Daring More

We Shall Not Fail: The Inspiring Leadership of Winston Churchill
by Celia Sandys, Jonathan Littman

(Page 3 of 5)

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 with shots from his revolver. He was equally daring with his words, criticizing without fear or favor anything he found deficient, from the behavior of the troops to the atrocious food. Detractors dubbed him a "publicity hound," but Churchill seemed made for war. In a dispatch a general noted with pleasure "the courage and resolution of W.L.S. Churchill, 4th Hussars."

As James MacGregor Burns writes in Leadership, "Leaders, whatever their professions of harmony, do not shun conflict; they confront it, exploit it, ultimately embody it." This was certainly true of Churchill. In the outposts of the British Empire, the dashing soldier began to forge the character that would one day enable him to bear the weight of the free world on his shoulders.

"It was a lively day," he wrote of combat in India. "I was personally under fire from 7.30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. without a stop, though of course it varied. I rode on my grey pony all along the skirmish line when everyone else was lying down in cover. Foolish perhaps, but I play for high stakes and given an audience there is no act too daring or too noble."

Churchill played hard whatever the sport, unshakably game despite the hazards. He kept up steeplechasing even after serious falls, writing frankly to his brother, Jack, "There is no doubt about it being dangerous." To his mother, on the other hand, he minimized the risks: "I think that you take a rather extreme view of steeplechasing when you call it at once idiotic and fatal."

A severe shoulder injury should have ended his days as a polo player but, with his arm supported by a specially devised sling, he remained a member of the team that won the Indian Inter-Regimental Tournament. Churchill struck three of his team's four goals. To him it was more than a game. His personal style showed in his hard-riding, risk-taking decisiveness. Patrick Thompson, one of his contemporaries, wrote of Winston: "He rides in the game like heavy cavalry getting into position for the assault. He trots about, keenly watching, biding his time, a master of tactics and strategy. Abruptly he sees his chance, and he gathers his pony and charges in, neither deft nor graceful, but full of tearing physical energy-and skilful with it, too. He bears down opposition by the weight of his dash and strikes the ball. Did I say strikes? He slashes the ball."

Proving courage under fire is something one does over time, in many different arenas. Think about how you might improve your reputation for courage, and start taking action.

Resourceful and instinctive, Churchill fought as he played. In 1898 at Omdurman, Churchill was at the head of his troop as the 21st Lancers charged into several thousand Dervish warriors. His bad shoulder made wielding a sword impossible. He drew his Mauser pistol instead, killing three and wounding more. Had his shoulder been sound, he said later, he might well have gone down with his sword. From this experience came his stoic maxim: "One must never forget, when misfortunes come, that it is quite possible they are saving one from something much worse."

In South Africa, in the Boer War, Churchill found a conflict equal to his burgeoning ambition. Within a fortnight of arriving there in 1899 he accompanied an armored train on a reconnaissance. Just two hours down the track the Boers lay in ambush. As it rounded a hill, the train came under fire. The engineer poured on the steam to escape, but a boulder on the track derailed the leading wagons. Several British officers were present, but it was Churchill the war correspondent who took charge. With the improbable assertion that no man is wounded twice in one day, he persuaded the wounded engineer to return to his cab. Under a hail of bullets and artillery fire, he inspired volunteers to leave the shelter of the wagons and work at clearing the wreckage.

The battle lasted an hour, with Churchill, in the words of a private, "walking about in it all as coolly as if nothing was going on." With the wreckage cleared, the locomotive was loaded with wounded and driven to safety under Churchill's command. Returning on foot, in the hope of leading more men to safety, he found they had surrendered. Unarmed, he, too, was captured. A wounded officer described Churchill's conduct "as that of as brave a man as could be found."

The lesson is clear. The next time a crisis erupts, take action instead of waiting for someone or something to come to the rescue. Leadership waits for no one.

After four weeks' imprisonment in Pretoria, Churchill scrambled over the wall and made off into the night. He jumped a freight train then walked for miles across the veld. He was hidden underground by friendly miners and then among bales of wool in a railway wagon bound for Portuguese East Africa. A fortnight after climbing the wall he was back with the army, a few yards from where he had been captured less than six weeks before.

These deeds made him an international hero. Churchill could easily have ridden his reputation to political success. Instead he soldiered on. Within two weeks of his dramatic escape, he was back in action. "I do not know whether I shall see the end or not, but I am quite certain that I will not leave Africa till the matter is settled," he wrote to his sweetheart, Pamela Plowden, who fretted for his safety. "I should forfeit my self-respect forever if I tried to shield myself behind an easily obtained reputation for courage." Leaders make certain that their integrity can never be questioned.

The year was 1900. The celebrated journalist was now a lieutenant in an irregular regiment, the South African Light Horse. Again he showed striking initiative. Ian Hamilton, Churchill's commanding officer, wrote in his memoirs, "The key to the battlefield lay on the summit but nobody knew it until Winston managed to give me the slip and climb this mountain. He ensconced himself in a niche not much more than a pistol shot directly below the Boer commandos. They could have knocked him off his perch with a volley of stones. Thus it was from his lofty perch Winston had the nerve to signal me, if I remember right, with a handkerchief on a stick, that if only I could manage to gallop up at the head of my mounted infantry we ought to be able to rush the summit."

Curiosity and daring nourish the developing leader. "The leader wonders about everything, wants to learn as much as he can, is willing to take risks, experiment, try new things," writes Warren Bennis in On Becoming a Leader. "He does not worry about failure, but embraces errors, knowing he will learn from them."

Quite simply, budding leaders move on, change course, and do not look back. Consider the modern example of Michael Dell's launching of Dell Computer Corporation. Most would not dream of starting a business when contemplating medical school. But premed student Michael Dell spent much of his first semester at the University of Texas upgrading remaindered IBM PCs that he then resold to his fellow students and businesses, racking up a phenomenal $180,000 in sales his first month, and leading him to later launch the internationally successful Dell Computer.

Courage in business often requires staking out your line of attack and charging ahead, despite the naysayers. While at Yale, Fred Smith wrote a college paper describing the blueprint for a worldwide overnight delivery company. The paper got only a C, but as we know, that didn't stop the founder of FedEx one bit.

Copyright © 2004 Celia Sandys. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced without permission.

About the Author

Celia Sandys is the granddaughter of Winston Churchill. She is the author of The Young Churchill, Churchill: Wanted Dead or Alive, and Chasing Churchill. She is founder and chairman of Churchill Leadership.

Jonathan Littman is the author of several books, including The Fugitive Game.