Tell me more ×
History Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for historians and history buffs. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 8 down vote favorite

The key problem in the delegation of authority is to match the delegatee's character and experience with the tasks appointed to him/her. I got an impression that Churchill's record in this field is less than impressive. Here are some examples of poor choices he made: Ian Hamilton for Gallipoli, Lindemann as chief scientific adviser, Fisher as First Sea Lord during WWI and Dudley Pound during WWII, Mountbatten for Dieppe and SEAC, Wingate for Burma.

Questions:

  1. Are there examples of particularly apt personnel selections by Churchill to counter-balance my list?
  2. Is this issue treated specifically in the historical literature? (We have works on Churchill & X for X ranging over at least {Soviet Union, America, British Empire, Jews} - what about X being Human Resources?)
share|improve this question
2  
This may be slightly subjective. – Russell Dec 18 '12 at 23:08
2  
how do you mesure HR management skill? I know that you've clarified it with your other questions, however, they also raise several questions. Thought the question may be slightly subjective, we do have a precedent that allows question like this, which is why I did not flag it. However, I wanted to see what other people thought about the question. – Russell Dec 19 '12 at 2:08
1  
I thought Andrew Roberts's Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945 was good on the soft skills or lack thereof in Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall, and Brooke. My sense (perhaps mainly from this source) is that Churchill (here a bit like Hitler) saw himself as a considerable military expert e.g. through his writings, and that this tended to cause conflicts with some UK players. It may have influenced some HR choices too. – Drux Dec 20 '12 at 10:31
1  
@Drux: You are quite right about Churchill considering himself as a military expert - much like Hitler and Stalin. Of all three he had the best credentials (at least he had graduated from Sandhurst and saw service on three continents as an officer, unlike a certain corporal a certain apprentice clergyman), but as to whether his military judgement was significantly better as a result, I don't know. Stalin, in my opinion, was very mediocre in military matters; Hitler, villain though he was, had some flashes of military brilliance (Liddel Hart treats the subject at some length in his major book). – Felix Goldberg Dec 20 '12 at 11:12
1  
@Drux Re:Lindemann. C.P.Snow wrote a lot, and scathingly, about his performance in Science and Government where he sets up Lindemann as the bad pole and Tizard as the good pole. Later writers, drawing also on documents which were not available to Snow, have mollified somewhat his harsh judgement but on the whole it does seem that Lindemann was not the right man for his job. – Felix Goldberg Dec 20 '12 at 12:04
show 16 more comments

1 Answer

up vote 0 down vote

His treatment of colonial troops in both wars was poor, some of the best troops available to him where colonial troops and he constantly wasted them in futile engagments in world War 1. He refused to listen to colonial generals, Monash who Churchill desperately wanted to sack was an Australian General of Jewish decent. The Australian prime minister grabbed Churchill by the throat and threatened him after a discussion about the deployment of Australin troops. I would rate Churchill overall as a poor HR man but he more than made up for it with his forceable will, and his genius at mass psychology.

share|improve this answer
3  
Do you have sources for this? – Felix Goldberg Jan 28 at 10:24

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.