Saddam Hussein vs. Richard Branson: Leadership Styles Compared

Introduction

Comparing two very different leaders makes it possible to discern the key qualities and actions that make someone either an effective or an ineffective leader. The paths that Saddam Hussein and Richard Branson took to elevate themselves to positions of high authority will be examined here, with attention to the methods each used, and the advantages and disadvantages those methods provided. A head-to-head comparison of their leadership styles, ethical frameworks, and leadership theory classifications follows.

Saddam Hussein: Rise, Rule, and Ruin

Born in Tikrit, Iraq in 1937, Saddam Hussein endured a humble existence and a difficult childhood. Nevertheless, the secularist Hussein was a political animal who rose through the ranks of the Ba'ath Party, learning his leadership methods by studying Josef Stalin (Hickman, 2003). In 1968, a bloodless coup by the Ba'ath Party resulted in the presidency of Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and Hussein was appointed to the high government position of Deputy. As Deputy, Hussein proved advanced, successful, and ruthless — modernizing Iraq's infrastructure, economy, oil industry, education, and healthcare systems, while simultaneously establishing a cruel security apparatus that regularly used torture, rape, and murder to protect the government against coups and to eliminate political rivals (MacFarquhar, 2006). The citizenry of Iraq justifiably feared Hussein's brutal methods, dubbing him "The Butcher of Baghdad" (Siemaszko, 2015).

In 1979, Hussein forced al-Bakr's resignation and became President of Iraq. Under his presidency, Iraq invaded the oil-rich region of Khuzestan, Iran in 1980, setting off an eight-year war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Fearing Islamic radicalism, Western countries backed Hussein, turning a blind eye to his internationally illegal invasion of Iran, his development of chemical and nuclear weapons, and his near-genocide of Iraqi Kurds. A ceasefire was reached in 1988, but the war had severely damaged Iraq's economy. In 1990, Hussein invaded the oil-rich country of Kuwait and ignored a 1991 withdrawal deadline imposed by the UN Security Council. In response, UN forces led by the United States attacked Iraq and temporarily subdued Hussein's government. In 2002, after the United States declared that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction, it launched a new war against Iraq, toppling Hussein's government and sending him into hiding. Hussein was captured in 2003, tried in 2004 for crimes against humanity, found guilty, and hanged on December 30, 2006.

Saddam Hussein was an odd dichotomy. He deftly rose through the political ranks to a position of supreme authority and radically modernized Iraq in several key areas. However, he was ultimately a deeply flawed leader in at least four respects, discussed here in no particular order of importance.

First, he cavalierly and widely executed Iraqi citizens — sometimes for offenses no more serious than publicly joking about him or criticizing him — and constricted Iraq into a deadly police state that habitually imprisoned, tortured, and lethally gassed its own citizens (MacFarquhar, 2006). Second, Hussein possessed a delusional, egotistical belief that he was ordained by God to rule and "save" Iraq, resulting in the mandatory placement of his statue at the entrance to every Iraqi village and his portrait in every government office and home. Even while in captivity from 2003 to 2006, he still regarded himself as Iraq's rightful president (MacFarquhar, 2006). Third, nepotism rose to an art form during his presidency. He filled the highest ranks of government with his own relatives, leading to incompetent leadership and bloody family feuds that crippled rather than strengthened Iraqi governance (MacFarquhar, 2006). Fourth, he subjected his nation to wars that drained Iraq's resources. His decisions to invade neighboring Iran and Kuwait resulted in severe economic sanctions from the West and a citizenry decimated by years of conflict (MacFarquhar, 2006). Rather than building up and securing his country's economy, Hussein's aggression caused Iraq to suffer terribly, negating much of the progress he had made through modernization. In the final analysis, Hussein was a terrible leader whose execution of his own citizens, delusional egoism, nepotism, and costly foreign aggression nearly destroyed his own nation.