The Unseen Leader: Finding Leadership Inspiration in History’s Hidden Heroes

History favors big stories, dramatic acts, hero’s journeys and near escapes. However, some of the most important leadership lessons to be derived from history are not about the Hollywood climax or the daring near-miss. True leaders are often busiest behind the scenes – less visible to the casual observer.

And yet, while they might not take the spotlight, these ‘unseen’ protagonists are perhaps some of the greatest leaders humanity has known.

In the latest episode of We are Human Leaders we unpack the incredible new leadership book by Martin Gutmann, The Unseen Leader. Martin’s latest work is an exploration of leadership through the lens of historical scholarship, offering a less sensationalized and stereotypical tale of what leadership really means. 

Martin’s research focuses on leaders who largely remained unseen and unwritten about through the pages of history. Not because their impact and influence wasn’t substantial, but because they deviate from the norm and offer us an opportunity to redefine what true leadership is. 

This episode will undoubtedly have you rethinking your ideas and preconceptions around what makes a great leader and where to find your leadership inspiration in history and today.

Bravado ≠ Leadership

We delve in by exploring the Action Fallacy. As Martin explains: “Often the stories we pull from the past are of those leaders who were the most action oriented, who suffered the gravest crisis, who had to fight the hardest. In other words, the most entertaining stories. Sometimes the stories of really effective leaders make for boring reading because they were able to avoid or mitigate the dramatic circumstances.”

We also explore the story of Roald Amundsen, one of the leaders Martin highlights in the Unseen Leader, who is juxtapositioned against famed explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. As Martin frames it,

“Shackleton is a case in point. Every one of his expeditions ended in near death or death. We have to ask ourselves, why does this always happen? Now, he worked very admirably to get himself out of the Endurance Expedition, which is admirable in its own right. But if we want to extract leadership lessons, if we want to glean wisdom, why go with the person who always finds himself in a crisis?”

We explore the intractable power of story for humans. Martin shares why the hero’s journey is so appealing to us – and yet can distract us from lessons of true, wise and powerful leadership: “Humans are storytelling animals. We love stories, we use stories to make sense of the world. We use stories to transmit information from one generation to another.”

Martin refers to recent research out of Northwestern that suggested that having a positive, stress -free narrative of your past is not as beneficial to your development as having a narrative about your own life as having struggled and had successes.

“So we like this tension inherent in stories and the hero's journey is the classic human story. It's the one plot that we are absolutely addicted to. But, is it really the best story to learn about leadership?”

The Unseen Leader through history

In this wide-ranging conversation, Martin shares his decision-making process when it came to identifying four ‘unseen’ leaders who had an outsized impact on history. “In each case, I looked for the person who was able to actually do what they planned on doing through good decision-making, through motivating people well, and through good leadership.”

He highlights that great leadership doesn’t always look the same and great leaders do not all have the exact same skillset:

“Churchill is a master communicator. And that's important if you're leading a country at war, because he has to speak not only to his generals and ministers, but to the public, to the world. Amundsen on the other hand, is not a good communicator. He's quite awkward. That wasn't part of his leadership, but it didn't have to be. He led through a very authentic and humane relationship to his crew. They trusted him instinctively. He made good decisions. So to say that being an excellent communicator's prerequisite, I would say is false. It depends on the circumstances.”

Environmental intelligence

We also explore the concept of environmental intelligence, and context fluency, two powerful concepts for Human Leaders looking to deepen their leadership skills.

As Martin frames it,

“Imagine a raging river and a swimmer who wants to cross it. They jump in haphazardly without understanding the river, nearly drowning, and then somehow manages to drag themselves back to shore. We're going to notice that person: wow, they navigated a crisis. But of course, the crisis was very much self-imposed.”

He continues: “The leader who has great environmental intelligence, who takes the time to understand the currents, will be able to chart a path across this river much more successfully. But for them, it will look easy because they're allowing the currents to carry them across. They know just how to move their body in subtle ways so that they don't have to exert as much effort as the person who nearly drowns. And that's environmental intelligence.”

Navigating uncertainty

We explore the challenges of handling uncertainty for leaders. In Martin’s words,

“during uncertainty, if events are moving out of your hands, it's natural to do something because you feel like you're reasserting control. But that's a fallacy. If events are spiralling out of control, I think tapping into humility is more important because we all have to accept that in many scenarios in life, we are not in control. And once we accept that, we can then perhaps find the best way to respond.”

This We are Human Leaders conversation will blow wide open how you think about the leaders we look to for guidance and leadership inspiration through history – and today.

Martin Gutmann Ph.D. is a Swiss-American historian, author, and professor at the Lucerne School of Business, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland.

Learn more about Martin Gutmann, and get a copy of The Unseen Leader here:

Connect with Martin Gutmann on LinkedIn and via his website.

Get your copy of The Unseen Leader here.