Notorious Leadership: What History’s Most Infamous Figures Teach Us About Power, Focus, and Influence

In this episode of the B2B Brand180 Podcast, Linda speaks with Steve Williams, leadership consultant and author of Notorious: Leadership Lessons from History’s Most Notorious Leaders. Steve shares a fresh perspective on leadership, breaking down what modern executives can learn from some of history’s most unconventional figures.

The conversation focuses on practical leadership traits like trust, loyalty, and consistency, along with how to challenge the status quo without creating chaos. Steve shares real-world applications, common leadership mistakes, and actionable insights leaders can use to build stronger teams and make better decisions.

01:43 Origin of Notorious and Why Steve Studied “Bad” Leaders
05:01 Leadership Traits That Transcend Time
06:33 Charisma, Presence, and Leading From the Front
08:04 Fierce Loyalty and Leadership Lessons from Al Capone
10:11 Disrupting Effectively Without Creating Chaos
13:08 Biggest Lesson to Improve Leadership Skills from Notorious
14:04 Rapid-Fire Leadership Questions
15:10 Where to Learn More About Steve Williams and His Book

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracqms/

https://stevewilliamsauthor.com/

Linda's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindafanaras/

Millennium Agency: Brand Strategy | Marketing | Web Design: https://mill.agency

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@mill.agency/

Linda's Books:
Claim Your White Space
https://www.amazon.com/CLAIM-YOUR-WHITE-SPACE-CRITICAL-ebook/dp/B0CLK8VLYV
Passion + Profits: Fueling Business And Brand Success
https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Profits-Fueling-Business-Success-ebook/dp/B0CLLDDSNX/

Transcript

Linda: 

Welcome to the B2B Brand 180 Podcast, giving you 15 to 20 minutes of dynamic insights and practical strategies to make a 180-degree shift in your branding, leadership, and growth. Hi, I'm Linda Fanaras, CEO of Millennium Agency, and your host today. I'm excited to bring in Steve Williams to the show. He's an accomplished leadership consultant, speaker, storyteller, and author of the sixth book, Notorious: Leadership Lessons from History's Most Notorious Leaders. So Steve, thanks so much for coming in today. I'm looking forward to learning some leadership skills from this great book that you put together. 

Steve: 

I appreciate that. Yeah, I'm looking forward to talking. I appreciate the opportunity. 

Linda: 

Yeah, it'll be great. So I'll give a quick introduction and then we can get started. So Steve brings 35 years of global leadership experience across manufacturing and business. He's taught at the master's level, and he's known for really translating those really complicated leadership ideas into just practical, memorable lessons for employees. In Notorious, Steve does something bold. He dives into history and examines the most infamous figures, Al Capone, Genghis Khan, Atila the Hun, and even the Hell's Angels, not to justify their actions, but to analyze and really understand their leadership effectiveness. What he discovered that challenged kind of conventional thinking is that many of these figures were extraordinarily effective leaders because they deeply understood human behavior, loyalty, power, and execution, good or bad, lessons that still apply today. Steve, I don't know if I missed anything on your background, but I'd love for you to share anything additional that I may have missed. 

Steve: 

Yeah, I spent 37 years in manufacturing leadership positions and I’ve kind of been a lifelong student of leadership. And I picked up a book one day in the Milwaukee Airport on leadership secrets from Atilla the Hun, and I read it on the trip, and that was 20 years ago. And I just thought, "This is really interesting." Then I kind of just tucked it away. And then when I was looking for an idea for a new book, I thought, well, geez, if there's one guy out there that we can learn things and apply to today's situation in leadership or management, then there's got to be other people out there. So that's kind of what was the genesis of the book and where the idea came from. 

Linda: 

Yeah, that's great. The audience will have three key takeaways before they leave today. Number one, why some of history's most notorious figures were actually brilliant leaders and what modern executives can learn from them. So we're going to tackle that. The timeless leadership traits that transcend morality, industry and error from ancient warlords to modern CEOs and how today's leaders can apply these lessons ethically to build focus, loyalty, execution in their organization. So even though the world has changed a lot, maybe the leadership strategies and skills haven't changed so much, Steve. So love to jump into that first question. So what initially sparked the idea for this Leadership Lessons for all these unconventional figures that you decided to pick and choose to put into your book? 

Steve: 

Everybody writes about the good leaders, right? John Maxwell's and the Jack Welsh’s and all the people that have a bit of a positive role model associated with them. And I wanted to take the opposite approach and look at, okay, can I get my audience to separate the bad things these people did from what lessons they can learn? Because even though they were some of history's most brutal and violent in some cases leaders, they had to be pretty successful to be able to pull that off for so long. And there must be good lessons that we can learn and pull from that and apply to today's management and today's business. And I wanted to cover a large span like 2,500 years, starting with Sun Tzu and ending with Steve Jobs. I take two lessons from each leader, a unique set of lessons that were ... So we didn't duplicate that in the book and examples of where they applied those lessons and also where I applied those lessons in my 40 plus year career and either did well with them or I failed. 

And my hope was that kind of a cheat sheet for people that are in leadership to avoid my mistakes and kind of capitalize on the things I did well, as well as what these leaders can teach us. 

Linda: 

Right. That makes sense because I mean, you have to reconcile, I guess, these notorious actions with positive leadership and what works and what doesn't work. And when you really look back, if you take a look 30 years ago, I mean, leadership skills were a lot different than they are today. And every generation, it just continues to change. When you look at your book, like you said, it spans centuries from Genghis Khan to Steve Jobs, big differences in context. What do you think the most important leadership characteristic is that they all shared that you can bring to the audience? 

Steve: 

A couple of things that really stood out. One, there was a common theme that I found on every single one of these leaders is even though they were known as brutal bad guys and girls, they first tried to resolve things peacefully and they only resorted to violence when peace didn't work. So I found that really interesting because you don't think of people like Attila the Hun wanting to negotiate a peaceful settlement, right? You think about him going in and being brutal and conquering. 

The other thing that ties all together that absolutely applies to any situation today is, the biggest takeaway is modern leaders need to walk the walk. They need to do what they say and they need to inspire the people that they're trying to lead. Because one thing that I've learned in my career and through studying these 10 notorious leaders is people don't follow a vision. They follow a leader. No matter how good the vision is, if they don't trust or have confidence in the leader, you're going to lose them. And that's one of the biggest takeaways I think that apply to modern business and modern management in any company, whether it's a mom and pop or a Fortune 500 company, you could drop every one of these lessons in there, but that would probably be the biggest one. I mean, say what you do and do what you say. Don't ask your people to do something you haven't either done before or are willing to get your hands dirty right alongside them. 

Linda: 

Are there specific characteristics? I mean, you have quite a range of individuals from Steve Jobs. Is there maybe the top three that you're seeing really are common denominators across all of them? 

Steve: 

Charisma is certainly one of them. And some people are born charismatic. For the most part, you get what you're born with. You can't really develop charisma. You've either got it or you don't. But what you can do is if you're unfortunate enough not to have been born with it, what you can do is learn to be more aware of your situation, more aware of your surroundings, more aware of how your words impact others. And maybe not everybody can be a Steve Jobs doing his product launches, but they can be more effective by learning, these are the kind of ways that I can relate to people and get my message across and get their buy into whatever vision or direction I'm trying to go with and steer them into. Another one, like I said, is just being there. You don't lead from the back. I mean, none of these leaders, and we've all had bosses that were terrible, that would sit in their office and give us orders and expect us to go out and do it and didn't want to get their hands dirty. 

I mean, the most effective leaders are the ones that are out there with their troops, with their engineers, with their factory workers on the line solving problems and getting things done side by side instead of thinking, "Well, that's grunt work. It's below me.” 

Linda: 

So you write about talent management and what I'll call fierce loyalty. So how did someone like Al Capone inspire loyalty because, and how can modern business leaders apply those lessons in an ethical manner? Because obviously it sounds like that could be challenging. 

Steve: 

It is. And I get asked that a lot. How do we separate the good from the bad with each one of these people? And Al Capone, for example, I'm 50 miles north of Chicago, so he's near and dear to my heart. And he was extremely loyal. There's a lot of contradictions with Al Capone. He's probably the most well-known gangster or mobster of all time, but he called his mom every day to check in on her. His people were fiercely loyal because he was loyal to them. Anybody that messed with any of his people tended to disappear. By the same token, anybody that was disloyal to him and his organization also felt some severe consequences. So I think loyalty and trust are probably the two biggest reasons that he was so successful. He was consistent. He treated everybody the same. If his top guy messed up, he would face the same consequences as somebody that's working out on the streets. He treated this people consistently and fairly, and they all knew what they were getting into when they worked with Al Capone. 

Linda: 

Right. 

Steve: 

He had expectations, he made it very clear, and he rewarded them handsomely and was loyal to them as long as they followed the rules. 

Linda: 

Yeah. And that's a great point. I think that consistent component is really, really important. It sets boundaries for employees. It makes it easier to understand what the expectations are versus maybe somebody who has a varying personality or you never know where they're coming from on that particular day of the week or what mood they'll be in. But having that consistent way about them, like you always know where they stand is I think a great thing for any leader to embrace. 

Steve: 

Of course. 

Linda: 

So a recurring theme in Notorious is sort of the willingness to shatter the status quo. How can leaders actually disrupt effectively without creating chaos and undermining a healthy organization? 

Steve: 

One of my favorite consultants in management is a guy by the name of Tom Peters. And I was at one of his seminars one time and he made a statement 30 years ago that stuck with me and he said, "If you want to hire a needle mover, don't hire a 4.0." And it took me a while to understand what he meant in my career. And what he was talking about is perfectionists, people that basically stay inside the box and they follow instructions, they follow rules, and you've got to have those people in a successful organization. But if you want somebody to think outside the box, in other words, and take you to the next level, you got to have somebody that wants to color outside the lines and take risks. 

So I think that my experience has been that leadership takes somebody that's willing to put themselves out there and know that they may not make the right decision, but they're willing to make it anyway and live with the consequences and also be able to pivot and realize, "Hey, that was a bad decision. I screwed up. I need to reverse myself and come up with a plan B." So that probably are one of the things I find most interesting that's a parallel from all these people to today's managers is being able to make those kind of choices, stand behind them and admit when you're wrong. 

The other thing that's important that I see so often today with managers, and I work with hundreds of companies, is poor managers, the insecure ones, they like to surround themselves with yes men and women, right? People that'll agree with them. Great leaders like Sonny Barger and some of these other guys on the list and girls, they know they don't have all the answers. They want smart people around them. And I have always tried to hire people working for me that are smarter than me. And secure people are threatened by that, right? 

They don't want ... They're worried for their job or whatever. I want the smartest people I can find working for me. I want them to want my job because that means I'm going to move up. I think weak leaders today, that's what plagues us is they're afraid to surround themselves with people that are going to push back when they have a bad idea. Being a heretic in this context is breaking the status quo. And everybody that walks into a leadership position, there's things that are set up. And I challenge people to look at it as if you're starting from scratch, right? Why are we doing it this way? Well, just we've always done it that way. That's not good enough. You got to look past that. You got to look, well, is it adding value or is it just busy work or the way that somebody set it up 20 years ago? 

So I challenge people to look at everything and say, "Why are we doing it this way? Is there a better way to do it or do we need to do it at all when you're looking at all these processes?" 

Linda: 

Yep. No, that's a great point. So if I read Notorious, what is one concrete lesson in action that I could just totally apply tomorrow morning to improve my leadership skill? 

Steve: 

I think the biggest meta lesson, if you will, you could take away from this is treat your people right, be honest, build trust, be consistent, admit your mistakes, and don't take credit for other people's work. A lot of poor leaders do that as well where their team will do something great and they'll go in front of the board and it was their idea. Give credit where credit's due. You've got to build that trust and confidence that your people know you've got their back. And walking the walk is probably the number one takeaway, right? Lead from the front, not from the back, and be true to your vision and to your employees. 

Linda: 

Yeah, that's great advice. So Steve, I have five rapid fire questions which you have to answer yes, no, or with a line or two. Okay. Okay. One leadership myth most executives still believe. 

Steve: 

One myth they still believe is that they've got all the answers, that their way is the only way. That's probably the number one ... Sorry, that was more than two sentences. No, no. Yeah, that was it. Yeah. That they believe they've got all the answers. 

Linda: 

What's the most misunderstood trait of great leaders? 

Steve: 

Is that leadership is a skillset that can be learned. Most people think you got to be a born leader to be a great leader. Not true. You can teach these lessons and I can take anybody that just started at a company and make them into a very good leader. 

Linda: 

Awesome. One historical leader every CEO should study and why? 

Steve: 

I would say Sonny Barger of the Hell's Angels because he managed one of the toughest groups of people in the world for 50 years and he did it by giving his people the freedom to screw up as long as they learned from it. And by giving everybody on his leadership team a voice at the table, he wasn't a dictator, he wasn't a tyrant, he didn't rule by committee, but he took in their input to make a better decision. 

Linda: 

What's the biggest leadership mistake you see consistently today over and over and over again? 

Steve: 

It's not surrounding yourself with the best people, not trusting your people to do the job. People micromanage too much, right? Hire the right people, train them, be very explicit in what the expectations are, then get the heck out of the way. 

Linda: 

I guess I have one more. So what's one word that defines effective leadership across all eras? 

Steve: 

Influence. One of the things that I learned from John Maxwell that I studied under is leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. 

Linda: 

That's great. Well, Steve, thank you so much today for such a great, fascinating thought-provoking conversation and for challenging how we actually think about leadership history and actually human behavior and looking back to see what worked and what can work today. So I would love for you to share with our audience how they can learn more about your work or buy a copy of Notorious and how they can get in touch with you. 

Steve: 

Sure, absolutely. Appreciate that. So I mean, you can buy it at any place that books are sold, but if you go to my website, Steve Williams Author, all one word, stevewilliamsauthor.com, you get an autograph copy, free shipping, just like anybody else. And if they mention your show, when they place the order, they'll get a 10% discount. 

Linda: 

Awesome. Great. Thank you for listening in today. And if you enjoyed this episode, please hit like, share, comment, or subscribe and keep elevating B2B leadership together. And if you're ready for your own brand 180, you can visit us at mill.agency or lindafanaras.com, and we'll see you in the next episode. Thank you.