After the Autocrat

During my career, a number of my jobs were in strategy. Perhaps the most challenging was in the late nineties, when I had a sort of coordinating strategy function for Shell’s retail businesses in Scandinavia. If I were to try to show off, exhibit A would be the chart of the performance of those businesses around that time.

But there would be a preamble to the chart. If I did the job, from 1996-98, then what should be the relevant time interval to judge the performance? If my job had been operational, it would surely have been some interval like 1997-99. But for strategy, the impact of your work is less immediate and more long-lasting, so I would argue for a period like 1998-2002.

Lo and behold, I can draw a wonderful chart. The performance fell off a cliff from about 1994 until its nadir in 1997, then stabilized and turned around and soared. Now, I reckon my personal contribution to that might be 5%, but I am pretty sure it was at least positive, and it does make a good story.

I was reminded of this in a strange way this week. The Netherlands soccer team failed to qualify for the European Championships to be held next summer. This is a big deal (well, it is sport not climate change but you know what I mean). At the World Cup just over a year ago, the Dutch were great and were unlucky beaten semi-finalists. Now they can’t even make the top 27 in Europe. Many big teams have failed to qualify for tournaments before, but usually that was when only eight or twelve places were available and there happened to be a tough draw for their group. The Dutch have no such excuse: lots and lots of teams qualified, and their group was not particularly difficult.

What has this to do with anything? Well, I developed a hypothesis about the coach, whose job is partly operational and partly strategic. Might it be that some coaches can secure good performances while in the job, but whose strategic competence is no weak that performance collapses after they leave? Louis van Gaal managed the Dutch at the World Cup: might he be such a leader? My observation of his strengths at Manchester United since 2014 anecdotally support the hypothesis. He is clearly quite an autocratic leader.

Lo and behold, some research supported my case. After van Gaal left Ajax in 1997, they failed to win the Dutch league in any of the ensuing four seasons. Barcelona suffered relatively lean years after his departure in 2000, as did the Dutch team after 2002. AZ Alkmaar, who van Gaal developed from obscurity to champions while he was with them from 2005-09, failed to finish in the top four in the six seasons after he left. Bayern Munich went downhill after he left in 2011. If I were a Manchester United fan, I’d be worried about what might be happening inside the club.

So what might be the characteristics of a leader with this results profile? Autocrat is a good one-word description. They will be an excellent motivator, a good tactician, someone good at lobbying for help and money and support, a figurehead, someone intensely results focused, sometimes a bit self-centred and arrogant, and perhaps someone brittle in relationships who makes long-term enemies. By contrast, the strategic or developmental leader lacks some qualities to get immediate results, but will prioritise developing a system and infrastructure, a pipeline of talent and a means of improving it and an ability to spot trends and make plans accordingly.

I don’t want to claim that one group is better than the other. It can be contextual, and, perhaps like Arsenal under Wenger in recent years, a strategist can defer success for ever. What I will claim is that in many situations, the glory will go to the autocrat, while the developer usually creates more sustainable value. Since Barcelona took to choosing developmental leaders and continuity, they have become more of a powerhouse than Real Madrid, for example.

I would like to research other examples in sports and business of leaders who could be termed dangerous autocrats. I don’t think Ferguson fits the profile, though his autocracy was legendary, because he also developed talent. Clough perhaps was one. In business, Jack Welch would be an obvious candidate, but again he did treat succession seriously. AG Laffley and Bob Diamond might be others to examine.

Where the profile is more common is in political leaders. Sadly, the world is full of autocrats and even democracies have more than their share, voters being deluded by all the tactical astuteness and ignoring the structural weaknesses. Look at Maggie Thatcher, a true election winner but poisonous for her party (and country) after her demise. Perhaps Blair, despite his superficial intelligence and cuddly manner, is the same. France specializes in the autocratic leader, Sarkozy following de Gaulle. Tony Abbott is an example too, though perhaps the Australians got rid of him in time.

On the other side of the coin, it has taken years to appreciate Angela Merkel, the latest in an impressive line of strategic German chancellors (excluding Kohl). One day even John Major will be rehabilitated. Roy Jenkins already has been. I even have hopes for Nick Clegg.

A key strength of autocrats is their ability to obtain and maintain power, so politics is their natural habitat, especially where democracy is weak. Good examples are Tito, Saddam Hussein, Mubarak, Gaddafi and Mahathir. In each case, look at what happened after they left – they make Louis van Gaal’s track record look good!

The lesson for humanity, apart from trying to avoid these rulers in the first place, is to do more to prepare for the aftermath. It was utterly shameful for the US to invade Iraq, but even more shameful, and naïve as well, not to anticipate the aftermath. Libya now is ungovernable, a worse place for its citizens than under Gaddafi and a more dangerous place for the rest of us. That is not to try to praise Gaddafi or to wish away the Arab spring, instead I am saying that we should anticipate the challenge of the rebuilding task and take more steps to help.    

Many other autocratic leaders are still in power. I fear for Israel post Netanyahu, I can only imagine the decimated state of Israeli institutions beneath the serene surface there. Assad next door is an even more obvious case: I fear the misery for Syrians is only just beginning.

The clearest example of all is Putin, he is the epitome of the autocrat. He is a supreme tactician and motivator, but a disastrous developer. What will happen to Russia once he finally leaves power? The Economist goes so far as to predict that the country may break up completely, and that may indeed be a feasible outcome – though I am becoming more and more convinced that there is an MI6 mole or two inside the senior staff at that magazine.

There are also lessons in this for all of us. Are we operational autocrats or strategic developers? If we are one or the other, how can we balance our skills or our teams? In Scandinavia, my stroke of fortune was that my tenure coincided with a powerful motivational programme called BFI. BFI actually failed in most markets, owing to its woeful lack of any strategic component. But without BFI, all my strategy would probably have come to nothing. And my own skill set certainly would have failed to spot this or compensate for it, without BFI landing in my lap.

What about as parents? We need the same balance, but surely biased towards development rather than autocracy. But a good parental couple might have complementary strengths, as the tests do need to be passed today and the house kept clean.

Finally, look out before you accept a job, and pay attention to your predecessor. If you are strong operationally, it can be a dream to follow a good developer and reap the rewards. No matter what your own skills, following behind an autocrat is likely to be pretty thankless, so make sure you have deep support around you. Just ask Guus Hiddinck, or John Major, or even George W in Iraq.