BY SHASHI MALLA
Leadership Qualities in a Time of Turmoil
Leadership is the ability of an individual to give direction and guide other individuals. A leader is a person who is the most successful or advanced in a particular area. She/He is an innovator, trailblazer, groundbreaker, torch-bearer, initiator, architect – ‘a leading light’. A real leader gives guidance, direction, management, superintendence and good governance. Thus, a “bad’ or ‘mediocre’ leader is a contradiction in itself. In such cases, we should rather speak of a ‘pseudo-leader’, boss or honcho.
There are lessons to be learnt from history about what makes a truly great leader. The UK, once a world power with an empire, and the United States whose Pax Americana has started to crumble under the inept Donald Trump, both are bracing to choose its next leaders in a time of incredible change and upheaval.
Andrew Roberts writing in TIME magazine (October 30, 2019) helps us recognize the kind of person needed to lead their respective countries through these turbulent times. He lends a helping hand to navigate the qualities that a truly great president/prime minister should have. What can these persons, regardless of political affiliation, learn from their peers of the past?
Roberts is eminently qualified to assist us in our historical journey and its modern impact. He is the author of “Leadership in War: Essential Lessons from Those Who made History. He is also the author of bestselling studies on Churchill, the masters and commanders of World War II, and Napoleon.
Here is Roberts take on the essential qualities of leadership:
1. ENERGY
Most of the greatest leaders in history could work working very hard. Winston Churchill, Britain’s war-time prime minister was one of the world’s most famous, but so was Konrad Adenauer, Germany’s post-war chancellor [equivalent to prime minister].
2. ABILITY to PLAN and ADAPT
A leader’s ability to plan diligently is significant. According to the US military commander in World War II, General Dwight Eisenhower (who later became the US president): “Planning is everything”. At the same time, it is essential to adapt to changing circumstances. Adolf Hitler’s blitzkrieg against the Western Allies only succeeded because he adopted a ‘Plan B’ after the original plan fell into Allied hands.
The Prussian military commander, Helmuth von Moltke wrote: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”
And the Irish-English politician Edmund Burke noted: “Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan.”
3. GREAT MEMORY
A good memory is very useful for leadership in general and planning. This can be augmented by an excellent filing/recording system. Both Churchill and Napoleon had these excellent qualities.
Trump, however, constantly mistakes his imagination for his actual memory!
4. LUCK
This is an attribute impossible to quantify or predict, but leaders need to be lucky as well as brilliant. Before Napoleon appointed anyone of his generals to be a “Marshal”, he first surmised if they had been lucky! The role of chance and contingency in history is a fascinating aspect of mankind’s progress through time.
Various extraneous factors contributed to Trump’s unexpected elevation to the American presidency. Will he be a second time lucky?
As Hector Berlioz said:
“The luck of having talent is not enough; One must also have a talent for luck.”
5. UNDERSTANDING PUBLIC SENTIMENT
A truly great leader understands and appreciates the political and economic landscape in which he finds herself/himself and in which he must campaign.
Franklin D. Roosevelt only brought the U.S. into World War II after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and for all the world to see, he had no other option.
Abraham Lincoln was a supreme war leader, second to none in the American pantheon. He had an “almost preternatural sense of what the Union [during the American civil war against the Confederate South] would be able to accept politically, and when it would accept it, of what he could ask for and what he simply could not at any particular time, and his willingness to ride political storms, do necessary deals, sack underperforming or disloyal generals, and employ oratory of the Periclean quality…“ (Roberts).
Trump and the Republican Party pride themselves of being the ‘party of Lincoln’, but they lack his qualities in ample measure!
6. “WELL-TIMED UNREASONABLENESS”
What Roberts characterizes as a talent for unreasonableness, but what we rather prefer to term as tenacious and iron-willed was an attribute of Queen Elizabeth I, who for example, refused to name a successor in order to protect her country from civil war. She definitely was a great leader, in her oratory, in her determination, and her choice of subordinates.
The quality of being strong-willed depends naturally on the timing and the situation. The other side of the same coin is being obstinate, intractable, willful, perverse, bloody-minded and downright pig-headed. The latter would be an apt description of Trump in all his glory!
7. STEADY NERVES
Having steady nerves can be instinctive but can also be acquired. However, it cannot be underestimated in a crisis.
British PM Margaret Thatcher displayed complete self-control during the Falklands war and after the IRA assassination attempt on her in October 1984.
Charismatic President John F. Kennedy manifested strong qualities of mental initiative and determination during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis with Soviet Russia.
In contrast, Donald Trump demonstrated no self-control during various national security crises of his presidency, adopting a vacillating attitude that could have had dire consequences for the US, the region concerned and the world at large, for instance in the standoff with Iran in the Strait of Hormuz this year.
8. INSPIRING PERSISTENCE
In October 1944 General S. Patton defined leadership as a capacity for “telling somebody who thinks he is beaten that he is not beaten.”
The sheer doggedness of Prithvi Narayan Shah in finding ways and means in conquering the Nepal Valley is inspiring to this day. Through heredity he became the King of Gorkha, he evolved into a great leader through his strong charismatic personality, and with his persistent efforts he was crowned King of Nepal.
Donald Trump took advantage of the weaknesses of the American political system and became president by default. He could be re-elected for the same reason.
9. EMPATHY
The capacity to sympathize with people, understand their problems, share their feelings and relate to them is an inherent part of leadership. And it is not even necessary to have the same origins as the people in general.
Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Churchill, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy all had a strong sense of what motivated soldiers and civilians alike who were from backgrounds far further down in the social ladder. Thus, a capacity to empathize is more important than one’s class or ethnic background.
Instead of uniting, Trump has divided America. He is a polarizing figure, sowing hatred for ‘the other’.
10. POLITICAL AWARENESS
Leaders must be politically perspicacious, i.e. have a sixth sense for politics [‘the art of the possible’], the capacity for making a swift tactical assessment of the situation, and furthermore, “a sense of timing, an aptitude for observation, the gift of working out what is genuinely important as opposed to merely diversionary, a faculty for predicting an opponent’s likely behavior in different scenarios” (Roberts).
At the same time, opportunism should not be underestimated. As the proverb goes: ‘opportunity knocks but once’.
FAZIT
However, possessing all or most of these qualities is still not enough. Napoleon had a staggering number of impressive leadership qualities, but he made a strategic blunder by invading Russia, and compounded his initial mistake by choosing the wrong direction in which to retreat. Adolf Hitler was an evil genius. His armies were successful all over Europe, but repeated Napoleon’s historical miscalculation by attacking the Soviet Union.
According to Roberts, the modus operandi to move hearts and command multitudes today and in the future is to study the past diligently. As the great peace- and war-time British PM Churchill (awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953) said: “Study history. Study history. In history lie all the secrets of statecraft.”
Great leaders are able to make their followers believe that they are part of a greater purpose, and their leader’s spirit is infused into them. It is this intangible ‘magic art’ or ‘innovative genius’ that constitutes the secret of successful leadership.
As the great bard wrote:
“Some men are born great,
Some achieve greatness, and
Some have greatness thrust upon them.”
[Twelfth Night]
Unfortunately for Trump, he is none of these, although like the boxer Muhammad Ali/Cassius Clay he frequently boasts: “I’m the greatest”! But as Shakespeare aptly noted, it was
“Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
[Macbeth]
Trump frequently claims that he will “Make America Great Again” (‘MAGA’). But the eminent political theorist, John Stuart Mill already had the final word:
A state “will find that with small men [i.e. intellectually stunted, morally depraved, politically corrupt] no great thing can really be accomplished” [On Liberty].
Syria: Trump Gives Mixed Messages
Syria provides the classic example for a befuddled U.S. foreign and national security policy and a damaging lack of leadership.
The US role in Syria has become more complex with US President Donald Trump claiming its oil reserves. Syria has been entangled in a multi-faceted civil war since 2011. Now with Trump’s blessing, Turkey has violated its sovereignty by its incursion into the north-eastern region to establish a so-called ‘safe zone’. This is tantamount to a severe violation of the United Nations Charter.
Before the start of the civil war, Syria’s oil production was at a peak of about 400,000 barrels a day and has now shrunk to an estimated 80,000 barrels a day.
Trump was applauded for apparently fulfilling his original campaign pledge of ‘ending endless wars’ by suddenly withdrawing American troops from north-eastern Syria on the border to south-western Turkey and in the process stabbing his Syrian-Kurdish allies in the back. He had already boasted twice that he was peremptorily ending the US military mission in Syria so that the troops could come home. Now he has just as suddenly had second thoughts and has added additional US forces and time to the US endeavor which will surely bind it to the Syrian quagmire.
On Trump’s orders, US forces have now extended the mission to secure eastern Syria’s oilfields. The prima facie argument is that a full withdrawal now could hasten a revival of the extremist Islamic State group (IS), even after the militants lost their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in a recent dramatic U.S. clandestine military operation. The eventual US force in the Deir el-Zour oil region is expected to be about 500 operating with armored vehicles.
Trump has clearly stated: “We’re keeping the oil…Forty-five million dollars a month? Keep the oil.” Since then, Pentagon officials have been trying to downplay the actual meaning and extent of Trump’s audacious claim.
Russia was quick to condemn Trump’s claim to the oil, calling it “state banditry”. Foreign Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said grabbing the oil belies US claims to be fighting terrorism and “lies far from the ideals that Washington has proclaimed.” (AP/Associated Press). It is a fact that for years the US has claimed its military interventions abroad are meant to strengthen peace and security, not to take any nation’s territory or resources.
There is absolutely no valid argument under international law for Trump to seize Syrian oil. It is also fraught with major national security dangers. Loren DeJonge Schulman, at the Center for a New American Security who was a senior Pentagon and White House official under President Barack Obama notes: “U.S. forces are being sent with only the shakiest possible legal authorization, knowing their commander-in-chief may change his mind as he has multiple times in the past”, adding that an oil grab is what many in the Middle East have long suspected is the purpose of U.S. wars.
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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