The Lions’ Pride: How CEOs Project Strength and Navigate Corporate Politics

The Lion is at the top of its food chain: The Pride is usually its great leverage. A leader who says it is lonely at the top is only suffering from a deficiency in people’s development.

The Lion has many interesting qualities that often inspire a sense of mystery about the creature. Throughout history and across cultures, the Lion has been regarded as a symbol of courage, power and strength. However, the lion is often described as the king of the jungle not because it is the strongest or the smartest animal in the jungle but because of its highly elevated disposition that enables it to adapt and thrive in the food chain of its natural habitat.

One of the strongest adaptive characteristics of the Lions is their ability to live and work in groups, called the Lions’ pride. The Lions’ pride characterizes system thinking, specialization and a strong sense of responsibility.

Whereas the male Lions defend the pride’s territory by marking the area with urine and roaring menacingly to ward off animals that may want to intrude, the females care for the cubs and integrate them into the system of the pride. The Lioness also tend to the pride’s food needs, hunting and preying on the other animals. However, the hunters sometimes leverage on teamwork or the strength of the pride to outmaneuver the other animals that are as tough or even stronger.

In many teachings of leadership, the Lion has been used as a compelling metaphor. For instance, in his classics, The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli instructed that the leader must be the Lion and the fox as situation demands. He said:

“The Lion is defenseless against traps and the fox against wolves. Therefore, the prince must be the fox to recognize a trap and the Lion to fend off the wolves”.

However, contrary to Machiavelli’s proposition, it can be said that when in the pride and perhaps given the support of the fox, the Lion cannot be defenseless against a trap.

The essence of the category-king business is much like that of the Lions’ pride. Most high performing leaders understand this fact, if not in its metaphorical sense then in its practical sense. These leaders recognizes the danger of being a lone artist in a highly convoluted business food chain. Hence, they are invariably unreserved about building a committed and high performing team that can enable them to go all out as a pride and project strength.

Business is warfare, often fraught with too many uncertainties. The hunting scheme is so stiff that the treasures of several years of labour can be lost in just a moment’s dealings with the wolves. But the leader who always has his lieutenants on guard rarely falls prey to the wolves.

I realized the powerful effect of applying the pride strategy in business during a meeting I accompanied my boss to attend. It was about a deal that I believed could have gone amiss had my boss not been intuitive and ingenious enough to take a handful of us with him. It was  a monumental away match.

Few minutes into the negotiation, it was obvious muse was not on our side. Our host was the more vociferous party, and they could not spare any jab they could launch at us. I could sense the coldness in boss man’s voice. It was an unusual moment he’s not in his element. But the pressure in the room was not impalpable to the rest of us either. Then I said to myself ”it’s an unlucky Thursday”.

Then as if jolted by some supernatural hands, one of us made a terrific counter attack. He said: ” My boss is a humble man. But I tell you we make millions daily without breaking a sweat”. There was something extraordinary about those words. The quick jab released a fresh dose of energy that flushed out the corrosive air of the room that had almost rendered us suffocated. Then a couple others including myself supported the fact with daunting evidences. The power dynamics immediately adjusted to our favour. And we left the room powerful and reassured. For us, that was the beginning of a new era.