In the year 52 BC, the Roman army, led by Julius Caesar, secretly advanced their massive siege towers towards the Gallic walled city of Avaricum.
The sentries on the walls were hiding from heavy rain.
Caesar took advantage of the situation, and he took the walls without much fight.
The remaining Gallic soldiers grouped themselves in the middle of town. They were set on a desperate fight to the end.
But the Romans just stayed on the walls, watching the Gauls from above.
Gradually, panic took the defenders. They started running out the city for dear life.
They didn’t get far.
The Romans massacred them along with everyone else in the city, women and children included.
Out of 40,000 Gauls inside Avaricum, only 800 survived.
The leader of the Gauls, Vercingetorix, was stationed outside the city with his army. He had been tasked with fighting Caesar in the open and keeping the city of Avaricum safe.
Vercingetorix had failed spectacularly. The fact that he had vocally opposed the idea of making a stand at Avaricum didn’t help, either.
As the few remaining survivors from the city dragged themselves into Vercingetorix’s camp… there was a real chance that the soldiers’ sympathy with the survivors and general anger at Vercingetorix would cause a riot.
But let’s pause for a second with the massacring and rioting.
Take a moment. And ask yourself, what might you do if you were in Vercingetorix’s sandals?
It’s not just an idle hypothetical.
Say you have an online presence today and you hope to position yourself as a leader in your field. There’s a good chance that sooner or later… you will be involved in some kind of scandal, failure, or controversy, whether deserved or not.
When that happens, discontent might bubble up among those who normally follow and support you. It might even break into a riot that lands your metaphorical head on a metaphorical plate.
So what can you do? Let me tell you what Vercingetorix did:
He called a council of war. He spoke to his troops and asked his army to not be disheartened by the loss.
The Romans didn’t beat them through superior courage in a fair fight. Instead, the Romans did it through trickery and their knowledge of siege warfare.
But Vercingetorix would soon repair this setback. He would lead his people to greater successes.
He was well on the way to uniting all the Gaul tribes against the Romans. And when Gaul was united, the whole world could not stand against her. In the meantime, it was time to get to work fortifying the camps.
Maybe it’s not clear from this what Vercingetorix’s real message was. So here’s an explanation, in Caesar’s own words:
“This speech made a good impression on the Gauls. What pleased them most was that, despite a signal disaster, Vercingetorix had not lost heart or concealed himself or shrunk from facing the multitude. And so while a reverse weakens the authority of commanders in general, his prestige, on the contrary, in consequence of the disaster, waxed daily greater.”
So here’s my takeaway for you, if you are a leader or you hope to be one some day:
The crowd mind hasn’t changed any in the past two millennia.
Today as then, when you face a crisis or setback, the crowd will tear you apart — as soon as you back down, apologize, or show weakness or fear.
The good news is, it’s easy to show no weakness or fear when you have a computer screen to protect you. And when your angry army is armed not with sharp swords… but with dull Twitter accounts.
Keep this in mind, and when disaster hits, you will see it’s really an opportunity. Not just to survive. But to get the crowd to love you even more.
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