I just wrapped a video about George W. Bush's leadership during 9/11. (On my new leadership channel!)
There's a famous moment that, I think, gets widely misunderstood. It's this:
When Bush's chief of staff told him the news, he was in the middle of a classroom visit with a bunch of kids. And for seven minutes, he did nothing.
A lot of people (Michael Moore, for example) paint that as a complete failure of leadership.
I don't think that's right.
I think Bush was becoming a wartime leader in real time.
Because wartime leaders do something that looks like nothing: they stay calm. They process. They don't run around creating chaos.
Because wartime leaders and peacetime leaders are built from opposite DNA.
Wartime leaders galvanize troops, make the hard decisions, and can handle everything being on fire. Churchill was the perfect example — ignored for years during peacetime, indispensable once the war started, voted out the moment it ended. Same person. Wrong era.
Peacetime leaders do the opposite. They build consensus, cultivate relationships, keep the machine running smoothly. They're long-game people, culture builders. But in a crisis, they struggle.
Each is precisely the wrong person for the other situation.
Personally, I'm a wartime leader. I'm at my best in a crisis. In peacetime, I get restless and start looking for problems that aren't there.
The question for you is: which one are you?
Know which kind of leader you are. Then put yourself in situations where you can thrive.
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3 questions to figure it out
First, who are you? Don't trust your immediate self-diagnosis. Everyone wants to believe they're cool in a crisis.
When the crap hits the fan: do you act, or look for someone to align with?
Do your best people describe you as steady or intense?
Then, think about what situation you're actually in.
If you walked away from your business for 30 days: would things stay the same, or would they crash and burn?
If you want to do a little more reading (sounds like a peacetime move to me), a lot of people like Ben Horowitz's book The Hard Thing About Hard Things. To me, it feels like a bunch of whining about hard times.
More useful: his essay on peacetime vs wartime CEOs.
That's it. See ya next time.
Michael
P.S. If you want the full George Bush story, my video just came out this morning. Give it a watch here:
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