What Insights From Leaders In 1776 Are Useful Today?

Learn From The Great Leaders Of The Past

In This Article Jeffrey Gedmin regales what leadership insights he go from studying George Washington. Insight in leadership that are just as valid for today’s leaders:

What Made a Great Leader in 1776

by Jeffrey Gedmin

The ordinarily decisive George Washington was paralyzed by indecision. It was the summer of 1776, and the Continental Army was being routed by the British in New York. Sick from dysentery and smallpox, 20 percent of Washington’s forces were in no condition to fight.

Militia units were deserting in droves. General Washington had exhausted himself riding up and down the lines on Brooklyn Heights, attempting to rally dispirited troops. Prudence dictated retreat – to preserve the hope of fighting another day. At the same time, though, Washington viewed any defeat as damage to his reputation and a stain on his honor.

There are any number of good reasons to read Joseph J. Ellis’s splendid little book, Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence. Ellis is a wonderful storyteller. His prose is lucid and succinct. Revolutionary Summer is a riveting exposition of exploded myths and excruciating dilemmas. For one thing, Washington — while by no stretch of the imagination the “little paltry Colonel” the British constantly derided — was not the near deity we often read about in American history books. He only reluctantly accepted the advice of aides for what turned out to be a brilliant tactical retreat in August of that summer, and a turning point in the war.

Indeed, the Americans, writes Ellis, were frequently “improvising on the edge of catastrophe.” Which helps to explain why Ellis’s book is a such a terrific case study in leadership. Here are the lessons I take away from it for leaders today.

First, success often depends on a team with complementary skill sets, frequently involving different temperaments and work styles. As a leader you have to assemble the talent you need, and live with and mitigate the shortcomings of respective team members. Thomas Jefferson, drafter of the Declaration of Independence, was superb with a pen. He was a notoriously poor public speaker, however. John Adams was brilliant, courageous, and resolute. He also suffered extreme mood swings and could be dangerously hubristic. (Furious over desertion rates, Adams suggested to an aide that they execute in each regiment every tenth man as a lesson.) Then there was Thomas Paine, the perfect spokesman for their cause. “I could not reach the Strength and Brevity of his style,” remarked Adams, “nor his elegant Simplicity nor his piercing Ethos.” Yet Adams also contended that Paine was “better at tearing down than building up,” a reference to what would happen after British rule.

The takeaway? If you are clear about your objectives, and focused on precisely what you need to develop and execute the elements of your strategy, you can assemble an unbeatable organization. Hire for common purpose, yes. But don’t hire clones.

Second, leadership is tested most by a dilemma — a situation that requires a choice between two or more equally unfavorable options. It is leadership’s job to arrive at decisions, and to do so in a way that aids their implementation. Adams insisted on postponing deliberations on what the new nation would look like, fearing that early splits between advocates of a confederation of sovereign states and champions of a consolidated union would undermine the war effort. He also wanted to postpone discussion of the fundamental disagreement between the northern and southern states over slavery. Some 500,000 individuals, roughly 20 percent of the population at the time, were African American, and nearly all slaves. The institution of slavery was an appalling contradiction of everything the revolution stood for. But Adams was convinced that all other political goals would be lost if independence from Britain were not first achieved. (Adams also resisted his wife Abigail’s plea to advance rights for another disenfranchised group: the female population that could neither vote nor, if married, own property.)

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What Insights From Leaders In 1776 Are Useful Today?