5 Leadership Lessons From Winston Churchill for Today’s World

Commentary

Winston Churchill was a man of action. He was born in 1874, during a period known as the Pax Britannica (1815–1914) and during the relative peace that had settled over Europe after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Nonetheless, as a young man, Churchill understood that military service was a sure path toward political elevation. He believed that to become a great leader in the political theater, he first needed to be one in the theater of war. The following is what was required to make him the greatest leader of the 20th century.

Experience

Churchill was not an academic. He considered his schooldays to be “the only barren and unhappy period of my life.” Aside from writing and history, he did not perform well in school, thus he never attended university. He did, after three attempts, gain entrance to Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, graduating in 1894 near the top of his class and joining the Fourth Queen’s Own Hussars.