Living Dangerously - Issue 35

"Did you see the movie 'Elizabeth'?" this man continued. "As a young girl, Elizabeth I fell out of favor with her father, Henry XIII, after he had her mother, Anne Boleyn, beheaded. But do you remember the moment when she accepted the role that would enable her to do great things? At her coronation, she took on the aspect of a nun. She whitened her face, pulled her hair back, and declared that she would never marry, because she was already wedded to England. She created what was probably the greatest peacetime empire that the world has ever seen.

"Clinton was like Elizabeth. He was threatened by an overbearing father. He took a leadership position when he was relatively young, at a time when the world was on the threshold of great prosperity. He could have done what Elizabeth did -- create a great new world. Instead, he got tangled up in controversy. Even now, we could create a great new world -- if we knew not only how to manage prosperity but also how to lead it. I admire Churchill. But Elizabeth is the leader I'm studying now."

Why would a man who was rich even after a major personal downfall identify with a leader like Elizabeth? Because, for one thing, examples of people who lead in good times and make things better are rare. Elizabeth wasn't content with 8 years of good times; she led England to 45 years of prosperity. And today, we think that achieving a few quarters of economic growth qualifies us for genius.

Another reason why Elizabeth offers such an attractive role model for this man is that, from her youth onward, she cared about what lasted. Alison Weir, author of The Life of Elizabeth I, the book on which the movie Elizabeth was based, writes, "Elizabeth had given her country peace and stable government -- her greatest gift to her people. . . . England had risen from an impoverished nation to become one of the greatest powers in Europe." She brought unity to her people and made herself "an enduring focus for their loyalty." Few leaders have "been so loved." People grew "more confident in the belief that they were a chosen nation,... and this confidence gave rise ... to the flowering of the English Renaissance."

This is not to say that Elizabeth didn't also have a big appetite -- for clothes, for pageants, for the perquisites of a large court. She was vain; she loved privilege. When she died, she was 400,000 pounds in debt. But her appetite extended to serious matters as well. Like many educated women of her day, Elizabeth was encouraged to become more than the equal of men in learning. As a woman, she could not take her position for granted. She was encouraged "to outdo 'the vaunted paragons of Greece and Rome.' " Her teachers expected her not just to study Plato, Socrates, and the Caesars, but also to surpass them in how she led her life. She took as her role models leaders who had built dynasties of knowledge and prosperity.

Elizabeth reduced herself to the essence of leadership. By proclaiming herself "married to England," she made her dedication to her work clear. Similarly, this man has trimmed down his life to include only what his gut has told him to do. Today, he focuses on two basic human aspirations: knowledge and health. Those goals drive both his investments and his personal agenda, and he vigilantly keeps at bay all opportunities that don't foster those goals.

Elizabeth constructed an image of herself as a legacy builder. When she was a young woman, Elizabeth was locked up in the tower of a palace that was controlled by her half-sister, Mary. Every day, Elizabeth wondered whether she would be summoned to execution at the gallows where her mother had been beheaded. Finally, after three months of imprisonment, she was released. Elizabeth often said -- and no doubt genuinely believed -- that she had been spared to do great things.

Like the tycoon, Elizabeth believed that knowledge is a superior kind of wealth. She invested a lot of time and effort in her own learning, and English culture reached a peak during her reign because she promoted it. (She brought poets into her court, and she was a noted patron of the theater.) She insisted that her courtiers and advisers invest in art and scholarship as well.

And then there is the loyalty card. Loyalty is out of fashion today, but Elizabeth insisted on it. Weir recounts the story of one of Elizabeth's managers, a man who had applied for a powerful job at court, only to be turned down. Soon afterward, Elizabeth found him sitting in a garden, staring listlessly into space. "What do you think about when you think of nothing?" she asked. "Of a woman's promise," he said. Her reply: "Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor." Then she turned away.

Elizabeth simplified everything and kept her eye on the biggest goals. England grew into an empire to beat all empires. The ideas and the culture of her time are with us still.