We’ve already talked about the elections, but it isn’t just the UK that’s been battling through election campaigns.
A snap election called by French President Emmanuel Macron led to a contested first round of voting, in which the far-right party National Rally won the largest share of the vote. In an unexpected twist, voters rallied to keep them out in the second round, but no party achieved a majority, and the country now faces an uncertain future.
What’s notable about both the French and UK general elections is how they’ve seemingly come out of nowhere. In both cases, they represented a calculated bet with serious risks that may now have come to pass. So how is it that we reached a point where leaders are gambling on decisions that could affect entire countries—and what does this tell us about the nature of risk-taking in leadership?
Election season
We’re all aware of the circumstances around the UK General Election, and the end result. But it bears more than a few similarities to a less-heralded election in France. Current president Emmanuel Macron called the parliamentary election out of the blue, and earlier than he needed to, citing the need to respond to a strong showing in the European elections by the far-right National Rally.
Like Rishi Sunak, Macron has suffered from low approval ratings, and was not going into the election on a high. But he seems to have felt that delaying the election would only strengthen the opposition. He wanted to use the success of the National Rally to rally people against them. If they managed to get into power, they would do so as a minority government, and be limited in terms of what they could achieve—potentially denting their popularity.
The perception here was similar. Many people expected Sunak to call the election later, predicting a better economic outlook in the autumn. But on many other issues, the party leadership clearly felt things were likely to get worse. The growing frustration could have led to a landslide that the party hoped it would arrest through a month of campaigning. In both cases, this approach seems to have failed.
Risks without rewards
Without going into the election results too much, there are a few things we can draw from this. One is the aspect of foreseen and unforeseen consequences. It’s possible that the risk of calling a general election may have been more successful if not for a string of negative news stories, most prominently the optics of a gambling scandal and leaving D-Day commemorations early. The gambling controversy was an unseen issue, but D-Day was entirely controllable. Had the election been consciously planned for a time without major commitments—forcing the PM to rush back—that story would not have happened.
Another is the stakes. Risks taken on an individual level can be harmful, but usually only to the person that takes them. Taking a risk on a general election has the potential to cause harm for millions of people, at least as far as a leader would see it. This is important as well: not to see a risk in terms of you or the organisation, but in terms of the people lower down the chain, who would suffer most if things go wrong. Just as losing MPs has led to an immediate leadership change for the Tories, layoffs can impact morale and people’s investment in your message.
A third is perhaps the instinct to respond to outside pressure. In both cases, elections appear to have been called because of political headwinds building against the ruling party, and an attempt to stem that damage. There is an argument that, if they’d had the courage of their convictions and stayed the course, they might have been able to make changes that would have turned the party around, and given the opposition more room to make mistakes.
Taking smarter risks
This is not to play down the necessity of taking risks. On the contrary, there’s plenty of evidence for the benefits. We can see this in a very literal sense with the stunts by Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, who risked looking foolish in a bid to increase his airtime, and draw more attention to his policies. It’s a strategy that Boris Johnson also used to full effect, from getting stuck on a zipline to being mocked on Have I Got News for You. Taking risks with how you present and advertise yourself can be humanising, and forge emotional connections that inspire people.
Taking a risk may pan out badly, but it can also be worse than doing nothing. We can see this in how parties across the political spectrum have taken some voters for granted. Just as Labour lost many of its ‘red wall’ seats at the previous election, the Conservatives have lost swathes of ‘blue wall’ seats in this one, while Labour themselves have lost seats to Greens and independents. Trying to appeal to a narrow and broader spectrum of voters respectively have lost some established ones, while an unseen threat—the emergence of Reform—undercut the Conservative strategy.
There’s a comparison to be drawn here with companies investing in technologies such as AI. Many have decided that the cost-savings from implementing AI are worth more than any negative blowback. But anti-AI sentiments are increasing, and the use of AI in the creative industries has alienated previously loyal customers. The risk from a corporate perspective would be to be cautious about AI, given how widely it is being adopted; but doing so might exchange a loyal audience for a fickle one.
Dangerous or not, any risk has to be calculated. You may find that taking risks becomes more intuitive as you grow and learn as a leader, but there’s no excuse for not planning and preparing. Taking a risk is gambling, and you should only make bets you think you are going to win; and never bet more than you can afford to lose. Strategic risk-taking means using all of the information available to you to achieve a positive outcome—and being around to take more risks if it doesn’t pay off.
The stakes may be different in politics, but many of the leadership lessons are the same. There are an enormous number of factors that go into taking risks as a leader, and doing so requires careful consideration and planning. Knowing when to take risks as a leader means considering the short, medium and long-term ramifications, and looking outside of your bubble to inform your decisions—balancing economic realities with what your customers, clients, and employees are saying.
