An optimistic take on last Friday's Shoot out at the Oval Corral

And a reprise of a bit on Winston Churchill

After President Zelenskyy was criticized for not wearing a suit to the White House, pictures of Winston Churchill wearing his siren suit on the lawn began to circulate. Churchill, no doubt, wore a suit to meet Roosevelt in the Oval Office but on one occasion Roosevelt encountered a naked Churchill arising from his bath. So call it a draw.

Source: uncredited photos on LinkedIn

Equivalent or not, the debate reminded me of one of my first posts about leadership and context. I used Churchill to illustrate that, in a crisis, clarity is fundamental to leadership and that it was an act widely condemned at the time - though largely forgotten now - that cemented the idea that Britain would fight.

For those who haven’t read and committed the post to memory, and those who have but want to savour the prose once again, it follows my optimistic assessment of the spectacle in the Oval Office.

The power of clarity

Most of the time things are a muddle. In times of crisis confusion leads to panic and internal strife. But sometimes an event or a person brings clarity, resolve and unity by defining the situation and describing the direction of travel.

I don’t think President Zelenskyy handled himself adroitly on Friday. He was combative when the book on Trump is to flatter him. The conventional move would have been to listen attentively to Vance and Trump, correct them gently as did Macron and Starmer, thank Trump effusively (for what Biden did to this point), sign the minerals deal, and get out of town.

Three years earlier the conventional move for a Ukrainian president confronted by an invading Russian army would have been to flee the country. But he said, “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

What we saw in the Oval Office was the unconventional fighter - the same one who countered Russian propaganda that he’d fled by posting this video, “We are still here” . That video brought clarity when it was needed then.

The Oval Office meeting brought the clarity needed now.

We saw Zelenskyy the fighter - uncowed by the trappings of power and the clumsy thugs wielding it. The world saw that Trump is not, by his own words, on the side of the democracies. “I’m on no one’s side”.

In the ensuring hours Trump saw that the free world is not following its purported leader, and that any deal he negotiates with Putin cannot bring the Nobel Peace Prize he covets to match Obama’s.

He also knows that, though the invitation will not be withdrawn, King Charles will not be clearing his calendar for that cherished state visit. (Whatever you think of the Monarchy, the Brits have learned a thing or two about how to use it.)

So what?

I believe, or at least want to believe, Trump will be looking for a way to reinsert himself in the peace process and he can only do that by providing the guarantees Ukraine, the UK and France are seeking.

I also want to believe that a US President’s guarantee is ironclad. Unfortunately, the supposed master of branding has busted that one.

Now the here is a link to the complete post on context for those who are interested. The Churchill story is excerpted below it.

The excerpt…

“The new job

How is this for a first day on the job? It is May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill, age sixty-five, has finally won his dream job, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In other news, that morning Adolf Hitler launched an attack that, in six weeks, will leave him, in Churchill’s words, “sprawled across Europe” and what is left of Britain’s small army and France’s big army will be trapped in Hitler’s maw.

Churchill is PM only because Lord Halifax turned down the job. The Cabinet is split. Halifax wants to explore a deal with Hitler. The world believes Britain will go under in a matter of weeks and many Britons agree. Americans watch from the sidelines. Some admire Hitler, others simply want to avoid another European war, and others would help but fear that American weapons will be turned against them once Britain is overrun. Instead of sending arms, President Roosevelt suggests Britain send its powerful navy to Canada so it doesn’t fall into German hands.

Leading by the ears

There is a saying about the Second World War, that is unfair in detail and accurate in thrust: “Russia gave the blood. America gave the money, and Churchill gave the speeches.”1 In the month following his appointment Churchill will give three speeches that we believe today immediately inspired the free world. Initially they receive mixed reviews.

The first, the “blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech, is delivered in the House of Commons on the 13th of May. It is only about seven minutes long but includes this:

… You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be…

Churchill delivers the second speech, this time over the BBC, Sunday evening 19th of May. He is preparing the public for defeat and possible capture of the Army in France:

We must expect …the bulk of that hideous apparatus of aggression which gashed Holland into ruin and slavery in a few days will be turned upon us. I am sure I speak for all when I say we are ready to face it; to endure it; and to retaliate against it…

The speech Is soberly received by the public. It might have seemed less magisterial had people seen Sir Tyrone Guthrie gripping Churchill’s ears from behind as he delivered it2.

Churchill’s third and best remembered speech, delivered 4 June 1940 in the House of Commons, is actually his report on the evacuation from Dunkirk.

Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…

As he says, wars are not won by retreats but message is clear, Britain will fight3.

Fighting words

It has been said that “Churchill mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” His speeches were inspirational but inspiration without clarification is a flash of lightening on a dark night. It can as easily blind as illuminate. Churchill illuminates a landscape that is confusing and frightening, and brings clarity and purpose. The speeches are, like Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, economical, yet the listener sees a path forward in compelling terms.

What they do is far more important than inspire.

Leadership is the credible communication or validation of an idea. Following leaders is, literally and figuratively, about the expected direction of travel.

The singer matters more than the song and the melody matters more than the lyrics. In a compelling speech, singer, song, and lyrics combine to engender emotion; the message feels true and the direction of travel right and righteous. That is only possible when the listener trusts in the speaker’s emotional commitment. “We shall never surrender” intoned by Neville Chamberlain, the reedy former PM, who in 1938 promised “peace in our time”, would have occasioned gallows humour at best.

Churchill credibly communicates the fundamental idea that Britain will not surrender because he is already well known for his belligerence, tenacity, and bravery – to his reputational cost in less desperate times then and now.

Churchill was a gifted orator because he’d studied rhetoric, given countless speeches, and because he was emotional – too emotional in the judgment of many of his colleagues. “I blub a lot” he said, and he did. The decision never to surrender, when cooler heads wanted to explore options, was emotional. But calculation had put Britain in this position. Resolve requires emotion. That Churchill’s emotion sprang from a sentimental belief in the British Empire that repeatedly put him on the wrong side of so many issues was, with Hitler just across the Channel, suddenly a strength.

Churchill looks and sounds like a bulldog but sustaining credibility requires hard evidence. He is not long providing it.

Shelling friends and influencing people

With the defeat of France, Britain, as he says, “falls back on her old ally, the Sea”. If you are on an island the sea is a moat or a noose depending on who controls it. Less than two weeks after the fall of France he orders the Royal Navy to destroy France’s navy in port to prevent it falling into German hands.

In the years before the Second World War democracy seemed disorganized and decadent. Its economic twin, free market capitalism, had brought the world to its knees and Hitler to power. The question in many minds was not whether democracy would swoon but into whose arms, Stalin’s or Hitler’s. After France surrendered in July, the answer seemed obvious. Slaughtering 8000 French sailors, erstwhile and potential allies, is condemned as barbaric by friend and foe alike. But the world sees that Britain will do anything to defeat Hitler.

A death worse than fate

Applying the three great, all-purpose questions to the context we find that, at the critical moment in 1940, the first two had been, at least for the foreseeable future, definitively answered:

1. “What?”, Hitler dominates Europe and plans to invade Britain.

2. “So what?”, Nazi domination is bad.

3. “Now what?”, We shall soon surrender, has become “we shall never surrender”.

Churchill changes the one element of context over which he has some control and he changes it for everyone.

People believe him and make different decisions - not least Hitler and Roosevelt - but ordinary people too because, worse than dying in a war is dying in a war just before your side quits. With that doubt resolved, airmen fight against long odds; soldiers re-arm; sailors brave U-boats; and a Lancashire housewife confides to her diary,

If I had to spend my whole life with a man, I’d choose Mr. Chamberlain, but I think I would sooner have Mr. Churchill if there was a storm and I was shipwrecked.4