TOPSHOT - US President Joe Biden (C-L) walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (C-R) at ... [+]
We all saw it – on every news show, newspaper, periodical, podcast, social media platform, you name it. On February 20, 2023, President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. strode boldly onto the streets of Kyiv, shoulder to shoulder with his counterpart, ally, and friend, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
This was an active war zone and, lest anyone forget or ignore that element of the story, the sounds of air raid sirens were there to underscore that fact.
Yet there they stood, two bold, audacious, courageous allied leaders, fully aware of the risks, personifying an unyielding commitment to an ideal.
It was just a moment.
The whole thing took a fleeting moment, but we can be sure it was months in the planning with (probably) thousands of people ultimately involved on both ends. Nonetheless, this caught the world by surprise, the collective gasp in unison heard around the globe. It will occupy a prominent place in history books and documentaries, and it won’t take many years to get there. Here’s why, from a leadership perspective.
Two elements of leadership
Much of leadership can be boiled down to two things: substance and image. We are guided by and driven toward the substance; we are inspired by the image. What Biden and Zelenskyy did, from a substance point of view, was to articulate – by actions more so than words – what their and the world’s goal is. They left no doubt.
The leadership substance
This ranks with Churchill’s immortal wartime speech on June 4, 1940 to the House of Commons in which he said, “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…” Things, it seemed, couldn’t have gotten worse for England, but Churchill wouldn’t let anyone entertain that thought (even though conditions did continue to darken until the United States entered the war six months later. But Churchill had drawn the line in the sand, and history notes it. Biden and Zelenskyy matched up well with Churchill last week. They said the same thing.
The leadership image
From an image point of view, you couldn’t ask for more, and for this we turn to America’s greatest leader, George Washington, a staunch lead-from-the-front commander. Long before he actually became the father of our country, he was on the ascendency up the ranks, beginning as a 23-year old lieutenant in the French and Indian War.
Washington cut quite the heroic figure: 6’2” tall and a very fit 175 pounds. Whether he was standing in his two-inch heeled boots (now 6’4”) or riding his familiar white steed (now clearly head, shoulders, and mane above all), he knew full well the power of image. He was not without folly, though, as his youthful impulses that thrust him to the front line, sword in hand for his troops to see also got him wounded four times, none of which, as history sees is, was necessary. But he was 22 when he first took command and had much to learn. Washington was considerably younger than Zelenskyy when he first took command, and eons younger than Biden. One thing he did know, though, was how effective his image was – and he used that well throughout his career as a general, founding father, and our first president.
A leadership moment and a place in history
So, are Biden and Zelenskyy to be considered Washingtonian or Churchillian? History will tell in the long run, but on February 20, just five days ago, we were surely looking at a leadership moment with an assured place in history.
