Churchill On Leadership: Executive Success in the Face of Adversity

By: Steven F. Hayward

Published by: Prima Publishing ISBN: 0761508554 (1997)
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Introduction

When CEOs and other senior professionals are surveyed about the top ingredients for leadership,
invariably "character" shows up near the top of everyone's list. Other ingredients that also routinely surface
such as judgment, ability to inspire, empathy, toughness, and intelligence are actually subordinate aspects
of character.

Winston Churchill exemplified character and many of those other traits in his political and military
leadership. Four aspects of character were key to his leadership and set him apart from other politicians:
candor and plain speaking, decisiveness, the ability to balance attention to details with a view of the wider
scene, and a historical imagination that informed his judgment.

Churchill noted that politicians generally confine themselves to platitudes because their work involved
compromise. Managers feel similar pressures, of course. But Churchill took strong positions on issues
without the slightest regard for the often dominant, contrary current of political opinion. The candor flowed
from his confidence in himself. He seldom had regrets about any position he had taken, even if events
subsequently proved him wrong or put him on the losing side of an issue.

Politicians are also prone to temporizing. They hate to make decisions and therefore put them off until
compelled to act. They like responsibility for decisions diffused, so the blame can be spread if something
goes wrong. But Churchill hated procrastination, temporization and equivocation. A leading reason for his
decisiveness was his awareness of just how difficult it is to make things happen, given the resistance and
inertia of human organizations. "How easy to do nothing. How hard to achieve anything," he wrote.

Churchill developed strategy and options from the clay that history provided. It infused his thinking, feeding
his imagination. "The longer you look back, the further you can look forward," he wrote.

Churchill also combined a broad understanding of the whole with close attention to detail. He avoided the
pitfalls of grand strategy unsupported by logistics or, on the other hand, overwhelming attention to detail in
the absence of strategy. Indeed, in 1940, he admonished his staff that "an efficient and successful
administration manifests itself equally in small and great matters."

During his first weeks as prime minister, when the war crisis was at its worst, his concerns managed to
include the size of the flag outside the Admiralty and whether anyone had inquired as to what care was
being taken for the animals in the zoo during German air raids. "Churchill scrutinizes every document which
has anything to do with the war and does not disdain to inquire into the most trivial point," one of his
secretaries wrote. That extended even to checking the code names for military operations and demanding
the title "Soapsuds" for the Italian campaign be changed, since it was undignified for an action that might
involve significant casualties.
The Executive Churchill

In any position he held, Churchill displayed two traits worth emulating by others rising in the organizational
hierarchy. The first is that he set out in every case, not only to learn how the new office operated, but also
to define it in broad new ways, consistent with the overall mandate of the government. On entering a new
ministry, he subjected his subordinates to a barrage of written questions in which he tried to find out about
the routine by which business was carried out and began to set the tone for his administration.

Secondly, he was not content to simply manage the department in a business-as-usual manner. Indeed, in
1928 he wrote Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin about "the great need we have to dominate events lest we
be submerged by them. Each year it is necessary for a modern British government to place some large
issue or measure before the country, or to be engaged in some public struggle which holds the public
mind." That is advice, which will resonate in many executive suites today: A purposeful organization must
maintain its momentum through initiatives conceived by its leaders.

Failure & Learning from Mistakes

Politicians tend to be risk-aversive because any failure is kept alive by partisans and magnified beyond its
original impact. But Churchill was like an entrepreneur, quipping that "success is going from failure to
failure without loss of enthusiasm."

The WW1 fiasco in Turkey, where Britain tried to use its fleet to force open the Dardanelles but got bogged
down in trench warfare, became known as Churchill's Folly. But he learned from it, notably the need for
unity of purpose to avoid the divisions of thought and bickering power centers that had ruined that
operation. Managerially, it taught him that responsibility must be combined with authority and in WW2 he
even served as his own defense minister. There must be a dominant mind at the top, he felt, who "must
continually drive the vast machine forward at utmost speed. To lose momentum is not merely to stop but to
fail."

He laid out "five distinct truths" for military decision-making, which can apply equally to business:

Distinct Truths
1) That there is full authority.
2) That there is a reasonable prospect of success.
3) That greater interests are not compromised.
4) That all possible care and forethought are exercised in the preparation.
5) That all vigor and determination are shown in the execution.

Responsibility and Administration

Churchill's success stemmed from that thinking. In practice, he followed two cardinal habits. He was
determined to take charge and assume full responsibility. He also insisted on a simplified organizational
structure that emphasized responsibility.

That didn't apply just in war. One weekend in 1908 when he was staying at a country estate, a fire broke
out in the middle of the night. Churchill grabbed a fireman's helmet and started directing operations. In
1910, during the Siege of Sidney Street, a gang of heavily armed burglars who had shot and killed three
London policemen were tracked to a house in London's East End. Churchill rushed to the scene himself.
When the house caught fire and the fire brigade arrived, Churchill ordered them not to move in with hoses
for fear they would be shot. When an officer sought to confirm the order, Churchill replied: "Quite right. I
accept full responsibility."

In a moment of chronic indecision by the WW1 war council, Churchill declared: "Someone has to take
responsibility. I will do so - provided that my decision is the one that rules... a man who says, 'I disclaim
responsibility for failure,' cannot be the final arbiter of the measures which may be found vital to success."
During WW2, when faced with criticism in the House of Commons, he stated: "It follows, therefore, when all
is said and done, that I am the one whose head should be cut off if we do not win the war."

In a 1912 memorandum at the Admiralty, Churchill tackled the problem of diffuse organizational
responsibility: "There is one epicycle of action which is important to avoid... recognition of an evil; resolve to
deal with it; appointment of a committee to examine it and discover the remedy; formulation of the remedy;
decision to adopt the remedy; consultation with various persons who raise objections; decisions to defer to
their objections; decision to delay application of the remedy; decision to forget all about the remedy and put
up with the evil."

His solution was to couple responsibility with the direct power of action. Administrative structures must be
clear and precise, with functions divided and responsibility assigned. Above all, overlapping functions were
to be avoided. He also disliked any committee or organization that was purely advisory in character.

When he became minister of munitions in 1917, he found the sprawling organization - with 3 million
workers in 50 departments supervising 30,000 firms - out of control and the paperwork it generated for him
overwhelming. All manner of issues, large and small, had to be settled at the top, by the minister. "I set at
work at once to divide and distribute this dangerous concentration of power," he wrote.

He established a Munitions Council of 10 people, each responsible to him and overseeing five or six of the
previous departments, now merged into a more sensible arrangement. In essence, the reorganization was
allowing him to decentralize his power. "The relief was instantaneous," he noted. "I was no longer
oppressed by heaps of bulky files. Every one of my ten Councilors was able to give important final
decisions in his own sphere."

Personnel

Churchill followed three principles in selecting personnel. First, ignore seniority and pick the person best
suited for the job. Second, have your main plans in mind before you pick your executives so that they are
serving your designs rather than their own. Third, start at the top rather than at the bottom in building your
staff.

He was scrupulous about avoiding yes-men. He wanted people who stood up to him, although military
historian Maxwell Schoenfled noted that could lead him to undervalue a good but silent individual. In
favoring large personalities, he was opting for people who had independence of judgment and action which
he felt was vital in war.
He extended loyalty to all who served him, treating them as part of the family, with complete trust. At one
point, he wrote General Wavell, the commander of British forces in the Middle East, to reassure him that his
boss was prepared to "take the rough with the smooth" and that Wavell could "be quite sure that we will
back you up in adversity even better than in good fortune."

He arranged social occasions outside the office to cement his relationship with subordinates. As minister of
munitions, he established a luncheon club for the 60 to 70 officers of the ministry, allowing him to meet in
twos and threes with them daily in agreeable and quiet surroundings. When he returned to that post in
1939, he initiated a regular Tuesday night dinner party, to which he would invited 14 guests each week
drawn from the various government ministries and military services.

Rest, Relaxation, Change of Pace

Churchill was reported to have once said, "there is no good time for a vacation, so take one anytime." He
was the master of the working vacation. He took many long trips, both in and out of office, but seldom took
a vacation that was completely leisure, even when out of office. "My work and my holidays are the same,"
he wrote George Bernard Shaw. He would always take a truckload of work, usually material for his latest
book.

Recreation was not intended to find rest from his preoccupations but to stimulate his mind through a
change of pace. "Human beings do not require rest," he told an aide. "What they require is change, or else
they become bloody-minded."

Similarly, he adopted unusual daily work habits that also provided a change of pace. He would dictate in
bed in the morning, take naps and baths during the day, and work late at night, ensuring that the day had
several phases. "For every purpose of business or pleasure, mental or physical, we ought to break our
days and our marches into two," he wrote. When an American executive recounted his regular 8:00 to 5:30
days, Churchill told him it was "the most perfect prescription for a short life that I've ever heard." He also
expounded on the virtue of naps: "Don't think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day.
That's a foolish notion held by people who have no imagination. You will be able to accomplish more. You
will get two days in one - well, at least one and a half, I'm sure. When the war started, I had to sleep during
the day because it was the only way I could cope with my responsibilities."

Churchill's naps were only part of his unusual behavior. But unusual, in his case, was smart and sensible.
Much can be learned by today's executives from the man who epitomized successful leadership in war.
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