Marcus Aurelius is known as one of the great emperors of the Roman Empire. His Meditations is arguably one of the most influential books ever written. It is jam packed with wisdom and insight!
Despite having such profound wisdom, Marcus Aurelius has a major blemish on his legacy: SUCCESSION.
He tapped his son Commodus to follow him as the next emperor. Yes - the same Commodus that is caricatured in the movie Gladiator1 as an immature, unstable and nefarious emperor. The scary thing is that historians validate that he was a terrible ruler. In fact, his poor leadership is known as the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire.2
So what can we learn from the fact that the philosopher emperor (Marcus Aurelius) whose insights have lived on for 2,000+ years made such a fatal leadership mistake. I take away two lessons - one professional and one personal:
Lesson One: If you fail to succession plan, your strategy will fail
Michael Porter, a legendary business professor, defines strategy as “deliberately choosing a set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value (vs. rivals).”3 This implies a multi-year view (3-10 year) and not just a temporary set of operational activities.
Given that strategy is multi-year and the tenure of a leader may not last the entire duration of a strategy, identifying and developing the right successors is a critical enabler of strategy.
Despite this logical conclusion, even some of the most iconic leaders (e.g., Marcus Aurelius) fail at succession and it becomes a blemish on their legacy. The consequences of getting succession wrong are massive. As in the case of Commodus, it often leads to stagnation or worse a fall from greatness.
The challenges is that succession planning often takes a back seat to day-to-day execution, because it is one of those important, but not urgent focus areas. In fact, underinvesting in succession is a challenge for leaders at all levels of organizations - from the line supervisor to the C-suite.
I would argue that the best leaders are the ones who get succession right and have at least 3 potential successors on their bench (2 strong potential options to succeed them on their team and 1 external option who they have been courting).
Lesson Two: There is no substitute for quality time with those we love
Marcus Aurelius ensured that his son Commodus had the best training and education available in Rome. He had the top Latin and rhetoric teachers in the empire and was even trained at the college of priests. Despite making all these investments in Commodus, he turned out to be “dishonorable, cruel and lewd.”
One contributing factor to this is that historians surmise that Marcus Aurelius was often so busy with ruling and his own thinking and writing that he spent very little actual time with Commodus. And the time that Marcus did spend was more about instruction and lecture.
Of course, quality time with our children and others we love won’t guarantee that they turn out to be just and fair emperors or even upstanding citizens for that matter- biology and personality have a lot to do with this as well.
That said, Marcus may have fallen victim to a trap that many of us can struggle to avoid - prioritizing work or other pursuits that we deem to be noble or important over quality time with those we love.
While most references to Marcus Aurelius will tell you to learn from his wisdom, two of the most important lessons come from his failure.
Some questions I reflected on this week:
On the teams I lead, how confident am I that I have at least one “successor” who could do what I do within 1-2 years?
What specific actions can I take over the next six months to accelerate the readiness of these successors (e.g., new experiences, teaching specific skills, sharing specific frameworks)?
Over the next week, what will I do to ensure I prioritize quality time with those I love the most, particularly my daughter and my son?
I haven’t watched this movie in a long time and I am not sure how it has aged, but when it came out, it was definitely one of my favorite films of all time!
Of course, this is a highly complex issue and no one leader can be directly the cause of such a downfall in history; however, his poor leadership certainly accelerated economic and social upheaval that ultimately led to destabilization.
Here’s Porter’s seminal article on “What is Strategy?”