Lessons for Modern Leaders from Caesar’s Rise and Rule

To this day, Julius Caesar – with a career that is both a blueprint for success and a stark warning of how success can come to an abrupt and tragic end – remains one of history’s most compelling case studies in leadership. With this in mind, this extract from “Lead Like Julius Caesar: Timeless Leadership Lessons from History’s Most Influential Leader” by leadership scholar Dr Paul Vanderbroeck will explore how Caesar’s career developed over time.  Encompassing his rise from ambitious young politician to ruler of Rome to reveal key timeless lessons about influence, reputation, and human behaviour inside competitive systems that leaders and CEOs can still learn from today.

Turning Opportunity into Growth  

As a young adult, Caesar showed that, in the words of leadership scholar Morgan McCall, he was a ‘high flyer’ gifted with the innate raw talent that, with the appropriate development, can be turned into the ‘right stuff’ that makes a successful leader.

In his early career and before taking on a formal leadership position, Caesar seized opportunities to put himself through the right experiences that would grow this talent into leadership skills and behaviours. These experiences involved taking up challenging assignments, overcoming hardships and learning from others. Learning from experience was critical for his leadership development. With his mother, Aurelia, in the driving seat, Caesar’s family gave him a support network that permitted him to take risks and gain experiences. He therefore started the cursus honorum with a series of strengths, which propelled him to the consulate without delay in his thirties.

Caesar’s career success shows that it is important for young professionals not to wait to take on operational responsibility. Rather than a desk job doing analysis, they should take jobs that allow them to actually achieve and learn something and gain visibility, even if that means making mistakes.

Playing to Strengths While Managing Weaknesses  

Caesar then used such experience to develop his competencies to a high level so that his 9 years in Gaul could be marked by great success. However, the two jobs he had to combine during the civil war proved more challenging. As a military leader, he failed to develop three essential behaviours (Emotional Intelligence, Coaching and Feedback, Networks and Alliances) to the required level. However, he had enough qualities to win in the end. In his role as dictator, he again managed to develop all behaviours and capabilities except one to at least the level of ‘competent’, which, as discussed at the end of the previous chapter, is quite enough once having reached the very top.

As recalled above, Caesar compensated for his weakness in Emotional Intelligence when he was consul by establishing an influencing organisation rather than improving this behaviour. For us, it is essential to recognise how he managed to achieve this by leveraging strengths, notably Team Building, Empowerment and Change Orientation. When Caesar lost his key allies who had helped him keep this organisation working smoothly while he was away, this compensation approach came to an end. Rather than develop his weaker behaviour, in this case his Emotional Intelligence, Caesar again relied on his strengths to compensate. To win the civil war, he notably deployed Tenacity and Courage, the Ability to Execute, Change Orientation and Energy.

Caesar’s success shows the importance of leveraging strengths. Deploying strengths to compensate for weaknesses can bring better results than developing weaknesses.

The Perils of Unchecked Success  

Come to think of it, Caesar, next to leveraging strengths to compensate for weaknesses in a given situation, sometimes—consciously or unconsciously—shifted the circumstances to put him in a position where he could use his strengths. For example, he aimed for a win-lose outcome when negotiating with Ariovistus in Gaul. Getting to a win-win would have required Emotional Intelligence. In contrast, a win-lose would inevitably lead to armed conflict unless Ariovistus backed down. Since the latter had no intention to do so, Caesar could confidently bring his strengths to bear in the ensuing battle. By the same token, Caesar perhaps felt or knew that choosing an alternative course of action when his dealings with the Senate did not go his way would put him in a position of strength. Thinking that breaking off the discussions could change the situation in his favour may have enhanced his impatience. Despite the risk, it always went well for Caesar, until that fateful month of March in 44, when he was so eager to start his war against Parthia that he was prepared to leave many things unfinished in Rome.

Receiving and interpreting feedback were the most important factors hindering Caesar’s leadership development. He was not always proactive in inviting feedback, and he was unaware that his direct reports and less powerful individuals hesitated to offer advice. This was not only due to the difficulty of speaking truth to power but also because others perceived Caesar as not needing feedback. Caesar was oblivious to the importance of interpreting feedback and not taking it at face value. Interestingly, his emphasis on honouring his commitments blinded him to the self-interest embedded in the advice he received from his followers.

At the same time this shows that while strengths can compensate for weaknesses, there’s a limit to leveraging them. Inviting continuous and diverse feedback is critical to knowing when you’re starting to overuse your strengths and need to rebalance your behaviour.

Overall Caesar’s career shows that talent needs experience in order to be transformed into successful leadership behaviour. The earlier and the more operational such experience, the better for your learning and your visibility. On balance, leveraging strengths is more important to success than developing weaknesses. But mind the balance, feedback is critical to avoiding a strength becoming a liability.

This is an adapted book extract from Chapter 7 of Lead Like Julius Caesar – Timeless Leadership Lessons from History’s Most Influential Leader by Dr Paul Vanderbroeck.