Iron Ladies, Bronze Statues, Nerves of Steel, Feet of Clay Thatcher, Curtin, Menzies and Kennedy and their loyal supporters A case study in strategic leadership Siebert Neethling There’s a cabinet meeting scene in the film The Iron Lady in which Margaret Thatcher – deep into her third term as Prime Minister – humiliates her deputy, Geoffrey Howe, over a minor error in a document. The scene portrays a strong leader out of touch with the very people who had been her supporters and loyal followers. Always the conviction politician, never daunted by the fact that she was consistently less popular than her party, she imperiously ignored the rational pleas of her cabinet to reconsider the Poll Tax and her opposition to the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Heath, who had been with her since her first Cabinet in 1979, resigned his position. Michael Hesseltine challenged for the leadership and narrowly lost, but gained enough votes to force a second ballot. Thatcher’s supporters persuaded her to resign – seen by her as a betrayal – and John Major was elected Party Leader in a new ballot. The seemingly invincible Margaret Thatcher was defeated from within – a result of her own failure to defend her most important power base. 1 The much-­‐quoted Sun Tzu, author of the oldest known treatise on warfare, The Art of War, states that you have to make sure that you are well defended – “make yourself strong”. This point is often lost as interpreters of his text are more interested in the profound statements on deception and on taking advantage of your opponents’ actions. Events over the past few years in Australian Federal Politics are a reminder of how important a support base is for leadership. In another decade or so, given enough time to forget the general air of malaise about Federal politics and the combative nature of parliamentary debate during this era of minority government, we will look back on this time and reflect on how one leader survived against the odds thanks to a strong, defensive support base of close followers, and how another – despite unprecedented general popularity – didn’t. There is nothing new about this. Just off Kings Avenue in Canberra, where you turn right out of Queen Victoria Terrace to swoop round to the front of Old Parliament House, is a statue of two men walking, in deep conversation. The statue represents a bespectacled John Curtin, Australia’s 14th Prime Minister, and his friend the treasurer Ben Chifley, who would become the 16th Prime Minister. The men are strolling to parliament from the direction of the Kurrajong Hotel – a © 2012 Siebert Neethling
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walk they often took together and one captured in a photograph on which the statue is based. These two labor Prime Minsters, and the Liberal Prime Minister Robert Menzies who both preceded and followed them in the role, are good examples of men who understood the importance of surrounding yourself with strong people, and keeping those strong people on your side through meaningful, collaborative relationships. 2 John Joseph Curtin is considered by many, including his contemporary opponent Arthur Fadden, as Australia’s greatest Prime Minister. Tempered by two unsuccessful attempts to become elected to Parliament, a successful campaign but frustrating term as backbencher, and the loss of his seat in the next election, he was reelected in 1934 at the age of 49 and was elected party leader one year later. He set about reuniting a fragmented party against the backdrop of rising tensions in Europe. It was a difficult task as, in Mungo MacCallum’s words, the Labor Party “with its mixed membership of isolationists, pacifists, international socialists, communists, Catholics and opportunists was impossible to unite on the prospect of conflict”. To build unity, Curtin toured State executives and local centres. Geoffrey Serle writes that “His sense of urgency, quiet steadiness and incisive clarity were effective”. After the outbreak of war he attracted much criticism from within the Party for his close cooperation with Prime Minister Menzies, but justified his support as essential during wartime. The Australian Dictionary of Biography records that “both Menzies and Curtin were beset by treacherous back-­‐benchers, but the relationship between the two leaders was impeccable. Menzies had been passing on all important information about the war and they also met regularly and chatted on 'Bob and John' terms”. When Menzies lost the leadership of his then United Australia Party and his supporting coalition fractured, Curtin became Prime Minister. Two months later the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour. Unlike Menzies in his first stint as Prime Minister, Curtin managed to improve unity in his Party, despite internal conflict over conscription for overseas service, contradictory opinions about Australia’s support for Britain, and its reliance on American support against Japan. His close internal allies included Chifley who was not only his Treasurer but also his government’s “human face”. Serle refers to Chifley as a “brotherly figure” for Curtin: “sheet-­‐
anchor, chief confidant, protector”. Many credit his popularity within the wider party for Curtin’s success as leader. © 2012 Siebert Neethling
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Curtin managed to keep other strong figures in Cabinet on his side. “The ambitious Evatt was 'neither intimate nor easy' but knuckled down. Beasley, potentially dangerous, warmed to Curtin”. Curtin also relied heavily on the remarkable leadership skills of H.C Coombs as Director of Post-­‐War Reconstruction. Despite some social awkwardness – he has been described as shy, not a good mixer in company, complex and mercurial – he won incredible respect from his supporters and his opponents. Menzies commented on his “broad and pragmatic mind” and his “great human relations”. “I have received many wounds from John Curtin but none of them in the back”. John Fadden called him “the best and fairest I ever opposed in politics” and said that Curtin had given him “his mateship”. 3 With a different style from that of Curtin – but one also based on the principle of a sound defence, of making yourself strong – Menzies is Curtin’s rival as the most revered Prime Minister in Australia’s history. John Howard certainly thinks he is. Robert Gordon Menzies had two shots at being Prime Minister, the second much more successful than the first. He became Prime Minister in 1939 as leader of the United Australia Party, after the death of Prime Minister Joseph Lyons. The Country Party disapproved of his leadership, however, reportedly because of – in the words of the Australian Dictionary of Biography – “waspish comments” Menzies had made about the Country Party leader behind his back. The Country Party withdrew from the alliance. Curtin once said of Menzies that he was not good “at handling his men” and that he had “alienated, through his social position, intelligence and sometimes arrogant ways, sections of the electorate”. In the election that followed the revived coalition gained the same number of votes as Labor, and Menzies retained the Prime Ministership only by virtue of the support of two independents. He failed to cement his authority, however, and when he left on an overseas trip to Canada and London his party, in MacCallum’s words, “decided that it could do without him”. So keen were they to get rid of him that they offered the Prime Ministership to their junior coalition partner. Not long after his return to Canberra Menzies was forced to resign. Despite this major setback and “leaving the party room in tears”, his legendary resilience did not fail him. After the next election he regained the party leadership and during the Curtin years slowly rebuilt his power base and his image. He supported Curtin’s war efforts and, through regular radio broadcasts, emerged as a national “father-­‐figure”. He was also the key figure in establishing a new political party, the Liberal Party, out of the UAP. The new party was successful in winning the support of “middle Australia”, and in 1949 won the election that launched the second Menzies Prime Ministership, ten years after the first. Despite some resentment about his apparent arrogance, the 39 new Liberal members who entered © 2012 Siebert Neethling
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parliament knew that they had Menzies to thank, and they provided him with a support base for the next seventeen years – the longest tenure of any Australian prime Minister. Menzies had learnt from his first experience. He retained the efficient public service inherited from Chifley, despite ideological differences with many of the Secretaries, and he used the public service to bolster up his cabinet team in areas where they were weak. He also focused strongly on maintaining his alliance with the Country Party. In the words of A.W Martin, “Given the natural tensions that had always existed between the two parties, this accomplishment reflected the great political acumen and prestige of the mature Menzies”. He desperately needed the alliance; he won elections but lost the two-­‐party-­‐preferred vote on three occasions in 1940, 1954, and 1961. He made sure that he maintained his alliances. Politically, Menzies was merciless. He has been accused of working very well with strong members of Cabinet until they became potential threats, when they were despatched to prestigious posts outside of parliament. R.G. Casey, Percy Spender and Garfield Barwick were potential Menzies leadership rivals who ended their careers in other, very prestigious positions. Menzies did maintain a tight circle of competent, loyal supporters. His government is described by MacCallum as a one-­‐man band, with a number of capable lieutenants but no obvious successors. The fact that Menzies – after such a long period as Prime Minister – could choose his time to leave is a great measure of success. Neither Margaret Thatcher nor John Howard could achieve that. 4 There is hardly a leader who does not claim to surround him or herself with strong people. But are they the right people? After the Cuban revolution, and in the context of the arms race and Fidel Castro’s friendship with the USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev, Kennedy and his cabinet committed to the disastrous support of an armed Cuban refugee force that led to the Bay of Pigs disaster. Kennedy had surrounded himself with a powerful group of leaders, but they were all similar. His cabinet members were all liberal thinking, intelligent, largely Ivy League graduates with similar backgrounds. This became a textbook example of what psychologists call group-­‐think. The phenomenon occurs when you have a strong leader, cohesiveness, and unquestioned belief in the inherent morality of the group. These characteristics usually are great virtues, but when unchecked by critical evaluation they could lead to group members “agreeing to pursue goals to which individual members don’t necessarily agree”. When dissent becomes impossible – not because of overt oppression of ideas but because of self-­‐censorship and the illusion of unanimity – a group can commit to decisions that are patently wrong in hindsight. Group-­‐think is often aggravated by “mindguards” who protect the leader from negative information, and by shared stereotypes of opponents. © 2012 Siebert Neethling
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Historically we can probably be glad that the Bay of Pigs disaster occurred. Eighteen months later a more experienced and mature Kennedy faced what was probably the most perilous moment in history: the Cuban missile crisis. He no longer relied only on his cabinet and his regular advisors. He consulted widely, including telephone conversations with former Republican President Eisenhower. © 2012 Siebert Neethling
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References MacCallum, M. 2012. The good, the bad & the unlikely: Australia’s Prime Ministers. Black Inc. Collingwood. Martin, A.W. 2000. Sir Robert Gordon Menzies. Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 15, ANU. Mulgan, G. 2009. The Art of Public Strategy. Oxford University Press. Oxford. Serle, G. 1993. John Joseph Curtin. Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 13, ANU. Waterson, D.B. 1993. Joseph Benedict Chifley. Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 13, ANU. © 2012 Siebert Neethling
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