Winston Churchill was, in the view of contemporaries and historians alike, an inspirational leader of Britain during the Second World War. His energy and drive and his stubborn refusal to contemplate defeat even when Britain was threatened with invasion gave heart to the rest of the country. His speeches were uplifting and gave people hope. Yet in July 1945, even before the end of the war he had helped to win, the British electorate voted Churchill out of office. Why? – asks Morgen Witzel, FSN writer and honorary senior fellow at the University of Exeter Business School
One woman from Kent who voted in the 1945 election put it this way. ‘He was a wonderful man’, she said. ‘He had held us all together during the war. But come the peace, we knew we needed a different kind of prime minister. It was sad, but he had to go.’ Churchill did return as prime minister from 1951-55, but his record on this occasion was not particularly distinguished. During the war he was in his element, but as a peacetime leader he struggled to come terms with the needs of the country.
Theorists on leadership refer to this phenomenon as ‘situational leadership’. In The Human Side of Enterprise, published in 1960, the psychologist Douglas McGregor warned against fixed ideas as to what qualities made for a good leader. Not every leader, he said, would be successful in every situation.
Subsequent research on leadership in many fields – business, politics, the army, even the church – has confirmed this. Different sets of circumstances call for different qualities in a leader. The right kind of leader for one occasion, may be the wrong kind for another. Henry Ford was a brilliant engineer and entrepreneur, but he was unable to lead Ford as a mature company, and surrendered his dominance of the car industry to General Motors. Jürgen Schrempp was a dynamic and capable leader of Daimler, but arguably failed to master the complexities of global management when Daimler merged with Chrysler. Like Churchill, both men eventually stepped down once it became clear that their leadership style was no longer the right one for the time and place.
The concept of situational leadership becomes particularly important when we consider strategy. Given that leaders play a key role in the execution of strategy – providing oversight, directing the efforts of others, providing inspiration and enthusiasm, keeping everyone focused on the goals – it is essential to have the right leader in place. In Britain in 1940. Churchill’s leadership skills and style were exactly what was needed. His rivals, Lord Halifax and Neville Chamberlain, were perfectly decent, good men, but they did not have the ability to rouse people to fight for a ‘hopeless’ cause.
In the business world, as companies pass through various phases of growth, they often change leaders. The founding entrepreneur makes way for talented organiser who consolidates early growth and then prepares to move forward. As the business begins to expand multinationally, leaders with international expertise are called in, and so on. Not surprisingly, financial crises like the present one also require new kinds of leadership. Not every leader can turn from executing a strategy based on growth to one based on pure survival. Those who cannot are ejected by their companies, which then seek leaders who have the right skills and abilities to fit the times. And when the recovery comes, do not be too surprised to see some of these leaders, who have managed successfully for survival and turnaround, step aside and make way for those who are better equipped to manage for growth.
In their 1982 book In Search of Excellence, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman argued that one of the key things required of a leader was the ability to ‘transform’ businesses; that is, to help them undergo a shift in strategic direction and embark on a journey towards a new set of strategic goals. But not every leader has the ability to make this change. And if the leader cannot change? Then change the leader.
It should be said that this is not a universal phenomenon. Some leaders are successful in the same organization over long periods of time. We can think of William McKnight at 3M or Alfred Sloan at General Motors, or here in Britain, Sir Stewart Hampson at John Lewis, Arnold Weinstock at GEC or further back, William Lever at Lever Brothers, the ancestor of Unilever. But these are unusual leaders, all-rounders who were good at many things and could adapt their leadership style to suit circumstances. This kind of talent in a leader is, sadly, very rare.
But if we accept that different strategies call for different leaders, how do we make certain we have the right leader in any given case? What kind of leader is best for a growth strategy? What kind is best when survival is the main imperative? How do we identify them? Do they have special characteristics? Are there templates we can use in order to design or train such leaders?
The writings of leadership gurus don’t at first glance offer us much help. ‘It is more fruitful’, wrote Douglas McGregor in 1960, ‘to consider leadership as a relationship between the leader and the situation than as a universal pattern of characteristics possessed by certain people. The differences in requirements for successful leadership in different situations are more striking than the similarities.’ So there are no templates, no rules as to what makes for the best leader in a given situation.
Instead, the gurus prefer to talk of generic qualities of successful leaders, like passion and courage and commitment. ‘The leader wonders about everything’, wrote Bennis in his 1989 book On Becoming a Leader. ‘He wants to learn as much as he can, is willing to take risks, experiment, try new things. He does not worry about failure, but embraces errors, knowing he will learn from them.’ That sounds a little like the stuff of nightmare. At the bottom of a recession, the last thing we might want is a leader who embraces errors.
But on reflection, Bennis’s words start to make sense. Look at the differences between Churchill and his predecessor, Neville Chamberlain. The latter was cautious, highly risk-averse and unwilling to accept that the world had changed and a new strategy was required. Churchill was willing to confront change directly and rally people to meet it – and to accept the risk of failure. In 1945 it was Churchill who was unwilling to see that the war had changed British society forever and that some issues – the need for a health service, the demand for independence in India – would not go away. His successor was willing to attack these issues head-on.
Is that perhaps our answer? Is the right leader for any given strategy the one who is prepared to face the challenge directly, to think creatively about problems and how to solve them, and to motivate and inspire others to make the journey along with them?
If so, then rather than trying to worry too much about whether someone will be good at ‘transformation’ or ‘turnaround’ or ‘growth’, we should focus on a few simple questions. Is the person a good communicator? Are they genuinely enthusiastic about the business and its prospects and do they believe in success? Are they able to rouse the same enthusiasm and belief in others? Do his or her personal values match those of the organisation; i.e. do they believe in the same things and see the world in the same way? If the answer to all four questions is ‘yes’, then there is a good chance that this is the right leader.
But as time goes on, remember to keep asking those questions. And if at any point the answer to any one of them changes to ‘no’, then it might be time to start thinking about change.
