Business

This is a situational leadership analysis of the History Channel documentary: ‘Last Stand of the 300: The Legendary Battle of Thermopylae’ (Padrusch, Gornell, Beck, Koed, & Impollonia, 2007). It explores insights on how the strategic elements of the documentary relate to Paul Hersey’s and Ken Blanchard’s situational leadership models in war and business. Furthermore, it makes comparisons on how each major character of the documentary has reacted to specific situations and how current business leaders also react today under similar circumstances. This begins with a brief summary of the film. Next, it investigates how each character reacted and adapted to each situation in their capacity as leaders. Afterwards, it makes comparisons on certain selected situations in the documentary as these relate in similar business situations today. Finally, this ends with a conclusion on how situational leadership can be applied to business through an understanding of case studies that are based on historical events like war such as the Battle of Thermopylae.

Summary
The 91-minute History Channel documentary on the Battle of Thermopylae has ten parts of more than 9 minutes each. It is focused on two battles: (1) The Battle of Thermopylae which is a ground battle; and (2) The Battle of Artemesium Strait which is a naval battle. It has three major characters. King Leonidas is a Spartan king who led the Greek defense at the narrow pass of Thermopylae against the Persians. Themistocles is an Athenian politician who led the Greek navy against the Persians. Xerxes is the Persian emperor who led the invasion of Greece. The documentary also mentions of Cyrus, The Great and Darius I of the Persian Empire which extended from the Nile River in Egypt up to the Indus Valley, now modern day Pakistan. Cyrus is Xerxes’ great grandfather while Darius is Xerxes’ father. The documentary has employed several historians and book authors to provide expert insights and opinions on each important aspect of the historical event. Most of these insights however are derived from the written accounts of Herodotus, the Greek historian who lived in one of the cities of the Persian Empire. The Battle of Thermopylae can be divided into three major events to understand what led to it, how the Persian Empire attempted to subdue Greece, and finally, how the battles have been fought in land and at sea. First is the Greek revolt in the Persian city of Sardis, capital of Ionia—a satrap or province of the Persian Empire sometime in 500 B.C. which is now modern day Turkey. The Athenians have sent troops to Sardis and burned down the city killing many Persians in the process (Kar, 2007, p. 3). Second is the Battle of Marathon sometime in 491 B.C. The Persian Emperor Darius I sent 30,000 troops via the Aegean Sea to Athens in retaliation to the burning of the capital city of Ionia several years back. However, the 30,000 contingent has been routed by the combined forces of the Greek city states numbering some 8,000 excluding the Spartans. Third is the second attempt of the Persian Empire to invade Greece, this time under Darius’ son, Xerxes who brought along some 300,000 troops via land and supplied by sea in 480 B.C.

The Battle of Thermopylae is a strategic initiative of several Greek city states, mainly Athens and Sparta that were constantly at war with each other which are now faced with a big opponent, the Persian Empire. In 480 B.C. “Greece [then] was a collection of city states who fought each other more than they fought together” (Padrusch, Gornell, Beck, Koed, & Impollonia, 2007). After a Greek spy has discovered the Persians crossing Asia into Europe through pontoon bridges of some 700 ships fixed together with linen and papyrus cables at a narrow one mile strip of sea at Hellespont, several of the warring city states decided to unite and engage the huge Persian army of 300,000 with 7,000 heavy infantry of hoplites at a very narrow land bottleneck on the way to Athens—Thermopylae. Since the Persians are also likely to send troops via the sea, the Greek navy of some 200 warships also blocked the narrow Artemesium Strait to prevent some 1,200 Persian warships from dropping troops at the rear of the defending Greeks at Thermopylae. The Battle at Thermopylae and simultaneously the Battle of the Artemesium Strait raged for three days until the Greek contingent of 300 Spartans and 1,000 Thespians led by King Leonidas have been annihilated. The defeat was due to an opening in the Greek defense through an unknown mountain track that a traitor informed King Xerxes about and which 1,000 Phocian defenders abandoned. This compromised the Greek coalition of defenders at Thermopylae which would have remained unassailable if not for the treachery and the abandonment of the defensive post. Ultimately, Themistocles, commander of the Greek navy fell back from Artemesium Strait to the island of Salamis. Themistocles then ferried the Athenians to a much safer place while the remaining Greek coalition fell back to another defensive position at the Isthmus of Corinth. Eventually, King Xerxes successfully burned down the evacuated city of Athens. However, Themistocles’ took a strategic initiative and annihilated the Persian navy at Salamis thereby rendering the Persian supply chain weak (Hugos, 2003, p.7). This defeat prompted King Xerxes to leave the battlefield and delegate the conquering of the remaining Greek city states to one of his generals. Eventually, the unified Greek forces annihilated the remaining Persians in Greece and drove them back to Asia, finally destroying the pontoon bridges at Hellespont. Several years later, all Greek city states have been united by Philip, The Macedonian. His son Alexander, The Great conquered the Persian Empire and extended the Greek Empire up to the Indus Valley.

King Leonidas of Sparta
    One of two Spartan kings, King Leonidas has been approached by the Athenians for help in defending against the impending Persian invasion. This meant that if Leonidas sent majority of the Spartan troops, Sparta would have been weakened and later on Sparta’s enemies like Athens and other neighboring Greek city states would have taken advantage of the situation. Hence, Leonidas consulted with the Spartan elders as well the Oracle at Delphi. The elders decided that only 300 of the 9,000 Spartan forces should be sent when Leonidas insisted that it is to Sparta’s best interest that he helped in the defense against the Persians. With King Leonidas’ military reputation among the warring Greek city states, he has been chosen to lead some 7,000 soldiers; the combined forces of several Greek cities. Leonidas selected his 300 soldiers on the criteria that they all had living sons. These 300 became the frontline force of the +7,000 Greek coalition troops at Thermopylae. The defense of Thermopylae consisted of three areas: (1) The narrow bottleneck of the pass; (2) The secret mountain tracks leading down to Phocia and Thermopylae; and (3) The Artemesium Strait at sea. The narrow point of the pass has around 6,000 Greek soldiers including the 300 Spartans. The secret mountain track meanwhile has 1,000 Phocians while Artemesium Strait has 200 trireme warships with 170 oarsmen each and commanded by Themistocles. Essentially, Leonidas led the ground forces while Themistocles led the navy. Among the Greek ground troops, the Spartans are the best trained. Spartan soldiers start military training at 7 years of age and end this at 18 when they are immediately sent to war. Greek city state wars occur during the summer and these yearly wars have prepared much of the still fragmented Greek states into war. The Greeks have sophisticated armors, weapons and a time-tested battle formation in the Phalanx, a platoon of 8 x 4 soldiers. Aside from Thermopylae’s strategic terrain which rendered the Persian’s cavalry and numerical superiority ineffective, the Greek soldiers also had equipment that are more superior to the Persians. (1) The Greek Hoplon shield with an argive grip which is made from wood and reinforced with bronze is broader and stronger than the Persian wicker shield with ordinary hand grips. (2) The Greek Corinthian Helmet is made of bronze while the Persian heavy infantry, the Immortals, only had tiaras covering their heads. (3) The Greek body armor, the Lamellar is made from strips of linen, leather and thin bronze glued together while the Persian Immortals only had metal sheet armor as thin as playing cards. (4) The Greek dory or spear is longer than the Persian spear. Moreover, the dory has metal points from end-to-end, capable of delivering injury from both the iron spearhead and the butt plate. (5) The Greek sword, Xiphos, is a double-edged sword designed for close fights when the spears got broken while the Persian infantry swords are designed to be used in a combined infantry-cavalry attack.

King Leonidas appears to be the consultative type of leader who has to obey his elders. This is synonymous to a CEO who reports to a powerful board of directors that has not given him a freehand. This leadership behavior type is the S1 under the Situational Leadership Model where the Spartan elders are the default leaders and King Leonidas is just a follower with a big title. In S1, the elders had a say as to the what, how, when and where on the defense of Thermopylae (Schermerhorn, 2001, p. 2; Ninth House, Inc., 2005, p. 1). For whatever strategic reasons, the Spartan elders decided to sacrifice one of its kings with only 3% of Sparta’s military strength supporting a primary figure. Of course, even with King Leonidas’ military reputation, this move sent a mixed signal among the other Greek armies as to how the Spartans valued their king. Moreover, this also gives insight into Leonidas’ leadership quality or leadership style. Tactically, Leonidas knew how to use his men on the battlefield, replacing front liners during the course of the battle so they can be rested to fight another day. Leonidas successfully held his ground during the first two days since the situation did not change. However, on the third day, Xerxes exploited a tactical opportunity courtesy of information from a Greek traitor. Here, Leonidas’ leadership among the coalition is tested. The Phocians did not follow his orders and abandoned their post. Strategically, although Leonidas knew the terrain and his advantage in training and equipment, he failed to understand the dynamics of his coalition forces. He chose the Phocians to guard the secret mountain track where another road leads to their city. Leonidas could have divided his 300 Spartans into two groups to keep the Phocians in place and/or assigned some other groups in the mountain track together with some of his Spartans. This could have been like a portfolio of different soldiers to disperse his risk, yet Leonidas decided otherwise. With the bottleneck at Thermopylae, his 6,000 coalition forces would have been more than enough to keep the Persians at bay with just, say, 200 Spartans where the remaining 100 would have guarded the secret mountain track together with mixed forces of Thespians, Thebans, or Corinthians. With the Phocian’s abandonment of their defensive position, Leonidas knew that if he did not adapt to the situation, his remaining +6,000 coalition forces would be annihilated. Here, Leonidas adapted to the situation by withdrawing some 5,000 of the Greek troops so these can fight another day while choosing to remain with his 300 Spartans and some 1,000 Thespians in order to save the retreating 5,000. This is a strategic move rather than a tactical one since its effect is long term rather exploiting the heat of the moment to his advantage. Of course, this time Leonidas has none and so he got defeated and died at Thermopylae in heroic fashion that inspired the Greek to be united into one nation. In another light however, King Leonidas has been placed in the difficult position of running several mergers in a very short span of time. Thus, in a business-sense, he has no strong management control of the several small companies and each group of soldiers had different levels of maturity. For instance, the 300 Spartans could be categorized under M4 in the Situational Leadership Model which is the most mature level while the Phocians can be categorized under M1, the lowest level in the maturity scale (Blank, Weitzel, & Green, 1990, p. 583).

Themistocles
    An Athenian politician and soldier, Themistocles had a first hand view on how the Persians fought their war in the earlier Battle of Marathon. Themistocles realized the great importance of the navy in supplying the Persian ground forces and in the deployment of troops. Themistocles’ leadership style is the S2 behavior of the Situational Leadership Model because he tried to sell the idea of improving the Athenean navy which only had 100 warships during the Battle of Marathon (Schermerhorn, 2001, p. 2; Ninth House, Inc., 2005, p. 1). Rejected at first, Themistocles tried to find ways to get the approval of the Atheneans in the execution of his plan. Perhaps due to his merchant family background, Themistocles was able to convince and negotiate with the Atheneans through the clever use of a lie that would ultimately save Greece and make it one of the ancient superpowers. Moreover, he was also able to find the funding and get approval for his shipbuilding project. Hence, when the Persians under Xerxes finally came in 480 B.C., the Greek navy’s strength has been doubled to 200 triremes. Furthermore, Themistocles was credited with forming the strategy at Thermopylae and the Artemesium Strait. In battle, it has been clearly evident that he knew how to adapt to the circumstances and changing situations on the battlefield. For instance, realizing that the Greek navy was outnumbered 6 is to 1, Themistocles fought the battle according to his terms during the first day. He attacked the Persian fleet at late afternoon to shorten the time of battle in his favor. In ancient times, a nighttime naval battle was simply impossible to execute. Moreover, unlike the Greek ground forces that have an advantage in equipment, training and terrain, Themistocles’ ships have the same technology as the Persians have on their own triremes. Training-wise, the Persian fleet had more experience. This left the Greek fleet with only two factors in its favor—the terrain in the Artemesium Strait bottleneck and Themistocles’ skill in strategy. While the historians on the documentary admit that there were no clear written accounts on how the naval battle went, it has been clear that the Greek won the first and second days of the naval battle. When Leonidas fell on the third day, Themistocles immediately adapted to the situation and made the Athenean ships fall back to the Salamis islands. From there, he ferried most of the Atheneans to save them from the onslaught of the invading Persians. Hence, when the Persians finally arrived at Athens and burned the temples there, there were only few Atheneans who remained mainly because they choose to do so. Once, the Atheneans were safe, Themistocles used a double-spy to lure the Persian fleet into the Salamis islands for a naval ambush. Here, Themistocles annihilated the Persian fleet consequently eradicating Xerxes’ means of supply transport. Without a supply chain, Xerxes was forced on a strategic retreat and delegated the invasion of the Greek city states to one of his generals. Eventually, the Greeks defeated the Persian invasion and drove them back to Asia, destroying the Persian pontoon bridge at Hellespont.

    From a business perspective, Themistocles is a CEO who knows his way around the Greek terrain; the political landscape within Athens; Athenean Greek enemies and ultimately its allies; and the Greek coalition enemy, Persia. The terrain can easily represent the knowledge of the business operating environment. The political landscape could easily be the business’s stakeholders and/or shareholders as well as its human resources. Athen’s neighbors could stand for industry and market knowledge while Persia could represent a big multinational corporation that is about to dominate the industry. Themistocles knew his market and industry very well. He has managed to lead the Greek alliance without stealing the limelight away from King Leonidas, working silently and ultimately gaining victory for the future Greek nation. Themistocles also managed to raise the necessary financing as he sold his idea of a strong navy to the people of Athens and consequently sold his idea also to other Greek cities on the advantages of defending Greece as a coalition against the invading Persians. He chose the battlefields well, effectively nullifying the Persian advantages of numerical superiority and its fast cavalry. His timing on when, how and where to fight was also well-considered. Most significantly, he is lucky to have his own people in his navy and be directly in command of building the navy from the very start up to the actual battle. This gave him enough time to mature his organization. Finally, his knowledge of the enemy’s weakness—the supply chain, eventually saved Greece and rendered the Persian invasion unsustainable (Hugos, 2003, p.7).

King Xerxes
    King Xerxes has been trained at an early age as the Persian emperor. He gained skills in mathematics as well as the fighting arts. When his father Darius I failed in the Battle of Marathon, he personally took charge of the second Greek invasion when he became emperor. Since the Battle of Marathon was immediately met on the shore by 8,000 Greeks versus 30,000 Persians Xerxes adapted to the situation. Instead of an invasion via the sea again, he mounted a massive transport of troops via land through the pontoon bridges he built at Hellespont. He supplied these troops via sea. As an emperor, his leadership style can be categorized as S1 or telling like that of King Leonidas (Schermerhorn, 2001, p. 2; Ninth House, Inc., 2005, p. 1). Xerxes basically knew what to do from the Battle of Thermopylae and even up to the Persian fleet’s defeat by the Greeks at the Battle of Salamis. The Persian army can classified as M3 as a group under the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Maturity Model. This refers to a group being experienced enough and able to execute the tasks at hand but is still not confident enough to take on the responsibility and make the activity succeed (Blank, Weitzel, & Green, 1990, p. 583).

    From a business perspective, Xerxes is a CEO who lacked foresight. He didn’t know how to employ market research at an early stage. When he sent emissaries to the Greek city states including Athens and Sparta to ask for tributes of earth and water as a symbol of peaceful submission to the Persian Empire, he failed to instruct his men to gather information on the Greek terrain on where the Greeks will possibly defend from the Persian invasion. If he had known this beforehand, Xerxes would have been able to defeat King Leonidas on the first day of battle at Thermopylae. However, he seems to know how to use spies at the late stage of the war but was ultimately outmaneuvered by the Greeks in the knowledge of employing double-agents that greatly influenced the outcome in the Battle of Salamis in Greece’s favor. Xerxes also encountered great problems in knowing beforehand how the Greeks did battle. If he had the strategic knowledge on Greek weaponry and armor, Xerxes could have had improved his troops’ equipment. Perhaps it was due to its size as a big ‘multinational corporation’ that the Persians have been overconfident in their numbers although they have been defeated already in the Battle of Marathon.

Modern-Day Business Comparisons
    Starting with the Persian Empire, its most fitting modern-day business equivalent would be the multinational corporation. It is big. It has resources. It has the technical know-how in building marvels of engineering like the pontoon bridges at Hellespont. However, it is a multinational corporation that lacked market research or technological innovation. Xerxes knew how to use spies and yet he failed to gather enough information since the Persian Empire’s first defeat at the Battle of Marathon or even in their much earlier encounter with the Atheneans at Sardis in the Persian satrap of Ionia. This could have had swayed the Battle of Thermopylae in Persia’s favor very early into the war. Moreover, with good information on the Greek’s superior equipment and manner of fighting battles, the Persian Empire could have had developed new armors or even new weapons to counter the Greek’s advantage. The Persians had the engineering sophistication to build pontoon bridges across the sea and therefore they should also have had the technical know-how to build missile-based siege weapons that could have had thrown huge boulders into King Leonidas’ position. The Persians could have had also built better armor. In modern-day business, market research is a crucial aspect more important than the organization of huge troops, the financing of a big organization, or planning how to supply such big troop movement into strange territory. Moreover, modern-day businesses have an advantage in the use of strategic analytical frameworks like PESTLE and Porter’s Five Forces analysis. If the Persians had these tools of strategic analysis, the Greeks would have been easily defeated.

    From a Greek perspective, the city states can be likened to a cooperative of small businesses about to undergo a merger or consolidation with the initiation of the Atheneans. After the Battle of Marathon several years before the Battle of Thermopylae, the Atheneans could have had built alliances beforehand that would have had resulted into a more cohesive coalition. Yet of course, there was no opportunity for profit and so the necessity for cooperation and collaboration to fight the Persians had been postponed much later when the threat of invasion had been imminent. The Greeks also had the sophistication of market research in their effective use of spies and double agents. The routine wars among themselves also gave them much experience and education in battle and thus the Greeks were better skilled in this area compared with the Persians. This is similar to a modern-day business that is keenly aware of case studies of other businesses to derive insights on how to run its operations more efficiently and effectively. Another feature of Greek culture that has a relation to business is the need for justification of major endeavors like war. For instance, Themistocles had to seek consensus and approval in the building up of the Athenean navy. Likewise, King Leonidas had to justify his support of the Atheneans in the Greek coalition defense against the Persians. This is similar to the presentation of a major project for the evaluation and approval of the board, executive committee, or management committee. The Greek strategic initiatives are also worthy of comparison in how global businesses position themselves in emerging markets. The trend seems to be an analysis of the viability of the supply chain as they have learned the importance of this aspect from their battles with the Persians before embarking on a major war effort (Hugos, 2003, p.7). Another strategic initiative of the Greeks is on how they use terrain to their advantage. This is like the experience of Doritos chips in exploiting the prime-time snacking market when they learned about a vacuum in demand for this market (Superbrands Ltd., 2004) or ALDI stores’ effective use of a small selection of product offerings when management used information on market behavior to its advantage (ALDI, 2009, p. 1). Another Greek strategic initiative is on how they use technology to their advantage which is similar to how Ducati used its advantage on the unique design of its engine (Cavetti, 2002, p. 701-132). Another Greek strategic initiative is the effective use of long distance communications as exemplified by the naval battle at Artemesium Strait. Evaluating the limited facts provided by the documentary, it appears that Themistocles’ effective use of flag signals made his navy well-coordinated in its attack and defensive positions. Meanwhile, the Persian fleet appears to have fought based on the uncoordinated commands of each ship captain. The modern day equivalent of this is HSBC’s effective use of its IT infrastructure to gain an upper hand in global banking despite the financial meltdown caused by the global financial crisis or GFC. While the other major British global banks had to get capital infusions from the government, HSBC did not require such help (Schildbach, 2009, p. 5). HSBC’s bank branches worldwide are simply too well-coordinated to counter the negative impact of the GFC (HSBC Holdings plc., 2008, p. 8).