Gaius Octavius was born in 63 B.C.. Nephew to acting dictator of Rome, Julius Caesar, Gaius was (unbeknownst to anyone until after Caesar’s death) named Caesar’s adopted son and heir. Only eighteen years old at the time, he was instantly a wealthy man, and had the additional clout of his adopted father’s name. In ancient Rome, however, this was not enough. The country was not yet run as a dynastic empire, and birth was no guarantee of ascent to power. Competing factions in the senate and former advisors and consuls to Rome jockeyed for position. Nobody gave the young teenager much credit, and few would have predicted his determined rise to power. Eventually, Gaius Octavious, later known as Cae
sar Augustus (for which the month of August is named), became Rome’s first and longest ruling emporer. His efforts effectively killed the last remnants of Republican Rome and ushered in the approximately five-hundred year Age of Empire. The story of his patient, brilliant, and ruthless rise to his position as the most powerful man in the world is gripping and as racey as a soap opera. Leadership lessons abound in his long and storied career.
One prominant feature of Augustus’s life is his incredible ability to hold the long-term view of things. While others sought short term fixes, Octavius was patient enough to manuever for long-term solutions. Opposed by powerful and ruthless men (and treacherous women working behind the scenes), Augustus was able to take one step at a time, carefully and deliberately, until he was literally the last man standing in the quest for power.
Perhaps the biggest thing a leader can learn from the life of one of the world’s most successful leaders is Augustus’s ability to compound the effects of his actions over a long period of time. Augustus had the rare ability to pile one forward move on top of another, and spent very little time doing what most average men do in wasting their lives re-doing the same things over and over again. Augustus rarely squandered a resource or opportunity, and used every advance as a stepping off point for another one. Most people do not operate this way. Power-thirst and ruthlessness aside, Augustus is a great example for efficient use of our time and resources as leader.
Our money, our time, our relationships, our connections, our reputation, our name, our education, and our abilities are all assets that can help us advance througout our lives. Sadly, however, many waste and squander much of this “capital” along the way. We blow our money, sabatoge our relationships, deconstruct our credibility, tarnish our name, refuse to continue or utilize our educations, and fail to manage and cultivate our connections. In so doing we find ourselve having to cover the same ground again and again. We have to earn money to replace that which we spent so unwisely. We seek new relationships because we haven’t been able to sustain or grow the old ones. We make new connections because people have stopped trusting us. We are forced to learn the same lessons over and over again. This is like an army that charges up a hill and successfully pushes the enemy off, only to endure a self-inflicted retreat back down to charge that same hill once again! As
Orrin Woodward says, “Some people who have been doing something for thirty years with little to show for it cannot claim they have thirty years experience. They have one year’s experience thirty times!”
The best leaders leverage all that they have to get everything they want. This requires a long term view, a respect for the assets in their possession, and an ability not to sabatoge their own progress. Life is too short to learn the same lessons over and over again, or to re-do what has previously been done. Consistency is also key. Effort upon effort, consistently applied over time, produces tremendous compound results. Conversely, inconsistency is one of life’s supreme inefficiencies.
In the end, success is largely a matter of hanging on after others have been shaken off. It is also the accumulation of consistent effort over time. The best leaders build an edifice out of their lives, taking steps each day to add to previous accomplishments. The rest struggle in futile repeats. We only get one life. The choice is ours.
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