Greatest leaders and why

Essentially, because she was a woman. Ruling queens, such as Mary and Elizabeth of England, were rare but not illegitimate in Europe. In contrast, traditional Confucian thinking argued that having a woman in power in China was deeply unnatural. Of course, Wu Zetian was clearly a dangerous person to know, particularly if you were standing in the way of her route to power.

Wu Zetian was criticised for promoting Buddhism, an import from India, above the indigenous Chinese systems of thought and faith. Yet Buddhism also gave more space to women than Confucian thinking — so her interest in it may have been perfectly natural in the circumstances. After Wu Zetian died in , the court hierarchy refused to carve any record of her achievements on her tomb — a final rejection of the anomalous emperor.

Yet she has become a figure of fascination to later generations in China, even inspiring a multi-part soap opera in recent years. Rana Mitter is professor of the history and politics of modern China at the University of Oxford.

Nobody in British history has a personal story to match that of Oliver Cromwell. Born in Huntingdon in , he spent much of his first four decades as an obscure farmer with a brief stint as MP for Huntingdon in — Yet at the age of 50 he was the most powerful man in the country, and in became Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland — the first and only non-royal head of state in British history.

A man of burning religious passion, Cromwell believed that God had chosen him to guide his country through the horrors of the Civil War. As the Irish discovered, he could be a robust antagonist. But he was remarkably tolerant by the standards of the age, and his deep personal self-doubt meant he never became a dictator.

For years after his death in , the things Oliver Cromwell stood for — the rule of parliament, the importance of commerce, the rise of sea power, freedom of religious belief and, above all, the extraordinary moral, cultural and economic energy of the Protestant middle classes — defined Britain itself. Joan, a woman from a peasant family, could not lead an army by any normal means. But her sheer force of will and belief transfixed her followers: they praised her as a gift from God, pure as the Virgin Mary and powerful before their enemies as Christ.

Captured in May , she was tried and, a year later, executed for crimes against the faith in an attempt to break her powerful spell — but her work was done. During her long reign, England emerged as a world power, defeating the Spanish Armada and laying the foundations of an empire. An exceptionally intelligent and cultured woman, Elizabeth ushered in a golden age of the arts, patronising the likes of Shakespeare and Spenser.

Tracy Borman is a historian, writer and joint chief curator for Historic Royal Palaces. Mansa emperor Musa I c— , who ruled the Mali empire for 25 years from about , has a claim to being the richest person who has ever lived.

He inherited a throne that was incredibly stable and an empire that was hugely, unprecedentedly wealthy. But, rather than dedicating his life to putting his feet up, he decided to try to enlighten himself and his people.

He set about creating a great body of written material and assembling some of the greatest thinkers. For the site of this new centre of knowledge he chose Timbuktu, a city right on the far eastern fringe of his empire. Taking his retinue and followers on pilgrimage, when he arrived in Mecca he was met by great intellectuals from the university in Salamanca and from places as far afield as Venice and south Asia.

Some of these people, including the great architect Al-Sahili, agreed to travel back to Timbuktu with Musa. As a result, the city became a great centre of learning, and transformed the way in which people understood Mali. It grew into a place driven not by money but by the exchange of knowledge, with dozens and dozens of archives and a mosque at its heart.

Whereas, in the oral societies of the past, rulers could craft histories in ways that purely suited them, the fact that there were now documents meant that people could both build a historical narrative with a level of objectivity and contest that narrative. It became possible to create a legal system featuring such things as mechanics of ownership — and, as a result, separation from power. This was the beginning of a kind of democratisation of learning that was, I think, the most generous thing he did during a reign that also distinguished him as inordinately clever and thoughtful.

Musa did make mistakes. They essentially rebelled by reducing production, which taught him a valuable lesson about moderating his thinking on certain issues to allow for a kind of liberal state that included a variety of possibilities. That really marks out his reign and his kingdom: it was a state in which there was acceptance and tolerance. After all, learning from mistakes is the mark of a great leader. He recognised that he had to change paths, and that he was not omnipotent.

His rule was not just about the personality of the ruler. Today, we know little about African history. Those histories are still very present in Timbuktu today. When the militant Islamist group Ansar Dine attacked Timbuktu recently, ordinary Malians put themselves in the line of fire to try to protect the amazing medieval archives. These histories remain critically important to understanding not just the region but also the identity of many Malians today.

Over the next three days, while the BEF started to be evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk, the Cabinet discussed the pros and cons of ending a war Britain seemed to have comprehensively lost. The subject was brought up at no fewer than eight successive meetings, several times dominating the agenda. An initial meeting was even held between Halifax and Giuseppe Bastianini, the Italian ambassador in London.

It seemed only logical: the French were being knocked out of the war they capitulated in mid-June ; the Russians had been effectively allied to Hitler since the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August ; the Poles had been annihilated by the twin German and Russian attacks of September ; and isolationist sentiment in America meant that the United States was not about to enter the war anytime soon.

Furthermore, it was probable that, in his desire to avoid a war on two fronts, Hitler would have offered Britain a generous peace deal, allowing her to retain her sovereignty, Royal Navy and empire.

His main ambition was to attack the Russians, and he would most probably have been highly amenable to an arrangement in the west that meant that he did not need to station troops there. The leaflets advocating peace that the Luftwaffe were to drop across southern England and south Wales in August were testament to his eagerness on that score. A large number of Britons, especially in the Communist Party, the British Union of Fascists and the pacifist movement, were vocally in favour of peace.

However, Winston Churchill — , by then prime minister for only 15 days, was utterly opposed. In eight cabinet meetings, he made argument after argument against the proposed deal — some of which were pretty flimsy, considering how dire the situation was for the BEF, which started to embark from Dunkirk on 26 May, with evacuation not completed until 4 June He even suggested at one point that he was not ideologically opposed to the idea of peace negotiations, and might consider giving up Gibraltar or Malta in order to extricate Britain from the coming calamity.

He knew that Hitler could not be trusted, and that anyhow if Britain negotiated peace it would be disastrous for domestic morale and her reputation in the world, especially in the United States. It would also have allowed Hitler to invade the USSR with his entire military might and at a time of his own choosing. He would not have needed to waste six precious weeks knocking Yugoslavia and Greece out of the war in April and May , but would have been able to launch Operation Barbarossa against Russia much earlier in the year.

Bearing in mind that German forces reached the underground stations on the Moscow subway by early October , before the front solidified for the winter, that extra time could have proved fatal for the Soviet Union. Considering that, with three-quarters of his forces in the east, Hitler managed to subject Leningrad now St Petersburg to a gruelling day siege, nearly captured Moscow and almost seized central Stalingrad, it is impossible to know what he might have achieved had he been able to move his entire force on Russia.

Through his inspiring leadership and indomitable moral and physical courage, Winston Churchill saved the world from the most evil regime in history — surely the mark of the greatest leader. Andrew Roberts is a historian and writer. The medieval popes wielded vast spiritual and political power, and Innocent III was arguably the most influential of them all. Born Lotario di Segni near Rome, he was elected pope at the age of just 37 or He reformed church law and spiritual life, tightening the laws on marriage, prescribing annual confession and helping launch the Franciscan order.

He banned the involvement of churchmen in trial by ordeal, on the basis that it was superstitious and unjust because it was not the duty of the accused to prove their innocence — a decision with huge ramifications for the development of European legal systems. He redrew the political map of Europe, making England and Aragon vassal states of the papacy and launching an expedition against heresy in southern France that would ultimately bring the region under the French kings.

Having lost control of the Fourth Crusade during which participants sacked the Byzantine city of Constantinople , he revolutionised the planning and recruitment of crusade expeditions, and helped to reverse the advance of the Islamic conquests by uniting the kings of Spain against the Almohad Caliphate.

The resulting vast army won a decisive victory at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in — a key date in Spanish history. Great because… his struggle for independence in Africa also transformed Portugal. Greatness is an attribute best judged by circumstances. In every era, humans have had many apparently insuperable problems to overcome. Those who are great are those who can find solutions to these problems, or who can inspire others to solve them. In the 20th century, most of Africa was faced with the task of liberating itself from foreign colonial rule.

In many countries, a form of independence was achieved by the early s. However, the dictatorial government of Portugal refused to acknowledge the rights of Africans to govern themselves in its colonies, which included Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and Portuguese Guinea which became Guinea-Bissau after independence. The armed liberation struggles that he led eventually resulted in revolution in Portugal and the start of a new democratic era in that country, too.

Cabral found ways to unite the nearly one million people of Guinea, women included, even though most were illiterate peasant farmers and they spoke different languages. With limited outside support, the people of Guinea fought to liberate their country and started to build a new society in which they themselves were the decision-makers. They did this even when parts of their country were still occupied by Portugal, which had the military support of Britain, the US and other Nato members.

His murder was carried out in , just before Guinea achieved independence from Portuguese colonial rule. His life and work show that, whatever the obstacles, the people are capable of being their own liberators. Hakim Adi is professor of the history of Africa and the African diaspora at the University of Chichester.

Yet it is quite a fun game to play, and gets us thinking about who has made a difference. So what do you say to Catherine the Great as one of the most important figures in history? She was among those few women who managed to achieve real political power when men dominated society. And the legends — man-made — accumulated around them, to suggest that they were somehow not proper women.

Only Maria Theresa, with her exemplary private life and 16 children, managed to escape such comments. Born in into a small, unimportant German court, she was married off to the heir to the Russian throne at the age of She found herself yoked to an excessively stupid and drunken husband, as well as having to navigate the murky and often brutal politics of the Russian court.

Where others would have floundered, Catherine triumphed. She won the approval of Empress Elizabeth, and became deeply, demonstratively Russian. She converted to Orthodoxy, took a series of noble-born Russian lovers and became a firm enemy of the powerful Prussia and its ruler, Frederick the Great. Unlike her unfortunate husband, Catherine was highly intelligent and formidably energetic.

She possessed great charm, winning over many of the Russian elites, including important sections of the military. When Elizabeth died in , the new tsar, Peter, talked openly about replacing Catherine as his consort with one of his mistresses.

Catherine encouraged a military coup against him, and was made ruler of Russia. Modernisation in those days meant using Europe as a model. She read and admired the works of leading figures of the Enlightenment, with their challenges to tradition.

Catherine reformed the creaky Russian bureaucracy, attempted to rationalise the administration of her huge territories, and created new codes of law. She brought the powerful Orthodox church firmly under state control, and gained much-needed funds by expropriating its land and serfs.

She encouraged manufacturing and trade, and imported western experts to introduce new ideas and technologies. She herself set an example by having the new inoculation against smallpox, which had been pioneered in Britain, administered to herself, her son and her court.

Her critics say she could have done much more for Russia — that, while St Petersburg became a cultural and intellectual centre, most of Russian society remained untouched by her reforms. She toyed with the idea of abolishing serfdom, which tied millions of Russian peasants to the land, and even drafted a policy. In the end, she not only shrank from carrying it out but extended serfdom to peasants who had previously been free.

Be it, MK Gandhi or Nelson Mandela , a plethora of such magnificent minds have showered us with their wisdom as well as have achieved some extraordinary goals which are revered to date. A variety of leadership styles can be observed in the famous personalities of India and the world.

The epitome of their greatness can be seen across various fields. Let us shed some light on some great leaders of the world and get all enlightened. Born in an ordinary Indian family in Gujrat, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a rebellious leader of a multitude of protests that were aimed to liberate India. Education is a powerful tool that brings awareness and greatness in an individual. Mahatma Gandhi, apart from being a popular leader of the world, also had an exceptional academic journey.

Read our blog on the Education of Mahatma Gandhi to know more! Greatness personified, Nelson Mandela a revolutionary anti-apartheid, philanthropist, politician and one of the great leaders of the world was the president of South Africa from From being sentenced to life imprisonment in to a Nobel Prize for ending apartheid in the country in , Nelson Mandela has experienced it all.

Also Read: Education of Nelson Mandela. Regarded as the savior of democracy, Winston Churchill was the great mind behind the victory of Britain from the Nazis. Born in an aristocratic family, he served the national army of Britain and then, later on, became the Prime Minister in Amongst his many honors, some are being elected as a PM again in , Nobel Prize in Literature, etc. Also Read: Nobel Laureates of India. He was a firm believer in Christianity, hence, thoroughly followed non-violence.

He was an award-winning lawyer who later on chose the path of politics. Words like democracy, liberty, equal rights, etc are often used as synonyms to his name due to his inspirational journey of leading the country to victory in the Civil War.

Because of her unforgettable devotion to empowering vulnerable groups, she has grabbed a notable mention in the list of great leaders of the world. She led a global community in her support which avidly worked for opening orphanages, clinics, etc around the world including India.

She even received a Nobel Prize for her endeavors to overcome poverty. A vital mention during the great French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte was a reputed French military leader who afterward became a popular politician. He has been profoundly remembered as the Emperor of France as well as his significant role in the Napoleonic wars. George Washington is fondly remembered as one of the founding fathers of the USA.

His greatness lies in the fact that he has been the first and the only nonpartisan political leader and the president of the USA. He is even credited for the victory of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War.

He was born on 6th July to a farming family in a small town in Tibet. For more than 50 years he has been tirelessly campaigning for non-violence, peace, and democracy. Largely self-taught, he eventually became a lawyer before getting elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in It was here that his brilliance influenced what would become the freest and most prosperous nation on earth.

Lincoln rapidly modernized the economy without sacrificing his values. By , he secured the Republican Party presidential nomination and was elected president. Abraham became leader of the Union during the American Civil War, where he used his power of oratory to deliver the Gettysburg Address and other powerful speeches to win over support of the American people.

To this day, Lincoln is synonymous with the principles of liberty, democracy, equal rights and unification. His willingness to stand alone on issues he believed in made him one of the most beloved and memorable leaders in modern history. His refusal to compromise on the issue of slavery and instrumental role in leading the north to victory during the Civil War made him the target of Confederate plotters and sympathizers. Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate supporter, on April 14, — less than one month before the end of the Civil War.

Her remarkable leadership was even powerful enough to cut across conflicts and enemy lines — a strength clearly exemplified during the Siege of Beirut.

Mother Teresa managed to broker a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas to rescue 37 children trapped in a front-line hospital. Teresa then travelled through the war zone alongside Red Cross workers to evacuate the young patients. Her real journey began in when she arrived in India where she became a nun and taught at a convent in Eastern Calcutta for several decades. The Bengal famine which killed a staggering 2.

Despite the lack of equipment and supplies, she found a way to open a school for poor children teaching them to read and write using sticks in the dirt. A new community soon formed around Mother Teresa opening hospices, clinics and orphanages throughout India. Within a few years the mission went global. By the s, the congregation was helping orphans and those afflicted by addiction, poverty, disability, old age and disaster around the world.

In , Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work to overcome poverty and suffering. Teresa of Calcutta for her heroic virtue. Diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ALS at the age of 21, he would spend most of his life severely disabled to the point where he controls his communication device through movement of his cheek muscles. Despite his debilitating condition, Hawking became arguably the most well-known theoretical physicist since Albert Einstein.

Hawking is known for his groundbreaking work on cosmology, quantum physics and black holes. Hawking came from humble beginnings. Much has been written about Hawking and his thought-provoking theories on the universe. He has received worldwide acclaim not only for his work, but for his determination in overcoming a severe disability. When he was originally diagnosed with ALS, he was given only two years to live.

That was over 50 years ago. On overcoming his disability, Hawking provides this brilliant quote:. His ex-wife Jane Hawking attributed his outlook on the world to a combination of determination and stubbornness. As Hawking clearly demonstrates, both traits have their pedigree. As does his humor and humble nature, which has been evident throughout his career. For instance, when asked what it feels like when he makes a significant scientific discovery, Hawking replied:.

Very few people are as synonymous with their industry as what Bill Gates is with information technology IT. He actually paid to use it, and when his money ran out, he hacked into the computer to use it for free. At this point you could say young Bill was destined for an innovative career in IT. Bill Gates grew up in an upper middle class family in Seattle, Washington and had a very close relationship with his mother. From an early age he showed flashes of brilliance, including a knack for business and entrepreneurship.

By the age of 15, he had already started a business with his friend Paul Allen. Little did they know that just 5 years later they would be on the path to changing the way the world does business and even communicates. In , Gates and Allen co-founded Microsoft. And the two poured everything they had into it.

In the process, he became incredibly wealthy. Just two years later, the company went global. That was the year Microsoft launched Windows, its flagship software. For more than two decades, Gates has routinely ranked among the richest people in the world, and in , Forbes trumped this by ranking him as the richest man in the world.

Gates worked tirelessly to build Microsoft and ensure its leadership pace in an increasingly competitive market. It is by far the largest private foundation of its kind in the world. Oprah Winfrey is much more than a television talk show host. To say that Oprah, a black woman from the south, overcame the odds would be a huge understatement.