Rome did not confuse audacity with leadership ability

The selection of centurions described by Polybius raises a prior question to the selection: what does the position really require?

Rome did not confuse audacity with leadership ability

Series: What history already knew about talent · 2/6 · Selection by skills

Around the year 150 BC, a Greek named Polybius lived in Rome under strange circumstances. He had arrived as a political hostage after the defeat of Macedonia and ended up becoming a close friend of Scipio Aemilianus and the sharpest observer the Republic had. He wanted to explain to his countrymen why that city had conquered the Mediterranean in two generations, and to explain it, he described, with the precision of an engineer, how the legion functioned.

In the sixth book of his Histories there is a passage that anyone who has had to fill a vacancy should read.

Polybius explains how the centurions, the officers who commanded the basic units of the legion, were chosen. The tribunes selected them from among the soldiers themselves, based on merit. And then he describes what they were looking for. They did not want, he writes, men who were especially audacious or reckless. They wanted men with leadership ability, with a firm and stable spirit. They were not looking for those who initiated the attack and opened the battle, but for those who, when things went wrong and the pressure was at its peak, held their ground and were willing to die in it.

It is important not to exaggerate what the text says: holding one's ground when the line falters also requires courage, and a lot of it. What Polybius contrasts is not bravery against cowardice. It is the audacity that makes a soldier stand out against the steadiness needed to lead others. Rome, at least the Rome that Polybius describes, did not confuse the two things.

What the position truly demands

Notice the mental operation that lies behind.

The tribunes had thousands of soldiers before them. The most visible criterion for promoting someone would have been the one that jumps out: who was the first to leap over the wall, who has the most feats to recount. It is the ancient equivalent of a stellar CV.

But the position of centurion did not require that. The centurion was not there to win the battle by himself; he was there to ensure that the men in his unit did not crumble when the line broke. And that ability, to hold the position and keep others in it, is not reflected in a record of feats. Sometimes it is even contrary: the man who jumps first is often the one who is not where he needs to be when everything falls apart.

Polybius does not describe a skills assessment like the current ones. He describes something prior and essential: distinguishing the qualities that make a soldier stand out from those needed to lead a unit. That is, asking the right question before looking at the candidates: what does this position specifically require at the moment it matters most?

How we select

Now look at how a vacancy is filled in most organizations.

The job description is retrieved, which is often the one from the last time it was filled, three years ago, and describes a job that is no longer exactly what needs to be done. CVs are received and filtered looking for the words from that description. Five or six people are interviewed and the decision is largely made based on how those conversations went and what impressed from the history.

That is to say: we select the boldest. The one who tells their feats best, the one with the most visible achievement, the one who interviews best. And then we are surprised that the best salesperson is not a good sales manager, that the best programmer is not a good technical leader, that the brilliant person in the interview cannot handle the pressure of the position.

It is not a fault of the individuals. It is that we never asked the tribunes' question.

Looking inward with the same question

There is a second detail in Polybius that is sometimes overlooked: the centurions were chosen from among the soldiers themselves. Rome did not go out to seek officers outside the legion; they were drawn from within, from men whose behavior under pressure the tribunes had been able to observe.

In today's organizations, the opposite almost occurs. When an important vacancy opens, the external and internal processes are judged by different criteria. The external candidate is evaluated based on their CV and interview; the internal candidate is judged by their boss's opinion of them. Neither of these measures what the position requires, and since the criteria are not comparable, the decision ends up being a matter of who impresses more, not who is closer to the position.

The proposal I make is to take the question of the tribunes and give it method. First, define the position by what it requires today: the specific capabilities, yes, but also the mandatory certifications, the essential languages, the irreplaceable experience, weighted, because not everything carries the same weight. Then, measure all candidates, both external and internal, against that same standard. And choose the one who is closest, knowing exactly what they lack.

When you do that, two things happen. The list changes order: the most impressive CV is not always the candidate closest to the position. And internal candidates appear who were just a capacity away from the vacancy, much cheaper and quicker to onboard than any external search, and whom no one had looked at because their history was not the most eye-catching.

What Polybius does not guarantee

Polybius describes a system and the qualities that this system was said to seek. He does not demonstrate that it was always applied the same way, without favoritism or exceptions, and it would be naive to think so: the tribunes were human, and the Republic would eventually turn the legion into a political instrument. It is also not advisable to extend what he says about the centurions of his time to the entire military history of Rome.

But the principle he describes is correct, and it is the one that two thousand years later we still do not apply systematically: first the position defines the criterion; then the criterion is applied to all candidates.

At The Wise Skill, we build selection this way: the position defined by what it truly requires, and all candidates, inside and outside, compared with the same rule and with the explained distance, so that the decision is "it is the one who is closest, and here is why" and not "we thought they were the best." But the question of the tribunes does not need any tools to be asked in the next vacancy.

Are we looking for the one who opens the battle, or the one who holds when the line gives way?

If you have an open vacancy right now and want to see how the list changes when you measure everyone with the same rule, message me directly.

Next installment: Shang Yang and the new paths of ascent in Qin.

Sources. Polybius, Histories, VI, 24, especially 24, 8-9, on the election of the centurions and the qualities sought in them. Polybius describes the legion of the mid-2nd century B.C.; what he says should not be generalized to other periods of Roman history.