Great wartime statesmen make poor peacetime leaders, so the saying goes. Winston Churchill was a great wartime statesman but much less successful as a peacetime leader. Churchill’s resolute insistence that Britain would not be defeated was highly effective in motivating soldiers and the civil population during the Second World War.

However, the same approach in the face of the rapid decline and collapse of the British Empire was futile. Churchill’s style suited one circumstance much better than the other; he was a great leader in times of turmoil.

Jonathan Ciano was the face of Uchumi Supermarket’s turnaround since his appointment as receiver manager in July 2006 by Kenya Commercial Bank and PTA Bank to help recover their Sh956.7 million debt.

Mr Ciano led the re-opening of Uchumi stores, they had been closed for two weeks, after the retailer’s near collapse under the weight of debts, which saw the chain suspended from trading at the Nairobi Securities Exchange. The recovery had the support of the government, which helped raise a Sh975 million rescue package.

Uchumi even cleared the loans and opened 12 new stores. The recovery earned Mr Ciano a fresh CEO’s contract in March 2010 and underlined his credentials as a turnaround artiste, having accomplished a similar feat at Kenya Power.

So why was the same Jonathan Ciano fired last week? The answer is simple. The peacetime CEO does not resemble the wartime one. In wartime, the company typically has a single bullet in the chamber and must, at all costs, hit the target. The company’s survival in wartime depends on strict adherence and alignment to its mission.

In peacetime leaders must maximise and broaden the current opportunity. As a result, peacetime leaders employ techniques to encourage broad-based creativity and contribution across a diverse set of possible objectives.

In wartime, a company is fending off imminent threats to its existence. Such threats can come from a wide range of sources including competition, dramatic macro-economic and market changes, supply chain challenges, and so on.

The great wartime CEO Andy Grove describes forces which can take a company from peacetime to wartime in his book Only the Paranoid Survive. Peacetime is a period when a successful company has an advantage over the competition in its core market, and its market is growing. In times of peace, the company can focus on expanding the market and reinforcing its strength.

Close to bankruptcy

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the company was weeks away from bankruptcy — a classic wartime scenario. He needed everyone to move with precision and follow his exact plan; there was no room for individual creativity outside of the core mission.

In stark contrast, Google’s management fostered peacetime innovation by enabling and even requiring every employee to spend 20 per cent of their time on their own new projects. A wartime CEO lets the war define company culture. A peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture.

A wartime CEO knows that sometimes he has got to take high risks. A peacetime CEO always has a contingency plan. Of course the big question is; can a CEO build the skill sets needed to lead in both peacetime and wartime? I believe that the answer is yes, but it’s hard. And I don’t know of any management books that teach you how to manage in wartime like Ciano did.