Leadership: Churchill and Stoic Virtues
When you try to look up for the greatest leaders of our time, most likely Churchill’s name will come up. I thought it would be fun to take a look at what made Churchill such an iconic leader, and make a parallel between his leadership strategies and the 4 core virtues of stoic philosophy.
Here’s what I came up with:
Churchill has failed more times than you and I ever will. In the battle of Gallipoli in 1914, as a leader of the British navy, his bad decisions resulted in a turning point victory for the enemy (the Ottomans), and caused over 250 thousand deaths.
Churchill was often rude, loud, and from time to time quite unpleasant.
He was once removed from office, got re-elected, and got un-elected.
Although he did win more elections than anyone in British history, he also lost more elections that anyone in Great Britain’s history.
He was not only famous for his leadership speeches, but for his insults in parliament. When accused by Lady Astor, the first female Member of Parliament, of being disgustingly drunk on the job, he responded: “My dear, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly.”
And yet, history depicts him, and righteously so, as one of the greatest leaders and commanders the world has ever seen. He saved Great Britain, and debatably the world from the Nazis, at a time where everyone had lost hope.
So why is that? What made Churchill such a great leader, and why was he so loved by the people, then and now?
Bob Iger, who just stepped down as CEO of Disney a few months ago, and probably the most successful CEO for the Disney company ever, recently told in an interview to Tim Ferriss on the Tim Ferriss Podcast episode #406, that he had never read a single business book, but deeply studied Churchill.
In this short article, we are going to scrap the surface of what made Churchill one of the greatest leaders of all times, and we will extract some practices and lessons along the way that you can use in your own leadership, and personal life.
The 4 core Stoic Virtues:
In ancient philosophy, both the Stoics and the Greeks, and later the positive psychology movement, put forward 4 main virtues for life. These were Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, and Justice.
Churchill possessed all of those virtues, that guided his life, both personal, and political. We will explore these virtues here, and use famous quotes by Churchill to illustrate these points. We will also dig a bit deeper here and there, with the help of modern and ancient thinkers.
JUSTICE
Churchill had a deep sense of justice. Another, simpler word for justice, is Love. He deeply and genuinely loved the people, and that love was reciprocated.
From that love came a passion for saying what was wrong in current political climates when all others remained mute, and committed to right those wrongs.
Churchill was a man of passion, and that led him to be a leader of action.
In his own words:
“I never worry about action, but only inaction.”
I want to introduce a passage from Jim Rohn’s book Leading an Inspired life on taking action. Jim Rohn was an inspiration to many of today’s personal development teachers, including Tony Robbins, Les Brown and Mark Victor.
“Engaging in genuine discipline requires that you develop the ability to take action. You don’t need to be hasty if it isn’t required, but you don’t want to lose much time. Here’s the time to act: when the idea is hot and the emotion is strong.
Take action as soon as possible, before the feeling passes and before the idea dims. If you don’t here’s what happens. You fall prey to the Law of Diminishing Intent. We intend to take action when the idea strikes us. But if we don’t translate that intention into action fairly soon, the urgency starts to diminish. And a month from now the passion is cold. A year from now it can’t be found.
So take action. Set up a discipline when the emotions are high and the idea is clear, and powerful.”
It goes without saying, that Churchill never had the opportunity to witness the Law of Diminishing Intent. His ideas were always hot, and his emotions were always strong. He lived and led in a time of urgency, where every minute of inaction was an opportunity for the enemy to take a step forward.
On to you: When was the last time you had a brilliant idea, and you didn’t follow through, simply because too much time passed and your enthusiasm dissipated away? Make a commitment, right now, to take immediate action, even if it’s a micro action, every time inspiration strikes.
WISDOM
Wikipedia defines wisdom as: the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight.
Churchill was driven by his passion, and guided by his life’s mission, to lead the people to peace, and to economic prosperity. He had the ability to act using knowledge (and most importantly his previous bad decisions), his experience (again, good and bad), his understanding of the people (he was always listening closely to the whispers of the streets), his common sense and insight.
He famously said: “Never, never, never give up” and “Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential”
In her book Grit, Angela Duckworth’s gives us the scientific definition of grit as intense passion + intense perseverance.
Michelle Gielan, in her book Broadcasting Happiness, tells us that the most successful people, and leaders in particular, are what she calls “work altruists”. Meaning that people and leaders that help others the most are often the most successful.
Back to Jim Rohn for a last reminder:
“Who are you working for besides yourself? Who is depending on you? Who will benefit if you persevere and succeed? Who will suffer if you give up and stop trying? Who can you reach out to and help once you’ve achieved your goals?”
Churchill knew how to answer all of these questions:
Who are you working for besides yourself? The people
Who is depending on you? The people
Who will benefit if you persevere and succeed? The people
Who will suffer if you give up and stop trying? The people
Who can you reach out to and help once you’ve achieved your goals? The people.
What about you, can you answer these questions? Take a pen and paper, and get on it.
COURAGE
Churchill famously said:
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.”
The Stoics believed that a life well lived was one which always countered adversity with virtue. With courage, everything else was possible. Churchill confirmed just that when he said:
“Courage is he first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others”
Seneca, one of the leaders in Ancient Stoicism, would say that he actually pitied people who have never experienced misfortune.
“You have passed through life without an opponent,” he said, “No one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”
When faced with adversity, Churchill would dive head first. He had this ability to feast on fear, and to take all Brittons with him.
When we are procrastinating, in our life and at work, at least 50% of the time, we don’t take action because of fear (the other 50% is when we don’t know how to properly manage our energy, but that’s for a later episode.)
Churchill had this ability to use fear as a reverse indicator, for him and for his followers. He knew that the fear came from knowing that what he did matters, and so, moved towards it.
In your life and your leadership, where were you stopped by fear instead of feasting on it? Next time you get the shakes, just say out loud: “Hello fear! Welcome! I can see you, I can *feel* you, and I’m going to USE you! Come on my friends, it’s time to feast on that fear and fight for what’s right!”
Remember, that it is only when moving towards fear, that we gain strength.
TEMPERANCE + RESPONSIBILITY
Although he was mostly known as a brilliant orator, he knew how to listen to the people. He understood what the people needed, and he made it his life’s mission to give it to them:
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, it’s also what it takes to sit down and listen”
Churchill took complete responsibility for his actions, and for the actions of his subordinates. Because of that, the people working for him had genuine trust and admiration for him. He once said ”The price of greatness is responsibility”
He had, what Jocko Willink, ex-navy seal commander and best selling author called Extreme Ownership.
Let’s look at this word responsibility for a minute here.
Taking responsibility is Stephan’s Covey’s #1 Habit in his best selling book The habits of successful people: be proactive.
In Jack Canfield’ best selling book “The success principles”, taking 100% responsibility, is his first principle.
“To achieve major success in life, — to achieve those things that are most important to you — you must assume 100% responsibility for your life. Nothing less will do.” He is also the one that introduced us to the equation E + R = O → The Event + The Response = The Outcome.
To say E = O equals to being a victim. And that was very very far from our friend Churchill.
Finally, Epictetus writes in the Enchiridion: “Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things”
So next time something happens to you, or to your company, if you want to be a great leader, you will take full responsibility. How? You’re look at an event, and you’ll analyse it to come up with the appropriate response. You won’t let the event itself be the sole factor of the outcome, and most importantly, you won’t blame and victimise yourself or your employees for unwanted events.
Finally, what made Churchill such a loved and inspiring leader, is that he didn’t let all the adversity he faced on a daily basis stop him from his life’s mission.
He said:
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
Churchill faced many failures. Some at great cost, like at the battle of Gallipoli where a quarter of a million lives were lost. And yet, he continued going, because he loved his country, and his people.
Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome and an amazing leader 2000 years prior to Churchill, wrote in his meditations:
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Ryan Holiday, in his book “The obstacle is the Way” describes this beautifully. I quote:
“See the things for what there are.
Do what we can.
Endure and bear what we must.
What blocked the path is now the path.
What once impeded actions advances action.
The Obstacle is the Way.”
So what about you? In your life or in your business, what challenges can you transform in opportunities? Problems that we face in our everyday lives become famous businesses everyday. Embrace your obstacles, they might make you rich someday, and in any case, they will make you stronger.
Why was Churchill admired and loved by so many? What made him one of the greatest leaders in history? These five virtues, that he followed, day after day, moment after moment, for the entirety of his life. Justice, Courage, temperance, and Wisdom.
On that note, I want to thank you for listening, and we will finish off with our last quote by Churchill:
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
