Churchill Leadership Trait: Decisive

For many people decision making is the very essence of leadership. The ability to take the very best decisions consistently is a key leadership trait.

At first glance decision making seems easy: understand the problem or situation, then make a decision. In reality things are rarely that simple - and in war time millions of lives are at stake! Effective decision making combines elements of other Churchill Leadership Traits (courage, drive to take action, communication, creativity, vision) but I have chosen to include deciciveness as a seperate Churchill Leadership Trait because I see it as critical to winstons leadership approach.

Tough Decisions

Though, according to his wife Clementine, Churchill could be terribly indecisive about trivial matters when it came to taking the most serious and tough decisions, which he would rehearse in his mind, he could be ruthless. The most often quoted example of his ruthless decision making is the July 1940 order to open fire on French warships at anchor in Oran. This came about after the French-German armistice in which it was decreed that French warships would be handed over to the Nazis. Britain was desperate that these vessels should not make up part of a German invasion fleet and offered their French commanders a choice: either scuttle (sink) the boats, hand them over to the British Royal navy or alternatively sail them to a neutral port for the duration of the war. If none of these options were taken then it was clearly communicated that the Royal navy would attack and attempt to sink or disable them. Tragically for the 1,250 French sailors who died the French commanders refused the British terms and their warships were attacked. Churchill, who loved France and the French is on record as having found the decision horrendous and he wept after announcing the decision and its consequences to the House of Commons. The (somewhat unexpected) benefit of this tradegy was that it cemented in the minds of the American leadership (in particular Roosevelt) that Britain was prepared to fight on and tough it out. Another example of taking (the right) tough decision was Churchill's order that the wounded should be the last to be evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk. At the time the prevailing belief was that less than 50,000 could be safely evacuated and Britain desperately needed able bodied soldiers for her defence. It therefore was undoubtedly the correct decsion, but a horrid one to take nevertheless.

Compassion

Churchill could and did take tough decisions but this was always tempered with his sensitive and humane nature. Don't forget, this was a man who had experienced first hand the horrific (and often unnecessary) slaughter of the trenches of the first world war - he tried as hard as he could not to make the same mistakes. He would never shirk from making the tough decisions, but he was never reckless in his treatment of human life.

Hire and Fire

A good leader hires the right people to do the job. That almost goes without saying, but it is really only half the equation: A good leader is equally good at making the decision to sack people who are not up to the job. This is another area where Winston time and again showed his mettle. Even with friends such as Bob Boothby and Alfred Duff Cooper, Churchill had no hesitation in "moving" them out of posts that they were clearly not suited for into other roles. With less close friends he had even fewer qualms!

Statistical analysis

Winston Churchill was one of the first political leaders to embrace statistical analysis as an aid to decision making (way before the Quality Management revolution too I might add!). He appointed his friend Professor Frederick Lindemann to head up his statistical office. Lindemann and his team provided Winston with (usually one page) reports on nearly all aspects of the war: tank production, equipment needs, enemy factories outputs, government department performance, forecasting et al. Churchill found this to be of immense help in making decisions, following up and if necessary accelerating action.

Return to Winston Churchill Leadership Home page. Return to the Leadership Traits page.