crucial historical moments, and the power of his stirring rhetoric.
We're told these days of the importance of being willing to fail and learn from it. Churchill failed spectacularly in his First World War attempt to seize the heavily fortified Dardanelles Straits from Turkey for the Allies, opening up a direct passage to Russia for supplies and troops. As a strategy, it was debatable, but there is little debate on how it was executed - abysmally, in part because Churchill was hamstrung by the cabinet committee overseeing the war. From April, 1915, to January, 1916, the Australian and New Zealand troops charged with taking the land suffered 252,000 casualties, including 46,000 deaths.
Mr. Axelrod says that Churchill "learned that strategy without adequate tactics is like an idea without adequate expression: stillborn. He learned that the counsel of experts, authorities, and advisers was valuable, but that no committee could ever make effective decisions. One leader, one thinker, one decision-maker had to reign above all. But that was not enough. The person who held the responsibility for making decisions must also posses the authority to execute those decisions. He cannot be second-guessed, countermanded, or sabotaged."
Churchill once said that "success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." He was actually heartbroken after Dardanelles, but retreated temporarily to his canvas and paintings before flinging himself into the action by assuming command of the 6th Royal Scots on the front lines in France, serving in the trenches for about seven months. He then returned home to reclaim his place in the government, taking responsibility for the production of munitions, determined to produce them faster and in greater quantity than ever before.
A key obstacle was that workers in several munitions plants had gone on strike, which had led his predecessor to fire and deport the strike leaders. But Churchill invited their chieftain, David Kirkwood, to meet with him, and instead of beginning the session with the tongue lashing Mr. Kirkwood expected, invited him to have tea and cake. That offering, and the civil discussion that followed, led to a friendship that allowed for a valuable compromise: The strike would end and the deportees would return to work as well.
It was a reminder of the importance of compromise at times to get the job done. It was also a reminder of Churchill's way with words, speaking to one or to a million. "At his best, he could almost talk a bird out of a tree," Lloyd George, the prime minister of the time, once said.
Those are just some lessons - as it happens from before the epoch when we know Churchill best, his Second World War leadership.
The book is an enjoyable history lesson, if you haven't engaged deeply before in Churchill's remarkable life, and there is much to be learned simply in reading the absorbing biography. However, the author's effort to emphasize his message in breakout boxes often leads to trite and condescending, if not hectoring, lessons.
As for Genghis Khan, Mr. Man dismisses the notion that we can't learn leadership lessons from tyrants. "Genghis was a great leader - one of the greatest, despite the evil he did - because of his many positive qualities, which is why he is a heroic figure in both Mongolia and China. For instance, he, of all people, had the opportunity to profit from his conquests. Yet he did not, at least not in a personal way. He was uncorrupted, inspirational, open-minded, curious, generous, persuasive, and many other things as well. These are rare qualities in a despot - and they are what make him worth studying."
Mr. Man believes his most remarkable asset was that he was an exception to the Peter Principle, which states that people get promoted for competence but eventually end up in a post where they are incompetent.
"At every level of his rise, Genghis acquired new competence. It was this supreme skill, combining so many others - learning, posing new questions, devising solutions, moving on upwards - that makes him out as a genius," Mr. Man declares.
Genghis Khan expected loyalty. But more than loyalty to himself, he expected loyalty to the notion of loyalty itself - that people should be loyal to their nation, its system and its leader at the time. He put to death those who betrayed his onetime friend, then fierce opponent, Jamukha because they had been disloyal, even if that disloyalty benefited Genghis Khan.
That's an interesting view of loyalty to ponder. The book has a few other notable lessons, but the bulk aren't all that novel or helpful. It's more history than leadership guidance, and should be read more to learn about Genghis Khan than his leadership lessons.
Just In: The Successful Manager's Handbook (DK, 862 pages, $45), with no single author cited on the cover but a number of contributors listed inside, is a compendium of knowledge, presented in short bursts of information, with lots of colourful supporting graphics, on a range of topics including getting organized, writing effectively, thinking creatively, influencing people, dealing with difficult people and managing public relations.
Harvey Schachter