A journalist once asked Clement Attlee what Churchill’s greatest contribution to winning the War had been. The story goes that Attlee – Churchil’s peacetime adversary, who also served as Deputy PM in Churchill’s War Cabinet – took a while to answer, but eventually said, ‘Winston talked a great deal about it.’
The story may, or may not, be true, but it highlights an important part of leadership – helping others tell the story of what’s going on and why. Anyone who wants to be a leader tells you what they are going to do; perhaps a great leader enables you to feel like you’ve told them?
Churchill used his speeches to the House of Commons and wartime radio broadcasts as if they were a conversation in public with the nation. Listen to the clip above – in it Churchill retells a story about how things will be as if they had already happened; as if victory was inevitable. In June 1940, shortly after the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk, victory in Europe must have seemed painfully unlikely.
Two things that are rarely mentioned in modern accounts of this speech are:
- when Churchill made this speech in Parliament, large parts of his own party were not impressed. They felt, perhaps, he was being too candid about the situation; wrong to even think of invasion or mention the possibility of defeat. In this speech – and throughout his wartime speeches – however, Churchill was at pains to establish credibility with the nation at large. Real conversation depends on trust.
- this speech was not broadcast on the radio at the time, but was quoted on the radio news and extensively in the newspapers. And talked about widely.
Churchill did not lie, but gave a fantastic version of the truth. Like the best propaganda, what he said was made to be repeated by others – and so it was. Arguably, it was the man who gave the calm, somewhat understated, but not inaccurate, assessment of Churchill’s contribution to winning the war – Clement Attlee – who learned this lesson and applied it most effectively in peacetime. Labour’s landslide victory in 1945 was based on its promise of social reform – a Welfare State based on the recommendations of the Beveridge Report, itself a bestseller since its publication in 1942.
It’s Not Only What You Say…
Barack Obama is credited with being the first candidate for US President to make full use of the new wave of internet social media. In 1960, John F Kennedy had been the first candidate to use TV effectively to speak directly to the American people. In 2008, the Obama campaign used social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and podcasting for the first time to enable a conversation with the electorate. Obama’s blog Organizing for Action has been described as a kind of social network in itself: linking people who identify with a part of his platform with others in order to organise them into taking action.
Barack Obama’s social media campaigning is aimed not just as getting his message across (like Jack Kennedy’s TV campaigning had), but at enabling a mass of people to say something positive about him and to take action to influence other people likewise. Listen to the words of the clip above from Obama’s website telling the story of his 2008 victory to launch his 2012 campaign: – ‘I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you….’ Obama’s success may be an illustration that whilst what you say matters, it is not as important as what you encourage and enable other people to say, and do?
One of the attributes of a leader is said to be the ability to understand how other people see you. Some of how we are seen is – of course – outside our control. But what significant things would you like people to notice and believe about you as a leader and a person? What do you do to help people see those qualities in you? Do you do anything which undermines them?
Where Next?
Back to the summary page for this section
Social Media in Communist China, Soviet China and… the British Empire
some Social Media stats and trends
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