It is virtually impossible to name any type of human activity, where the principle of leadership does not play an important role, as the main organizing factor. Therefore, it is crucial for just about anyone who strives to attain social prominence, to understand what prompts people to refer to a particular individual as leader, because this understanding might come in particularly handy in such a person’s career. In this paper we will aim at analyzing leadership qualities of Genghis Khan, as someone who had united Mongolian warring tribes into one nation, who managed to build the vastest empire that world has ever known, and whose personality continues to inspire ambitious individuals even today.
Before we move on to analyze Genghis Khan’s style of leadership, we will need to provide readers with a brief retrospective onto his biography. The exact year of Khan’s birth remains unknown, but most historians agree that he was born around 1165 -1167 A.D. to the family of the leader of one of Mongolian tribes’ Yesugei, who named his son Temüjin. By the time Temüjin had reached the age of 10, his father was being poisoned by Tatars, which immediately resulted in Temüjin’s numerous relatives beginning to mistreat him and his mother, while eventually intending to put an end to his life, as Yesugei’s rightful heir. Nevertheless, it is not only that during the course of his formative years young Temüjin was able to survive impossible odds, but he also managed to acquire a fame of a ferocious fighter, who was nevertheless very appreciative of his friends’ loyalty. In its turn, this continued to win Temüjin more and more followers, as time went by. By endlessly participating in skirmishes with neighboring Merkites, Tatars and Naimans, Temüjin’s clan kept on becoming ever-more powerful, which eventually led to Temüjin being proclaimed a Genghis Khan (The Supreme Ruler) in 1206. By this time, Khan’s army accounted for approximately 100.000 strong, which has led Genghis Khan to believe that was in a position to begin conquering neighboring countries. As we all know today, such Khan’s beliefs were being fully substantiated by rational considerations, on his part.
After having imposed his authority over Mongols, Genghis Khan created preconditions for Mongolian army to remain undefeatable for the next century to come: 1) He decreed that no man could be exempted from military service, 2) He introduced the principle of specialized functionality in the army and had divided it on highly autonomous units, under supervision of his closest associates, 3) He insured that his only close friends could be appointed as army’s commanders. In its turn, this allowed Genghis Khan to proceed with conquering Northern China, Khwarezmian Empire, Persia, Siberia, Georgia and the Eastern principalities of Kievan Rus with such a quickness that even contemporary historians often have a hard time, while trying to pin point to the actual secret of Khan’s amazing political successes. By the time of Genghis Khan’s death in 1227, Mongol Empire was stretching from the easternmost shores of China to the Caspian Sea. Moreover, this Empire continued to expand territorially, well after Khan’s death, due to the sheer strength of its founder’s vision as to how he wanted Mongols to live.
Even though Kouzes and Posner do not refer to the notion of charisma, within a context of their theory as to what represents leadership qualities, it is simply impossible to talk about Genghis Khan without mentioning the fact that he was often able to prompt its subordinates to act in accordance to his wishes by simply looking at them in one way or another. In other words – Genghis Khan was nothing less of a “natural born leader”, because his ability to impose its will on others cannot be solely addressed by the mean of logic. Throughout his life, Genghis Khan remained illiterate, just as the overwhelming majority of his subjects. Therefore, it is highly doubtful of whether he even knew what the concept of leadership stands for. Yet, it did not prevent him from acting in such a way as if he was aware of the essence of 21st century’s leadership theories. There can be only one explanation to this – Genghis Khan understood so much more then he could have possibly known, which actually is an existential trait of a genius. This is exactly the reason why Khan’s leadership qualities can be well discussed within a framework provided by Kouzes and Posner, even though this Mongolian leader lived in a time that is now commonly referred to as “Dark Ages”. In the next part of this paper, we are going to substantiate the validity of such our thesis, by applying Kouzes and Posner’s methodology to Genghis Khan, as the leader of Mongols.
1) Leaders Challenge the Process. One of the reasons why Genghis Khan was able to attain such a great historical significance is because he never thought of challenges; he faced throughout his life, as “thing in itself”. That is, he was well aware of the fact that challenges cannot be thought outside of opportunities, they simultaneously present. This is why Genghis Khan actively sought challenging opportunities, while understanding perfectly well that it was namely his ability to forget about the norms of conventional morality, when addressing challenges, which provided him with an upper hand in confrontation with his friends and enemies.
For example, when his half-brother Senggum began to publicly ridicule him as being Yesugei’s illegitimate son, TemĂĽjin was quick enough to realize that it presented him with a legitimate opportunity to get rid of Senggum as “troublemaker”. He killed his half-brother in his sleep, while explaining such his deed by the fact that Senggum’s ignorant attitudes represented a threat to tribe’s inner integrity. Thus, Genghis Khan was not only able to effectively deal with rivalries, within his own family circle, but he always used to take advantage of such of his ability to contribute to the tribe’s well-being, as his foremost priority.
According to Kouzes and Posner, leaders are expected to be always willing to take risks and to be able to learn from mistakes. Even a brief glimpse at Genghis Khan’s biography leaves no doubt that he was not just a risk-taker, but that he would never repeat his old mistakes over and over, as some “leaders” do. For example, during the course of campaigning against China, after having approached Beijing, Genghis Khan realized that this Chinese city was surrounded with a high wall, which meant that it could not be attacked outright. Mongolian army had never laid sieges around cities before, which is why Khan’s commanders advised him to retreat. Yet, Genghis Khan decided to proceed with attacking Beijing – thus, taking a huge risk. As he had told his army’s commanders at the time – “those who do not risk, never get to lead a meaningful life”. As we now know, this Khan’s decision proved vital to Mongolian war effort in China – after having kept Beijing under siege for 2 months, Genghis Khan’s army was finally able to sack it, while sustaining comparatively few losses, due to Khan’s ingenious decision to use Chinese prisoners, as the front-flank attackers / shields.
There can be no doubt that Genghis Khan never held any illusions as to the “sanctity” of human life. However, his apparent bloodthirstiness can be explained by the fact that Mongolian leader was able to learn from its mistakes – after having initially spared the lives of men in few captured Chinese towns, despite the fact that these Chinamen actively fought against his army, he realized that such his decision only strengthened the defenders’ of other Chinese towns resolution to resist Mongol invasion. This is why, after the fall of Beijing, Khan would never let go his captured enemies again.
2) Leaders Inspire a Shared Vision. Genghis Khan would never be able to inspire his men to embark on the missions of conquest, had he lacked a vision of what was the purpose of these conquests, in the first place. Ever since Khan had defeated the army of his former blood-brother Jamuka in 1206, he began promoting the concept of national unity among Mongols, which was something unheard of before. And, such promotion, on his part, was not of purely verbal nature. Again and again, Genghis Khan would stress out the importance of promotions in his army being done on the basis of personal merit, rather then on the basis of blood relationship. For example, the second most powerful man in Genghis Khan’s Empire became Subutai – a former slave. The reason why Khan promoted him to such a height is because of Subutai’s high military valor and because of his undying sense of personal loyalty towards Mongol leader. Moreover, it was namely the members of defeated tribes, who had proven themselves being particularly courageous individuals, whom Genghis Khan preferred as his generals. This is the reason why Khan’s army was becoming ever-more stronger, as time went by, even without having to win battles – Khan’s rivalries did not have an objective reason to think of him as an enemy. Apparently, they were growing to realize that they would be much better off joining Genghis Khan then opposing him.
The other reason why Genghis Khan’s popularity among Mongols continued to increase is because they could relate to him emotionally. Mongol leader had always personally participated in his numerous battles. He had never asked his soldiers to do something that he himself would not be willing to do. At one point, while campaigning in China, Mongol army suffered from the lack of drinking water for some time. When one of Mongol generals managed to get some water for Genghis Khan, the latter refused to drink it and poured it down onto the ground, because under no circumstances he would want to think of himself as being different from those he led into the battle. In its turn, this brings us to the conclusion that one of the reasons why Genghis Khan was able to rally so many people to his cause, is because his existential stance appealed to these people’s spiritual values.
3) Leaders Enable Others to Act. It is only people who wholeheartedly trust their leader, which can act as loyal subjects to his authority. Apparently, Genghis Khan understood this fact very well. This is the reason why he was applying such a great effort to assure trust, on the part of his entourage’s members – the thought that he could betray his generals or the thought that his generals could betray him was something Genghis Khan could not stand. When two generals of defeated Jamuka had brought their former leader to Khan, while expecting to be rewarded for what they have done, he ordered them to be beheaded, in order to teach a lesson to those who would ever consider doing the same to him. This again suggests that it was not by a pure accident that Genghis Khan had managed to subdue all of his enemies in such a spectacular manner. As a true leader – Genghis Khan always acted in the way he had to act, rather then in a way he felt like acting. And, by doing it, he was inspiring others.
However, it would be wrong to think that Genghis Khan was being solely preoccupied with strengthening his personal authority. Despite his illiteracy, Khan knew that his vast Empire could not possibly be ruled single-handedly. This is why, throughout his career, Genghis Khan used to apply a great deal of effort into assuring that his cause of conquering the whole world would be carried on by his descendants. It is well worthy noticing that Khan’s attitude towards his sons somewhat reminded the one of Roman Emperors’ – that is, he never attached too much meaning to the notion of seniority, while deciding which of his sons should become an ultimate successor. This is the reason why it was namely Ogedei, who ended up being entrusted with the task of expanding the Empire.
And, as we all know, he succeeded with it rather outstandingly – it is now being estimated that, during the time of Ogedei acting as Khan, Mongol Empire had grown by one third in size. In its turn, this indicates another aspect of Genghis Khan’s excellence as leader – he knew how to find right men for the job, regardless of what such “job” was all about. The following quote from Kristine Geimure’s article “Top 7 Leadership Mistakes”, corresponds to what is being said earlier with utter exactness: “Many of the world’s greatest leaders are people of average intelligence that don’t know all there is to know in their industry. They understand that they can’t possibly know everything and they hire people that do know everything!” (Geimure 2005). Therefore, it will not be an exaggeration, on our part, to suggest that Genghis Khan’s talent in choosing collaborators played a significant role in his rise to power. In its turn, this serves as another proof as to Genghis Khan being a “natural born leader”.
4) Leaders Model the Way. As we have pointed out earlier, Genghis Khan’s existential mode was absolutely consistent with his beliefs on the issues of social and political importance. However, it was also his ability to achieve concrete results, while promoting its ideas to others, which resulted in the number of Khan’s followers continuing to increase, as time went by. Apparently, Genghis Khan knew how to utilize a systematic approach, within a context of addressing various challenges. The essence of such approach can be defined as follows: it is only when individual tries to achieve one particular goal at the time with persistence, which qualifies him for a position of leader. Genghis Khan’s ultimate goal was conquering the whole world. However, this never caused him to go about addressing this task irresponsibly. For example, Mongol leader always tried to avoid dispersing his forces. Every time he would set on a mission of conquest, he used to make sure that this mission would be associated with the best possible chances of success. Had Hitler and Napoleon studied Genghis Khan’s methods of invading other countries, they might have ended up winning. Apparently, these conquerors had a hard time understanding that their geopolitical appetites ran little too far ahead of their countries’ military capabilities. Genghis Khan, on the other hand, never had such a problem – regardless of his next adversary’s actual strength, he would always approach such an adversary with utter caution.
For example, even though that Genghis Khan was well aware of Kievan Rus principalities’ military weakness, he still insisted that, prior to sending Mongol main force to conquer this country, a comparatively small army had to be dispatched there on a reconnaissance mission. Such his decision proved to be vital – even though Subutai’s “task force” managed to crush Russian army at the Battle of Kalka River in 1223, it suffered defeat from the hands of Volga Bulgars, while returning back to Mongolia. In its turn, this prompted Genghis Khan to establish military and trading outposts, 40 kilometers apart from each other, all the way from Mongolia to Caspian Sea; so that the information about enemy’s possible movements in remote regions of Mongol Empire would be promptly delivered to Khan’s headquarters in Karakorum. It is namely due to such his decision that the consequential conquest of Kievan Rus became possible, after Genghis Khan’s death. Thus, even Khan sons’ later military victories largely accounted for their father’s geopolitical genius and for his ability to always take into consideration even the smallest details, while pursuing with its agenda.
6) Leaders Encourage the Heart. From what we know about Genghis Khan, he can very well be referred to as “people’s leader”, simply because he always thought of its personal welfare as being inseparable from the welfare of his people. Unlike the majority of contemporary political leaders, who are only concerned about the prospects of reelection, while striving to benefit the immediate members of their families, as their foremost priority, Genghis Khan could not care less about anything else, but serving Mongols. This is what caused him to decide in favor of exterminating the whole nations, for as long as he thought it would benefit his people. Today, we can elaborate long and hard on the subject of Genghis Khan’s atrocities; however, one thing simply cannot be argued with – the only reason why Khan used to resort to utilization of often bestial violence, while pursuing with its mission, is because he loved Mongols with utter passion. In their turn, his subjects never doubted that this was really the case. The complete determination with which Genghis Khan went about winning for his people a place under the sun, deserved him passionate admiration, on the part of just about any Mongol, at the time. This is exactly the reason why Genghis Khan continues to be revered in Mongolia even today.
In its turn, this point out to the fact that, no matter how hard a particular leader tries to convince people that he is nothing but their servant, he will never be able to win these people’s hearts, for as long as they perceive him as double-faced individual, who is being incapable of taking a direct responsibility for its actions. Genghis Khan, on the other hand, had never been noticed of scheming behind his people’s backs, simply because he was being linked to them by the ties of collective accountability – his deeds reflected upon Mongols and vice versa. This allows us to state that, even though Genghis Khan might have been a “morally wicked” person, there are absolutely no good reasons for us to suspect him of being hypocritical towards his subjects. Had it been otherwise, he would never be able to enjoy Mongols’ overwhelming support.
The historical example of Genghis Khan suggests that the principle of leadership should not be confused with the principle of management. Leaders employ managers to help them with realization of their vision. However, managers will never be able to assume the position of leaders, simply because they might be capable of rationalizing a leader’s psychological traits. Leaders are like geniuses – their emergence cannot be predicted. Leaders are being born, not made. Our analysis of Genghis Khan’s leadership qualities suggests that it is namely leaders’ strong conviction in the utter necessity of their mission, their refusal to yield to the norms of conventional morality, and their possession of a clear vision as to what needs to be done, in order to increase the degree of their subjects’ competitiveness, which allows them to leave a mark in history.
Bibliography
- Geimure, K. (2005). Top 7 Leadership Mistakes. Woopidoo Articles.
- Kouzes, J. & Posner, B. (2007) The Leadership Challenge. NY: John Wiley and Sons.
- Turnbull, S. (2004). Genghis Khan & the Mongol Conquests, 1190-1400. NY: Taylor & Francis Routledge.