Leading without vision

Lucy Kenningham | 20th January 2022 | Comment

Premiers are different to the crowd: an electorate teeming with Thatcher’s drive and Blair’s self-belief would be a nightmare

There are few things on which top politicians enjoy giving lessons more than personal leadership styles. To Jacinda Ardern, leadership is not being loud but being a “bridge”. To Tony Blair, it is knowing when to say no (after all “it is very easy to say yes”). To Margaret Thatcher, leading is making the crowd follow you, rather than following the crowd.

To follow any of these nuggets of wisdom, a leader must be in possession of a few other essentials. A vision for example. According to Proverbs 29:18,“where there is no vision, the people perish”. There are two aspects to this: the first is working out what your vision is and the second is communicating it. Conviction politicians have no problem with this; Margaret Thatcher had a clear political vision for how to improve society. So did Clement Attlee.

At times of war a vision is likely to be relatively uncontested by those you lead. Nothing unites and rallies the troops like a common enemy, as George Orwell’s fictional Winston taught us. Winston Churchill’s gift of oratory boosted public morale to such an extent that despite his mistakes he is almost universally seen as essential to the victory over Nazi Germany. As prime minister during peacetime, he floundered. His vision of Empire for example was much not so unifying, and his reluctance to knuckle down to the daily grind of administration became more of a problem.

Yet …

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