King Henry V: Where Leaders Stand
Above: English armor from The Battle of Agincourt; Tower of London.
October, 1415. Northern France.
The Hundred Years War between England and France rages on.
The English, comprised mostly of longbowmen, are outnumbered three to one. Their numbers decimated by disease and dysentery. Food is so scarce soldiers eat leaves. Marching for the safety of English-held Calais, the French intercept them.
There is no going back. There is no going forward.
Battle is imminent.
King Henry orders none speak a word this night. Solemn and composed— preparing for the battle to come.
Knights from across France have take arms. They seek valor through The Code of Chivalry, a system of bravery, honor, courtesy, service, and gallantry. Under the code, nothing is more sacred than glory in battle. Each soldier arrives to claim theirs.
While the English sit in silence, The French camp is alive with activity. French soldiers mock King Henry. They drink. They celebrate. Their enemy: outnumbered, outmatched. Desperate.
They savor the victory to come.
The Battle of Agincourt begins.
Henry’s archers taunt the French, baiting them into an undisciplined charge. They wave two fingers at the enemy lines, a mockery of the French claims to cut the bow firing fingers off every English captive.
The ploy works. Without orders, the cavalry begin the march. An ocean of French soldiers thunder towards the English.
Exactly as King Henry wanted.
The English longbowmen deliver a murderous arrow barrage. Between the confines of the wooded battlefield, the French cannot flank English archers. The bulk of their army advance forward, pushing those in front into slaughter.
France’s predictable victory proves a disaster.
It gets far worse.
____________
Weeks of rain have softened the battlefield.
The French Knight’s greatest asset—their heavy armor—is now their greatest liability. Knocked into the mud, the Knights cannot stand back up. Men suffocate. Men are trampled. Horses go berserk. The French attack is reduced to chaos.
The English ultimately win. Preventing any French rally, French prisoners are put to the sword.
The pride of France lay at Henry’s feet.
More than eight thousand dead. France’s Admiral. France’s Constable. Eight counts. A Viscount. Three Dukes. Thousands of soldiers.
600 years later, Agincourt remains one of England’s most celebrated victories.
How did this happen?
For the French: Pride. Arrogance. Adherence to an antiquated “chivalric” code of conduct. France’s King Charles VI of France did not, as was customary, stay at the rear of his army—in a fit of madness he is not there at all.
For the English: Superior battlefield positioning. The strength of the English longbow.
And above all of these, one of history’s greatest leaders.
King Henry V.
King Henry fights at the front of the battle, so close to the action a jewel on his crown is sheared off.
He understands if he falls, the French will win. He also understands leading the English to victory will require every resource available— including the possibility of losing his life.
Henry would lead his men to victory— or die alongside them as equals.
Not behind them, giving orders. With them, sword drawn, at the front lines.
Yes, their King—but also, their kin.
The force of King Henry’s leadership carries the day.
The English win an impossible victory.
King Henry V, leading from the front, is the reason why.
The leadership lesson is this.
Too many leaders are comfortable maintaining a “status quo”, removed from the battle; leading from the back.
Without King Henry’s bold leadership at the front, the English would have lost.
Leaders:
The growth of those in your charge is the exact measure of the quality of your leadership.
It’s easy when times are good. It feels sufficient to lead from the back.
Leadership’s real test:
What will you do when times are tough? When the challenges seem insurmountable? When the team is up against the ropes? Are you behind your soldiers, or with them?
Your battle is coming.
You, like King Henry, must be at the front with your soldiers. The extra hours. The relentless effort.
Not leadership through words; vague, and meaningless.
Leadership through action.
You are unwavering in your commitment to your team.
You are lethal in your leadership approach towards competitors.
The competition stand on the other side of the battlefield.
They are the enemy. We’re not here to play nice. We’re not here to get along.
We are here to beat you. Destroy you. Annihilate you.
Leadership from the back works through the modern chivalric code of “plenty of business for everyone”. We’re doing well enough. We’re comfortably sufficient, but far from great.
To hell with that code. If comfortable is good enough, you are not doing your job. Henry won his war because he abandoned the Knight’s chivalric code, doing what must be done to win.
You must do the same.
You approach business with a warfare mentality. You are your team’s leader. There, at the front, sword and shield in hand. Rallying your troops.
You were hired to win. You are paid to win. Win.
When others arrive, they will ask where you are.
Your team will answer:
There—as always— right at the front.
Mark Joseph Huckabee
Above: Holinshed’s Chronicles, a "Universal Cosmography of the whole world, and there with also certain particular histories of every known nation." The publication served as source material for Shakespeare’s plays, including the famous Henry V based on The Battle of Agincourt.
“This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers”
