Isabella of Spain, The World's First Truly Global Leader

• In Event: Case Studies on Historic Leaders and Societal Transformation

Short Description

In Barcelona, in 1493, Columbus reported his discovery of America to his patron Isabella, making her the first truly global leader. What can modern (women) leaders learn from this queen, who effectively led across several borders (political, religious, geographic, and gender)? The presentation will end with tips on where to find Isabella in Barcelona.

Detailed Abstract

Isabella of Spain (1451-1504) — famous for sending Columbus to discover America in 1492 — is universally recognized for being extremely pious, for expelling the Jews from Spain, and for instituting the dreadful Spanish Inquisition. However, this single-minded queen also unified Spain and catapulted her country from a medieval backwater into a modern and global power. Isabella created a global empire that would last for four centuries, the first one and a half as a world power. She put the structural, financial, technological and leadership resources in place to make this happen. She was very competent at developing high potentials into effective leaders, able to develop and realize ambitious and inspiring visions, and a fan of innovative technology—just to mention a few of her impressive leadership attributes.
There have been leaders across continental borders before her (Alexander, Caesar, Dzjengis Khan), but she was the first whose leadership crossed an ocean. There were earlier boundaries she crossed in her leadership: gender (the first female monarch in her own right), political (merger her kingdom with Aragon), structural (shared leadership with Ferdinand), geographical (unifying Spain), cultural (expelling Jews and Muslims), linguistic (establishing one Spanish language), social (succession planning based on meritocracy rather than aristocracy).
It is difficult to find flaws in Isabella had no real flaws in her competencies. Everything that was under her control operated smoothly, and she ultimately overcame any resistance she encountered. In the end, however, that became an overused strength. Since Isabella never really experienced defeat, she never learned how to deal with it. At the same time the struggle to get on the throne plus the bias against a female ruler may have left her fundamentally insecure. Isabella never came up with an alternative way of realizing the vision of unification other than through an heir to the throne; she faced failure with the death of each subsequent succession candidate. Put differently, it was impossible for this “superwoman” to envision any way of doing something other than her own way of central rule. If her grandson Charles V had not taken up the legacy several years after Isabella’s death, the grand plan would have fallen into shambles.
Realizing a vision means implementing change. Isabella proved to be an effective change manager, willing to push boundaries to create a new organization with a strong culture. Creating the new culture before creating the new structure was a smart approach. Yet she stopped short of applying change to her own concept of leadership, when that was asked for.
Isabella’s ability to give and receive feedback was a strong asset in pushing through the change needed to realize her visions. Yet putting too much value on opinionated people made her sometimes follow extreme rather than nuanced advice, which would lead her into installing the Inquisition and expelling large groups of the population out of religious intolerance. Her communication, another strong competency meets a similar assessment: effective and innovative in supporting both sensible and extremist ideas. Isabella realized the results she wanted by setting challenging objectives and by favoring the what over the how. Yet that approach also had a dark side: She ruthlessly isolated her cousin and rival to the throne, Juana, as well as broke treaties once they were no longer to her advantage.
Whatever she was feeling, she did take control of things and set clear boundaries in both her professional life, as can be seen in her power-sharing contracts with Ferdinand, and in the education of her children. She could not, however, control her children’s life expectancy, and her inability to prevent the premature deaths of her children and grandchildren may have been too much for her. This need for control, this need to be “superwoman,” is not uncommon with career women. Rather than controlling everything it would have been helpful to plan for more than one contingency and find ways to delegate responsibilities
For inspiration to modern leaders, three competencies come to the fore as Isabella’s core strengths. First, she demonstrated that women leaders could be visionaries, just like men. What’s more, she did so by developing and realizing two equally ambitious and inspiring visions.
Second, she went about selecting and developing talent in a systematic way. Isabella’s experience proves the point that a vision is only as good as the talent required for its realization. She went for quality rather than upbringing in a society where opportunities and rewards were customarily based on social status, not merit. She led by example when it came to self-development. Working effectively in a team with Ferdinand, she demonstrated the power of extending relationships beyond the professional and into the personal.
Third, Isabella as an authentic leader effectively leveraged her differences as a woman by exploiting several positive female archetypes, and she successfully fought against the bias of being considered second best. At the same time, she was very aware of what her combined public roles of queen, wife, and mother required, and so her reputation did not suffer. Isabella had a remarkable impact on her contemporaries.
The presentation will be concluded with a few tips on where to find Isabella in Barcelona.

Participant

• Paul Vanderbroeck, Glion Institute of Higher Education