Genghis Khan, Rommel, Saigo, Alexander, napoleon, Patton and Nelson are all names that are sonorous with being great leaders of men. These heavy weights of leadership were able to get men to give up their lives for their countries.
One of their great skills lay in the ability to have the vision to see things as they actually were in the battle. This gave them the advantage of being able to deploy troops where the key battles were going to be fought.
Some of them would refer to it as a gut feeling and others just the right thing to do or even a sixth sense. Their ability to process large quantities of information about the pending battle in their brain was splendid. Then the nerve to make a split second decision and the bottle to take so many men’s lives into their hands must have been hard to handle at times.
Today in business the top leaders have to do the same things if they are going to navigate the high seas of recession. It is no longer a broad side that a great leader has to face it is banks phoning him about lone problems or a competitor capturing your best staff and not your soldiers.
There is so much that we can learn about leadership from the great military leaders of the past! My favourite is the Japanese samurai and leader Saigō Takamori who is yours?
