We are not the first generation to believe that we are living through a leadership crisis.
Watching Comrade Keir shuffling along next to President Xi as they inspected elite Chinese troops was lip-curlingly embarrassing. Has Britain ever fielded a less impressive individual on the world stage? The Four Seasons’ Motown classic ‘Walk Like A Man’ sprang to mind…
Donald Trump dominates the headlines abroad while rapidly losing support at home. In many ways, his swagger lies at the opposite end of the spectrum to the Prime Minister. Which got me thinking; what do we look for in our leaders and what lessons can we learn from history about which style is most effective?
We are three years away from choosing another leader so this is a good time to take stock and create some benchmarks against which we can judge the 2029 crop. I’ve chosen ten significant leaders of the last 150 years as my sample. I’ve also limited it to US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers to keep the number of variables under control.
As I’ve researched this piece, what strikes me most is not the absence of capable leaders but how rare it is to find individuals who could win the affection of the public and convert it into durable results.
Popularity alone is relatively easy to achieve with promises of giveaways. History is littered with crowd-pleasers who achieved very little once the applause faded. Here’s looking at you, Boris.
Equally, boring technocrats who deliver outcomes while alienating the public rarely last long enough to embed their reforms. Sunak and Starmer come to mind.
The leaders who make a difference and arguably change the course of history sit at the uncomfortable intersection of emotional legitimacy and ruthless execution. They persuade before they command. And they often suffered before they governed.
A politician who never made it to the top job and was perhaps the prototype for Cancel Culture, Enoch Powell, famously said, "All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure."
And it’s true that, more often than not, leaders fall when the world changes faster than they do. When you look at the careers of the ten I’ve chosen, you’ll be reminded of how fast and how far the mighty can fall.
Follow me on a walk through a century and a half of leadership triumphs and tragedies. The order is purely historic, with no attempt to rank the ten overall, though it would be fun to see how you would position them in the comments.
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