Political pollsters in the UK are wringing their hands because they got the outcome of the recent general election wrong. But perhaps an important factor in the result was a tiny event – which has relevance to the whole concept of leadership.
At the end of a key TV debate the main opposition leader Ed Miliband stumbled as he left the platform where he had been taking questions. A tiny loss of footing – but one that would have reverberations across the electorate. A stumble by a leader or would-be leader is not necessarily a sign of weakness or a bad omen. When the Roman Emperor Caesar landed on the African shore he fell flat on his face. But he recovered the situation by saying “Thus I take possession of thee, O Africa.”. Similarly William the Conqueror fell from his boat on arriving at the coast of England prior to his conquest of it. He too, however, exclaimed that he was taking “possession of this land with both hands”. But a stumble can be taken as more significant if it happens at a symbolically sensitive moment and no instant recovery of “face” is made. In 1982 the UK Prime Minister and so called “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher visited Beijing to discuss the future of Hong Kong after part of the territory was returned to China. On the steps of The Great Hall of The People she tripped and fell. In the negotiations that followed her determination to hold onto Hong Kong failed to convince Deng Xiaoping.
Much is talked about leadership in MBA courses and company boardrooms – but its dynamics are not fully understood. Even charisma is still largely a mystery – being understood in its elements, but not really as a whole driving force behind a personality. The truth is, of course, that leadership cannot be taught, but it has a number of features that can be cultivated by people with certain types of personality. A leader understands more clearly than anyone else that the vast majority of any population are fundamentally insecure and lack a sense of personal identity. What a leader gives them, therefore, is a shared identity and rewards to reduce their sense of insecurity.
The problem is that the leader is actually just a mere mortal like those he or she wishes to lead. Like all effective leaders Margaret Thatcher did not like listening to others about goals – all she wanted advice about was how to achieve the goals she herself had set. She was often reclusive and every time she spoke in public it was in a forceful way. Good leaders are popular, not because they are like “one of us” and approachable – but because they are distant and frightening. A stumble undermines their inviolability – unless they can turn it to their advantage. Margaret Thatcher’s slip in a far off location did nothing to cool the admiration of the UK electorate, but in China it was seen as sign of weakness and with it went the UK ownership of Hong Kong. Ed Miliband was already seen by many as far from leadership material and the fateful trip no doubt crystalised the doubts people had absorbed deep in their psyche when they entered the ballot box.