History Lessons starts from the assumption that management, at any level, has a lot to do with leadership. An effective manager needs a whole array of talents, and now that we have begun to take on board the concept that people should not be managed at all, rather that managers should ideally lead their teams to the successful fulfilment of their tasks, so leadership skills for managers have come to the fore. This book is based on the premise that there is no one kind of perfect manager or leader and that a search for the set of characteristics and skills that represent the ideal leader is doomed (happily) to failure. Leaders, like the rest of us, come in all different shapes and sizes: meticulous and visionary; outgoing and retiring; impulsive and cautious; subtle and direct. This book sets out to look at what the great leaders from history have actually done—to see how they behaved; to learn what we can from their actions. History Lessons attempts to give readers enough history to provide some sort of insight into the real issues faced by each of the leaders, and the context in which they made their decisions. There is also, I hope, enough detail about these leaders’ lives to give some idea of the kind of people that they were; of the personal background and historical context that helped to shape their personalities and influence the decisions that they took and the plans of action that they devised. Leadership and management are intensely human activities—the leaders of the past were essentially no different from the leaders and managers of today. It is from their entirely recognisable human qualities that we can learn the most useful lessons.