3 Leadership Lessons From Caesar Augustus
Lessons and insights that leadership and talent management can learn from Caesar Augustus
In the following article, we look at 3 leadership lessons from Caesar Augustus. In this series, we do not self-righteously judge successful people in history. In 2017, I wrote The Poverty of Witch Hunts [1]. I suggest you read and apply this in your life. We can all learn something from anyone, even if that's what not to do.
I consider Caesar Augustus (referred to as Augustus going forward) to be one of three leaders who provide the gold standard of leadership. As we'll see in this post, the Roman Republic should have shattered into pieces and never been remembered. But this did not happen and the big reason involved Augustus.
Augustus Embraced the Ultimate Challenge
I have no doubt that he felt fear, especially after Julius Caesar was murdered. It would have been easy for Augustus to find a different life than leadership. He could have also joined in contempt for Julius Caesar to become popular. He chose a different route - he joined with Antony to fight in a civil war for Rome's future.
Augustus should not have succeeded here. Yet he did. Rome's civil war ended with Antony and Augustus emerging victorious. As we know, this didn't end the conflict. Antony and Augustus had a show down. Let's be extremely clear here: Antony had more experience than Augustus, but Augustus ended up victorious. Rome's conflicts finally ended and the birth of the Roman Empire began.
Statistically, Augustus should have never succeeded at this point, yet he did. One big reason for this is that Augustus understood who was friend and foe. Returning to my earlier statement, had Augustus joined in those who killed Julius Caesar, he would have been as bad as them. He would have also suffered the same fate. Betraying someone who's close to you may feel like the wise choice when everyone turns against that person. But it reveals who you really are. The people you join with also know a truth about you: you do what's convenient. I've noticed this in general with witch hunts. The people who engage in them the most reveal a basic truth about themselves - they lack self-reflection. When it's their turn, they realize how they don't have allies.
Living by your values will cost you. Being loyal to people who are being attacked will also cost you. But the inverse is even worse! Likewise, you'll miss on people loyal to you. One big reason for Augustus' success is Marcus Agrippa. Would Agrippa have been as loyal to Augustus had Augustus been disloyal to Julius Caesar? No. Agrippa knew how dangerous it was for Augustus to stay loyal and it also showed Agrippa that Augustus was a lifelong friend who he could trust. A person who is disloyal to others will be disloyal to you.
The most revealing truth about the friendship between Augustus and Agrippa involved the passing of Agrippa later in their lives. Augustus was devastated and mourned for weeks. Next to every great man is another great man.
Augustus Understood the Power of Culture
Augustus recognized how culture affects leadership. We have all heard from people how difficult it is to change. "Growth takes work" we say because change is not natural. Is this true?
When I was younger, I heard a popular song that went viral. In the lyrics of the song, the singer vents "I can't change." As a popular song, people play these lyrics over and over in their head. What is the result over two to three years of playing a song with the lyrics "I can't change" in it? As a man thinks, so he becomes (Proverbs 23:7). I won't argue whether changing is hard or not, but inculcating yourself with lyrics that poison your mind certainly doesn't help.
The same applies to all entertainment. TV, movies, podcasts, you name it. What's the overt message? What's the underlying message? How will these inputs affect who we become? I've noted that a person's entertainment tends to have a significant influence on who they become. This may seem only personal, but remember that a company's culture reflects the sum of the individuals that make up that company. How would you and other leaders describe your company culture?
Augustus understood this challenge for leadership and focused energy on the Roman culture. One big part of this involved pushing traditional values. While extremely unpopular to write in the culture I preside, traditional values build strong societies. You find values like discipline, responsibility, discernment, integrity, honesty, courage, and family in cultures on the rise. You don't tend to find these values anywhere in cultures that are disintegrating. How would a company that encourages honesty, integrity, discipline and responsibility perform over time versus one that did not?
Note this.
Augustus Exceptionally Managed Talent Around Him
Let's not skip the most important starting point here: without significantly increasing the standard of living for the average Roman, nothing I write here matters. Augustus would have failed in everything had he not first done this. None of this involved handouts or cronyism despite what you may read. Augustus knew that people wanted a higher standard of living. This is the basis of why we all do what we do: we work to get results.
If you think most leadership understands this, then you’re missing that understanding without applications is worthless. Leadership that understands this truth, applies this truth.
Almost missed in most biographies, Augustus reduced the size of the bureaucracy of Rome. The Roman Republic had unfortunately become a legislative body of complexity where nothing got done outside of favors. This is part of the reason Rome found itself in a civil war. Augustus addressed this early by reducing the size of the senate. Another missed point in numerous biographies is the increase in engineering accomplishments that starting during Augustus. A big part of this is that the culture of favors was replaced by a culture of results. People who get results should be rewarded.
Following Augustus’ victory, people unwilling to get results quickly were shown the door. Likewise, Augustus promoted his loyal friend Marcus Agrippa as one of the grand architects of Rome. Some may read this as cronyism while missing that Agrippa is one of the most underrated generals in history. Agrippa was extremely competent along with demonstrating that he could apply his competence in many areas - the battlefield and architecture.
To this day, we still see structures Agrippa was part of creating (ie: the Pantheon). Other leaders and soldiers in the military were also promoted, as Augustus had vetted these people during the civil war.
One missing point here is that Augustus relied on his information about people. You see people's actual behavior when you work with them. Let's think about Rome's civil war as an example - Augustus knew which soldiers and leaders got results at low costs. He also saw the soldiers and leaders who used difficulty to get more help rather than get better results. The person who gets exceptional results with little help is the person you promote. That person takes ownership of problems.
In the long run, people under Augustus' leadership who got exceptional results were rewarded. He understood incentives, like every great leader. But talent around Augustus had to first prove their ability along with showing that they could increase the standard of living for the average Roman.
Why Caesar Augustus Leads the Gold Standard of Leadership
While it sounds obvious, Augustus understood that you reward and promote competence. When I see companies struggle with losing talent or managing talent, the underlying reason every time involves promoting or rewarding incompetence. If a company cannot do this well, nothing else matters. Like bad money drives out good money, bad behavior drives out good behavior.
Augustus did the unthinkable. Rome’s civil war should have ended Rome. Yet Rome continued for another thousand years (if you include the Eastern Roman Empire; the Roman Kingdom started around 753 BC and the Eastern Roman Empire ended in 1453 AD). This happened because Augustus refused to engage in corruption; he held his loyalty to Julius Caesar. It would have taken less courage for him to also join in betraying Julius Caesar - that was the low risk move. But Augustus showed courage to stay loyal even if it meant that it could cost him his life.
Finally, Augustus understood the poison that led to Rome’s decline. He reversed this through culture. As someone who’s grown up in the United States during the collapse of the Soviet Union, this point always stands out in my mind because of how Soviet-like the United States has become. When I was a kid, all I heard from leaders about the Soviet system was “The Soviets are corrupt; they hire and promote off of favor.”
Ten years after the collapse of the Soviet Union happened, guess what you hear in the United States?
“It’s not about what you know or what you can do, but about who you know.”
“Your network is your net worth.”
Hello corruption! Humorously, these Americans can never figure out why their standard of living is declining, their life expectancies are plummeting, and their innovation is stagnating. That is precisely the result of corruption. Americans watched the Soviet Union dissolve from all its corruption and misapplied incentives, then decided to repeat the same foolishness!
Augustus understood that culture matters. Our culture must constantly demand and praise results. Likewise, our culture must constantly caution us against flattery. Feeling like a success when we’re not successful is delusion.
Applying Lessons From Augustus In Leadership
1. What does your behavior with colleagues communicate to other colleagues?
2. What regular inputs does your company encourage for your talent and what values do these inputs communicate?
3. How does your talent help you get more output with less input and how are you rewarding the talent that gets results without asking for more resources?
Related Story To the Third Point
Many business leaders would state that they would never promote someone who wastes resources (question 3 from the above questions). My career says otherwise. Throughout my career I have seen companies buy licenses to software that they seldom use or that they could replace with superior internal tools. I also noticed that talent who kept wanting companies to buy software licenses didn’t feel the pain of these purchases through their paycheck. The same with talent who could do their job without costs.
That’s perverse incentives. If companies limited or restricted tools for employees, employees would make better recommendations that they would use. Likewise, employees that wouldn’t use tools (or make recommendations) should be rewarded because they are saving companies money.
The most bizarre example that I can remember involved a software license from a tool that cost a company $500,000 per year on a 5 year contract. The employee who recommended the tool left two months after the company signed the agreement. No one after that employee left knew how to use it and found the tool difficult. When I asked an executive what led them to such a large purchase, he said they experienced a major outage and the employee recommended the tool. Yet the employee hadn’t been at the company for more than a year.
That story is more extreme as far as the cost and contract. Yet, I’ve seen similar stories on repeat throughout companies with tools that cost about half that much with similar contracts.
Recommended Reading
Augustus: First Emperor of Rome by Adrian Goldsworthy.
Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor by Anthony Everitt
Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine by Barry Strauss
Some of my knowledge about Augustus and the Roman culture comes from translating writers such as Livy, Cicero, and Pliny the Elder in Latin. Even later Roman writers such as Juvenal would rant about things had changed from earlier Roman times, often leaving hints as to how the Roman culture was during Augustus' time.
References
[1] The Poverty of Witch Hunts is available in the Executive Decisions version of the book The Little Book of Positive Returns In Negative Rates, which includes related articles to the book.
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