Ogres of Trifles - Leadership Lessons from Melville's 'Billy Budd'

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any technical questions about the software engine the simulation is based on, our State Manager, Craig Leggo, will be only too happy to answer them.  Please welcome him to the stage”.  Mark knew exactly what he had just done. 

He knew I had arrived from interstate the previous morning for my first day at a new job.  He knew I wasn’t familiar with the project, let alone able to answer technical questions for an audience of 400 at a technology convention.  He also knew I would lose credibility and the confidence of my team and clients by appearing inept.  I can’t recall much of the ensuing session.  Blinding lights, heat, silence, staring eyes and a familiar but disembodied and stuttering voice echoing through the hall.

Like Melville’s Billy Budd, I was inexperienced, naïve and unaware of the potential for envy, bitterness and paranoia my presence might invoke.  

My driving motivation was simply to be liked, accepted and to do a good job. 

Billy’s inability to communicate led him to commit a crime that was entirely avoidable.  Under duress, he found himself without words, locked inside. As a result and in immense frustration, he resorted to violence and was punished with death.  Claggart was responsible for the Machiavellian and calculated attack on Billy, however it was Billy’s reaction that sealed his fate.

The history of mankind is in many ways, a story of good and evil. 

We have proven, if nothing else, that we are capable of the most noble of intentions and actions, but also of the deepest and darkest malevolence.  The lesson that Billy Budd serves to highlight for me is that when faced with such evil, we have a choice. 

​For my part, I need not have chosen to take the stage or, having taken the microphone, could have referred questions to the side or to the session break.  Instead I bought into the ‘evil’, panicked and paid the price.  Billy Budd too, had alternatives open to him.  Yet, his choice to subvert his truth for lies, took a disproportionate and untimely toll.  ​