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Whether he’s on national television, lecturing university students, or speaking at a London Business Forum (LBF), it’s almost guaranteed that Dr David Starkey will say something outrageous. And he didn’t disappoint. “The LSE (London School of Economics) is one of the most dangerous and damaging institutions in human history,” Starkey began.

His criticism of the LSE, where Starkey taught between 1972 and 1998, was focussed on the failure of social sciences and their generalised approach to human behaviour. His challenge to the LBF was that they reconsider dismissing something as merely anecdote because, he said, “anecdote probably tells you more than some spurious social scientific generalisation which is acquired at immense cost and probably tells you nothing that you didn’t already know.”

It is with this alternative approach that Starkey wanted to explore the subject of his speech, the leadership traits of King Henry VIII. The history of business, said Starkey, is relatively short but we can learn from the leaders of those “large institutions called states,” which have a much longer history.

Henry VIII is often remembered for his turbulent personal life and as a “macho lump of arrogance.” Yet, Starkey revealed, he exhibited qualities that are important in leaders:

1. Infectious enthusiasm combined with the ability to pursue long term goals.

2. An awareness of the importance of language in order to persuade.

He also shows similarities to other admired leaders such as Winston Churchill and even Steve Jobs, suggested Starkey. Jobs’ leadership, Starkey suggested, “[was] primarily about aesthetics.” Like Henry, he was convinced that he knew best and set about creating products that market research showed the consumer didn’t want.

The ability to persuade through language is central to a leader realising their agenda. When Henry succeeded his father to the throne, he wanted to make his mark and overcome the “considerable inertia” that was his father’s legacy. After years of peace, Henry wanted to reverse his father’s foreign policy objectives, said Starkey. He wanted to do what all young English kings have done throughout history, “Henry wanted to biff the French.”

What was remarkable, said Starkey, was how the young Henry went about achieving this. The obstacles before him were quite considerable; at 17 he was still partly under the supervision of a Regency Council who would have been against war. “The whole of the political English establishment,” Starkey told the LBF, “had been bought by the French.”

Henry though “doesn’t use normal structures to do extraordinary things,” and instead pursues an alternative foreign policy with the Venetian Ambassador to England. This is the equivalent, Starkey suggested, of senior management employing consultants in a time of crisis.

War is prevented by the establishment at the last minute but Henry doesn’t give up. Over the next four years, Henry patiently builds up his allies and crushes his enemies. Starkey urged the LBF to remember that back then the average reign was only 20 years. For a young man, he suggested, Henry shows both political skill and patience, outmanoeuvring those who may stand in his way and finally achieving his objective in 1513. Henry had “fixidity on the goal but total flexibility as to how you achieve it,” said Starkey.

How did Henry eventually convince the English that war with France was the right thing to do? He had a keen sense of the importance of ideology, explained Starkey, “In order to shift the English elite from their opposition to war, you’ve got to come up with a really powerful and persuasive argument.”

This time, Henry works with the Archbishop of Canterbury who develops an argument for war that is both “emotionally powerful and legally cast iron.” Ironically, this war is fought with the English flying the Papal flag because the French King, Louis XII, threatened to break the unity of the Church when he divorced his wife. This, said Starkey, turned Louis XII “into worse than a heathen.”

“Human beings need things to believe in,” asserted Starkey, “particularly when you’re asking them to do things they don’t want to do, like work, like change, […] like doing things differently.” Leaders need to choose the right words to encourage followship; they need “inspirational language” to persuade them to share the change. Churchill understood this too, Starkey suggested, he used words that “made people tolerate […] the utterly and absolutely intolerable.”

The most dramatic change that Henry brought about during his reign was, of course, the Reformation. “That event is undoubtedly the most important thing in our history,” said Starkey. The shift from a Catholic sensibility to a Protestant one is a more profound change than perhaps most may think, he argued. Protestantism brought with it “a world of language, a world of words,” in contrast to Catholicism’s focus on the senses, ritual and ceremony.

Furthermore, it was a break with Europe. “Henry is the original euro-sceptic,” said Starkey. It is this breaking of a thousand year old tie with Rome that Starkey suggests has greatly influenced our attitude and relationship with the rest of Europe ever since. “It’s almost as big as the iPad,” he quipped.

Once again, it is a process that requires immense patience. When the Pope refuses to grant Henry a divorce from Catherine of Aragon so that he is free to wed Anne Boleyn, he doesn’t concede defeat. It takes six and a half years for Henry to finally establish himself as head of the Church so that he can divorce his first wife.

“He comes up with the big argument, exactly as Archbishop Warham had done at the beginning of the reign but completely in the opposite sense,” Starkey continued. Henry creates a working scholarly library from which he finds the ideas and the grounds for the change that he wishes to bring about – that it is the monarch who should be head of the church. “That’s what you can do with words, that’s what you can do with ideas, that’s what you can do with that genuine scale of vision combined with the patience,” Starkey emphasised.

What do Jobs, Churchill and Henry VIII all have in common? “They have the capacity to imagine and shape new worlds, and to come up with new sorts of arguments,” answered Starkey. To ensure they reach their goals, they choose their subordinates well and are prepared to wait.

This anecdotal and biographical approach, Starkey concluded, is an alternative but perhaps more enlightening way to explore the questions of leadership.