We Shall Not Fail: The Inspiring Leadership of Winston Churchill - Rilegato

This is a question I am often asked and one that I find impossible to answer.

I only knew one of my grandfathers and quite naturally assumed that he was like any other grandfather. I never gave it much thought, but if I had to describe a grandfather he would have been a loving and much-loved man, dressed in a siren suit, puffing a huge cigar, with everyone-secretaries, colleagues, friends, and family-running around trying to make his life as comfortable and easy as possible.

He was a man who seemed to have endless knowledge and interests, who recited poetry, made people laugh; and loved animals, walking around his garden at Chartwell, and above all, painting.

One day a present arrived with the message: "Please look after him for me, Your Loving Grandpapa."

In feverish excitement I unwrapped a strangely shaped parcel and found inside a lifesize toy bulldog with a head that moved from side to side when it was pulled along on the wheels set into its paws. My mother explained that someone had sent this to grandpapa and he thought that I might like it. I did but wanted to know why anyone would send him a toy dog. Armed with the explanation that during the war he had been described as a bulldog I set off for school determined to find out what sort of dogs my friends had for grandfathers!

Little by little it dawned on me that there was something very special about my mother's father with whom we spent a lot of time while we were growing up.

Part of this was a gradual realization that other people regarded and treated him as though he were some kind of god. They talked to him and about him in a very special way. As I grew up, he grew old and it was about this time that I began to understand how much he had done for his country and the world.

A year before the terrible events of September 11, I had decided to write this book. I had the good fortune to meet Jonathan Littman, and we decided to form an Anglo-American alliance.

We believe that the legacy of Winston Churchill as an inspiring example of leadership is as relevant today as it was sixty years ago. This was borne out in the aftermath of September 11 when the speeches of both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair took inspiration from his famous wartime speeches. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said: "Winston Churchill is my great hero. I modeled myself on him. He helped me a lot before, during, and after [the attacks]." There were notices in New York shop windows repeating his advice to the boys of Harrow, his old school, after it had been bombed in 1940: "Never, never give in."

For two weeks following the terrorist attacks The Churchill Center was kept busy attributing Churchill quotations for everyone from the White House staff to the New York Times.

Winston Churchill was like every one of us, a unique person. He was above all a very human man who lived life to the full and enjoyed everything he did. A man who believed in truth, courage, and loyalty.

He was not afraid to show his emotions. Anyone who is old enough to remember will recall exactly where they were on the day President Kennedy died. I was with my grandfather in his London house. I had never seen him watch television before, but on that day it was firmly placed on the dining room table and we watched as the tragic story unfolded before our eyes. Tears poured down his face as the news came that the young president was dead, and once more when we watched his beautiful widow, still dressed in her blood-stained clothes, witnessing the swearing in of the new president.

I soon realized that I must treasure these moments when I had to myself the man the whole world thought they owned.

I am lucky to have known and loved Winston Churchill. I hope that in this book you, too, will discover the qualities which made him great.

Any present or future leader can learn and find inspiration from his example.
Celia Sandys

Chapter 1
T
Be Courageous
Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
-Winston Churchill, Great Contemporaries, 1937

A number of men might have come forward to lead Britain in the spring of 1940. Most of the candidates had shunned Winston Churchill for years. Yet when defeat stared Britain in the face, it was to him that the nation turned. Why?

For one thing, he understood war from top to bottom-as a journalist, a soldier, a field commander, and an administrator. He knew how armies worked, and knew the factors that helped them win.

For another, his knowledge fed his innate optimism-and he knew how to communicate both. When he said it was possible to defeat the Nazi juggernaut, the people believed him.

The outlook was bleak. The Nazis were running over France, Belgium, and Holland. Joseph P. Kennedy, the American ambassador in London, told Washington that Britain was finished.

But on May 10, as he assumed the crucial position of wartime Prime Minister, Churchill felt no fear. Instead, he wrote, he became "conscious of a profound sense of relief. At last I had the authority to give directions over the whole scene."

How is that possible? How could any man feel so prepared for such a monumental task?

The short answer is that he had spent his entire life preparing to lead. But how did he prepare? And once in position, how did he lead? We'll take a close look at his mettle and his methods-at the qualities that made him a great leader just when the world required greatness. There was only one Winston Churchill. But the lessons of his challenging life offer modern leaders a treasure to draw on.

We begin with that most precious commodity: courage. Churchill was clearly a man of extraordinary valor. There are a hundred examples of his courage, but General Douglas MacArthur struck on one-the arduous flights Churchill took during the war to Russia, to shore up the crucial alliance with Stalin. "If disposal of all the Allied decorations were today placed by Providence in my hands, my first act would be to award the Victoria Cross to Winston Churchill," said the general. "Not one of those who wear it deserves it more than he. A flight of 10,000 miles through hostile and foreign skies may be the duty of young pilots, but for a Statesman burdened with the world's cares it is an act of inspiring gallantry and valor."

From his earliest days Churchill had worked to develop his reserves of courage. Throughout his life, he chose experiences for their ability to steel, and show, his will.

A successful life in business requires more courage than most people imagine. Executives must routinely resolve crises. An important subordinate may challenge your authority or threaten to quit. You might have to confront someone whose performance is lacking, or take a leap of faith on a new market. Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan write of the central role of courage in their book, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. "Everyone pays lip service to the idea that leading an organization requires strength of character. In execution it's absolutely critical. Without what we call emotional fortitude, you can't be honest with yourself, deal honestly with business and organizational realities, or give people forthright assessments....If you can't do these things you can't execute."

Some call it character, others emotional fortitude. Whatever one calls it, the conventional wisdom holds that courage is like creativity-one either has it or lacks it. You can't build courage as you would build a muscle, can you?

Churchill decided that he could. And he needed to do so, for circumstances had given him a steep mountain to climb. His gifted father harped on his inferior school marks. His beautiful mother did not spare enough time to give him the attention he craved. "I loved her dearly," he later wrote, "but at a distance." Frail and sickly as a child, he had a speech impediment.

In the 1890s, the British Empire was still vast, and its people still celebrated war as a noble undertaking. Poor at football and cricket, Churchill learned to excel at sports that translated directly to the battlefield. At Harrow School he became a crack shot in the Rifle Corps. In his final year there, he competed in the national fencing championship for private schools. Boldly attacking bigger, stronger boys, he defeated four opponents to emerge victorious. "Churchill must be congratulated on his success over all his opponents in the fencing line, many of whom must have been much taller and more formidable than himself," announced the school magazine, adding that it was his "quick and dashing attack which quite took his opponents by surprise." At the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, he became a talented horseman and, as a young cavalry officer in India, a high-handicap polo player, in the days when skill at equestrian sports was a reflection of military superiority.

Today the fast track in business begins with earning an MBA from a top university or cutting your teeth in a demanding managerial position. In Churchill's age the path to satisfying one's ambition was less clear. Needing to make his name, he displayed verve in combat. "I am more ambitious for a reputation for personal courage," young Winston wrote to his mother "than anything else in the world." Churchill knew he might be killed in battle, but reckoned, "I shall come back afterwards the wiser and the stronger for my gamble."

Daring More
Courage is no stranger among leaders. Franklin D. Roosevelt had to face the debilitating onslaught of polio. Andy Grove of Intel had to escape the Nazis as a child and then the Communists as a young man. Churchill considered courage a tangible asset. On the North-West Frontier of India (now part of Pakistan) he was shocked to see British soldiers abandon their wounded officer to the mercy of ruthless tribesmen. The twenty-two-year-old Churchill risked his own life to save the adjutant, holding off the enemy at close quarters w...