Winston Churchill once said, “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” There’s no doubt that Churchill left an indelible mark on history. While we think of Churchill for his wartime leadership, his experience holds many lessons related to personal branding for lawyers as well.
Churchill was on the outside looking in when it came to the political power structure in Great Britain in the 1930s. Mired in intra-party squabbles with former political allies, Churchill was left out when a new government was formed in 1931. By mid-decade, as he was entering his 60s, Churchill was widely perceived to be all washed up, exiled to the political wilderness. Churchill biographer Robert Rhodes James, writes: “By the end of 1933 Churchill was widely regarded as a failed politician, in whom no real trust could be reasonably placed; by June 1935, these opinions had been fortified further.”
But as we now know, Churchill was not done; far from it, in fact. By 1939 he was appointed to a cabinet position within the government, and in 1940 he became prime minister. It was an amazing turnaround from political outsider to the heights of power.
So how did Churchill engineer this amazing feat?