Queen Elizabeth II - Longevity Leader (Photo by Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
Britain’s Queen has just celebrated her 70-year reign with a star-studded, four-day party bash of a weekend that got crowds in a festive mood across the nation, waving adoringly at their diminutive monarch’s record-breaking Platinum feat. Exceptional in almost every conceivable way, there are nonetheless some lessons we can glean from Elizabeth II’s lengthy reign. The first is that this kind of longevity at work may not remain so exceptional. Half this spring’s university graduates are likely to live to a queenly 100-years-old. Like Elizabeth, they too may spend seven decades at work. Here’s four pieces of advice she could credibly have placed in a commencement speech.
Say Yes: Take the Stretch Job
Elizabeth II was thrust into a leadership role at the tender age of 25, following the abdication of her uncle and the untimely death of her father. The young queen buckled down to her fate with grace and determination. She took the role—and her subjects—seriously and invested time and effort in listening and learning on the job. She wasn’t what most people would consider a natural leader, brimming with charisma and confidence. But she doggedly put her head down and focused on the task at hand, earning her people’s trust and respect quietly, competently and courageously.
Women often get handed leadership roles they don’t necessarily lust after and often don’t feel ready for. Glass cliffs are a real thing. Also, many of my corporate clients complain they want to promote women - but their offers are turned down. Elizabeth is a model of how you can grow into almost any job. No one is ever ready for these kinds of roles. Saying yes to leadership is shorthand for saying yes to growth itself. With dedication, you may, like Elizabeth, not only learn the ropes, but come to embody the institution itself.
Stay Steady: Tumult goes with the Territory
Talk of the VUCA world (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) is all around these days, but change and upheaval are nothing new, as Elisabeth’s tumultuous reign reminds us. Mounting the British throne in 1952 as Europe was still emerging from the decimation of WWII, she would go on to navigate a range of shape-shifting and country-defining quakes - from the Troubles in Northern Ireland, devolution in the UK , and decolonisation in Africa to the UK’s whiplash-inducing accession to the European Communities and its Brexiteering withdrawal a half-century later.
Not to mention that lifequakes are never limited to the professional realm. The Queen’s personal life – or rather her family’s shenanigans, amorous and otherwise – would have tested any woman’s best work/life management skills. She admitted as much in her legendary remarks about the low point of her life, her annus horribilis after Princess Diana’s death. Even then, her measured words reflected a mastery of powerful understatement. “1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.” Throughout the decades and debacles, her steady, unifying presence has been a gift to her nation, one many other, shakier countries envy.
Far from taking her cue from the contemporary Brene Brown-like invitation to make vulnerability and story-sharing part of your leadership playbook, the Queen has chosen to shoulder chaos with a very British rendering of the stiff upper lip. Some years she smiled more, some less. But she continued on and through, doing a job few would envy, year in and year out, working with 14 different prime ministers of every possible political hue - from Churchill and Thatcher to a rather sad finale with a not-quite-worthy-of-her Boris. Chaos and tumult inevitably breed divisiveness, but the Queen models inclusion and continuity over time. Her values of duty and steadfastness – calm in the eyes of repeated storms - have earned the population’s trust bordering on filial love. Courage has always been at the heart of leadership. We just aren’t used (yet) to seeing it wrapped in this quiet, ladylike sort of package.
Craft Your Brand: And Build It Over Time
The Queen’s brand is remarkably strong – and personal. It helps, of course, to have your face on every coin in the realm. But she has built her own brand as skilfully as any Kardashian. From the strange and colourful costumes and the Corgi dogs at her feet to her scripted (and much watched) annual Christmas message, she has spread her voice and lady-like imprint across the Commonwealth. Onto the very evocation of the word ‘queen.’ Repetition helps, and seven decades make you mistress of most anything you devote yourself to.
But like any contemporary brand consultant will tell you, brands are really anchored in values. And the Queen has demonstrated hers, year in, year out, with the sweat of her ribbon-cutting scissors and the confidential conversations with her heads of state (see the Peter Morgan play The Queen to get an imaginary glimpse of what was said). While these have regularly been tested and occasionally contested, she has stood by her look, her message and her duties through thick and thin. Her brand has now passed the test of time and proven its enduring relevance and ‘stickiness’—especially in times of rising uncertainty and democratic shakiness. The most powerful brands become like lighthouses, rooted on immoveable shores—beaming their steady invitation home through darkness.
(Re)define Success: Who’s Left Standing
The Queen’s Commonwealth-wide platinum festivities and seemingly imperturbable popularity must befuddle more than one anti-monarchist. Not to mention her profoundly unpopular Prime Minister, who is proving an almost perfect foil to the Queen’s unwavering commitment to upholding what she believes in.
Like the awkward, innocent young girl at the beginning of any rom-com, Britain’s beautiful young queen has been on a long and intensely public sort of heroine’s journey. A life of service, family and statesmanship. She’s been poked and prodded, fallen and risen repeatedly, become the unwilling star of a Netflix series, the matriarch of a contentious crew, the witness to an Empire undone, a country unmoored from its nearest neighbours.
She is the antithesis of the kind of leadership taught in business school – confident, charismatic and cool. But as she celebrates her Platinum Jubilee at 96, she offers an entirely new metric of success to a fast-ageing world population. Sheer longevity. Elizabeth has now become “the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch, the longest-serving female head of state, the oldest living and longest-reigning current monarch, and the oldest and longest-serving incumbent head of state.” And she’s done it her way.
Suddenly, all those striving, garrulous leaders of yore, seem a tad… adolescent. Here’s a lady whose crown may be forever out of reach, but whose footsteps many may yet choose to follow.
