Since the death of Margaret Thatcher, the headlines have been full of contrasting opinions from those who supported her policies and those who didn’t. But, no matter what your view of the Iron Lady, there’s no doubt that she led us through challenging times and possessed great leadership qualities. And when it comes to hiring senior figures in today’s competitive market or developing those employees already in an organisation, HR professionals should be looking at the attributes that Thatcher had.
One such quality was her ability to be resilient. Thatcher seemed to enjoy tough situations and had a clear sense of purpose, self-belief, and challenge orientation – three of a&dc’s key characteristics of a resilient individual. Just as this is important for party leaders, it’s also extremely valuable for business leaders as it allows them to thrive in stressful situations. As a result, efforts need to be taken to identify this skill when it comes to hiring top talent, as well as developing it in the employees already in your organisation. And with the difficulty of getting women on boards, perhaps a greater focus on developing resilience in women in particular is needed to give them the confidence to compete with men at the top, just as Thatcher did.
However, whilst resilience can be an extremely important trait to have, there’s a danger that resilient attributes can actually become blind spots. They can overturn even the best talent, as we eventually saw with Margaret Thatcher, so it’s important that this is monitored by the HR team so that it doesn’t damage your business.
As well as resilience, a&dc also recognises that there are five critical areas of effective leadership, which form our LIVED model: Learning, Intellect, Values, Emotion, and Drive. Thatcher, like any senior figure had both strengths and weakness in these areas, just as she did with resilience. And it can be argued that it was her lack of learning agility – the ability to adapt to experiences, make sense of them and make the most of them – that contributed to her eventual downfall. As such, it’s important to assess for this quality in potential hires to ensure you have the best leaders in place to gain a competitive advantage in the future.
For your business to respond to challenges, both in the short and long term, it’s fundamental that you’re able to recognise what makes up a good leader. Thatcher was by no means perfect, but she was still the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century and the first female in this role. And HR teams can learn a lot from her leadership style, the good and the bad.
