Winston Churchill's War Leadership - Martin Gilbert [17]
Another aspect of Churchill’s war leadership that impressed itself on those who saw him at close quarters was his personal example. In his conduct of the war, Churchill set an example for those around him of extreme hard work. His standards were high. “Each night, before I go to bed,” he told one of his Private Secretaries, “I try myself by Court Martial to see if I have done something really effective during the day—I don’t mean merely pawing the ground, anyone can go through the motions, but something really effective.” He was his own severest taskmaster.
The ability of those whom Churchill appointed—their exceptional abilities when crises came—was another aspect of his war leadership. Except in a totalitarian regime, a leader is only as strong as the sum total of those to whom he delegates responsibility. Churchill was a master of the art of delegation—a master and a past master, for his experience in working with subordinates was extensive. No man, however “Churchillian” (as the modern adjective has it), could manage the conduct of a war unless his subordinates were of the highest quality and he had confidence in their abilities. The machinery of war-making between 1940 and 1945 was vast. Every government department devoted its energies in one way or another to the conflict. A massive extension of factories and manufacture focused entirely on war production. Churchill sought the best possible leaders at every level of this national endeavour and supported them in their efforts. On one occasion, answering parliamentary criticisms that he was sluggish, he replied: “I am certainly not one of those who needs to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am a prod.”
There was no more visible aspect of Churchill’s war leadership than his daily scrutiny of what was being done across the whole range of execution of war policy. While relying with confidence on those to whom he had delegated the business of war, Churchill followed everything that was being done with a meticulous eye. This rigorous scrutiny had several purposes. First, to ensure that those in whom he had put his trust were carrying out their duties to the highest standard possible. Second, to give praise where it was merited. Praise and encouragement, while not so exciting to the historian as conflict and disagreement, were an essential part of Churchill’s “prod.” Third, to discover, and rectify, anything he thought was not going well or to suggest a more effective way forward.
Churchill’s daily Minutes constituted a stream of questions and questioning about what was being done and how. As he told a member of his Defence Secretariat: “It was all very well to say that everything had been thought of. The crux of the matter was—had anything been done?” To get things done, to ensure that policies that had been decided upon were not only being implemented but carried out expeditiously and effectively, was at the centre of Churchill’s daily work. As another member of his Defence Secretariat wrote, “His pugnacious spirit demanded constant action; the enemy must be assailed continuously.”
Churchill also had a mastery of detail that enhanced his war leadership over a wide range of complex issues. He had always been interested in the details of policies, however intricate, during his long political career. As First Lord of the Admiralty on the eve of the First World War, he had absorbed himself in the art of flying, had learned to fly (coming within a few hours of his pilot’s wings), and had made numerous suggestions for the improvement of flight and the development of aerial warfare. When war came in 1914, he put the resources of the Admiralty behind the evolution of the tank and made many technical suggestions for its development. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, before establishing pensions for widows and orphans and lowering the age for old age pensions, he studied the actuarial tables to the point where he could converse about