leadership of willington essay

Leadership Experience, Military Intelligence, Management, Effective Leadership

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Leadership of Wellington

The British general Arthur Wellesley beautifully matches the model of a maverick military leader offered by Robert Harvey in the work Maverick Military Frontrunners, the Extraordinary Challenges of Buenos aires, Nelson, Patton, Rommel, and Others. Maverick Military Leaders examines Wellesley’s initial (and significant) battle against Maratha causes at the Challenge of Assaye. In Harvey’s formulation, the future Duke of Wellington could be understood to indicate most, in the event not all, in the sixteen traits found in effective battlefield commanders; and indeed, Wellington would go on to defeat Napoleon and end the putative emperor’s rule at the important Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The victory by Waterloo would secure Britain’s position as a great electrical power vis a vis continental politics and affairs for century-and-a-half. It can be fairly stated that the qualities of leadership that Wellesley displayed for Assaye were a iniciador in his ultimately becoming among the United Kingdom’s greatest battlefield commanders. Actually Wellington considered the fighting in Assaye to be his “finest battle” (Harvey, p. 195).

But what leadership characteristics do Wellesley screen in the Indian campaigns? Relating to Harvey’s framework, the overall displayed the first feature of “outstanding and exemplary courage underneath fire” (Harvey, p. xlvi). According to Richard Cavendish at Record Today, Wellesley personally led his soldiers to kia the Kaitna river and organize a bayonet assault against the Maratha forces and in fact, throughout directing the battle, Wellesley would have two horses taken out from under him as he described his troops against astonishingly effective counter-maneuvers by the uncooperative Maratha forces (Harvey, l. 195; www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/battle-assaye). His courage and determination to share the hazards associated with battlefield fighting dished up as an example to the troops that he was certainly not afraid to adopt the same problems and dangers that he’d ask in the lowest rating infantryman – thus inspiring all his troops to consider his lead and adhere to his model.

The second characteristic Wellesley viewed according to Harvey’s programa was the “ability to think coolly and rationally on the battlefield” (Harvey, l xlvi). Harvey informs his readers that one of Wellesley’s generals exclaimed that “no man could have shown a much better example to his soldiers than this individual did. My spouse and i never saw a man so cool and collected” (Harvey, p. 195). The fact that Wellesley was able to maintain his composure against a identified and numerically superior power and arise victorious can be described as testament to his ability to “think coolly and rationally for the battlefield. ” As far as the 3rd trait in Harvey’s ingredients goes – the willpower to make [his] own way to the best on advantage – with this too, we discover Wellesley. Cavendish writes that Wellesley’s peers and rivals were persuaded he received his order due to the fact that his brother was the Governor-General of India, however, Wellesley’s accounting of him self at Assay (and in his future battles) proved that he had the necessary mettle to become legitimate premier battlefield leader (Cavendish).

As much as the schema’s sixth and seventh qualities, the ability to have a strategic and tactical