Winston Churchill was once asked: “How can I learn about leadership?” His reply was simple yet profound: “Read history.” I couldn’t agree more. History offers timeless lessons, often forged in moments of crisis, that remain relevant for leaders today. One of the richest examples is the epic conflict between Athens and Sparta nearly 2,500 years ago—a struggle that reshaped the ancient world.

In a series of five articles, we’ll examine how insights from this war can still resonate in our modern context. While the values and circumstances of that era differ sharply from our own, the challenges of leadership, decision-making, and strategy reveal striking parallels.

To explore these lessons, I turned to the classical sources—Thucydides, Plutarch, and Xenophon—while also drawing on modern scholarship and fresh perspectives.

In this part, we’ll discover how identifying and exploiting a competitor’s strategic weakness—their “Achilles’ heel”—can be the key to gaining a decisive advantage. To begin, I’ll highlight a few key questions that you as a leaders might consider as you read this article.

Key Questions for Business Leaders:

• Do you have a clear and data-informed understanding of your competitors’ strategic weaknesses?
• Have you identified practical, ethical ways to leverage those weaknesses to your advantage?
• Are you aware of your own organization’s vulnerabilities—and do you have a robust strategy in place to defend against them?

The strategic weakness of Athens:

At the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta and Athens played to their strengths: Sparta dominated on land, while Athens commanded the sea. As the conflict began, Spartan forces marched into Attica, the territory surrounding Athens, and systematically destroyed its farms and orchards. Yet, they could not breach the city itself. Athens was shielded by formidable walls that stretched unbroken to its vital port at Piraeus.

The scorched countryside took a heavy toll, particularly on Athenian landowners, who grew increasingly frustrated. They saw their estates burn while the city’s leadership, under the statesman Pericles, insisted on a defensive posture—refusing open battle and relying instead on naval strength and imports. Pericles remained committed to preserving Athens’ maritime empire, which ensured the flow of tribute and grain from the Dardanelles and as far as the Black Sea region.

Despite repeated invasions, Sparta failed to force a decisive outcome. Their strategy of annual raids and destruction, though devastating, did little to shake Athens’ resolve—or its walls.

To defeat Athens, Sparta had to target its strategic vulnerability: dependence on imported grain from its overseas empire. This meant seizing control of the Dardanelles, the narrow strait through which vital grain shipments flowed. In other words, Sparta needed to challenge Athens at sea—a daunting task for a land-based power. Building a navy, training crews, and mastering naval warfare would take years and demand enormous resources. As in modern times, naval power came at a staggering cost.

Recognizing the scale of the conflict, both Athens and Sparta sought support from Persia, then one of the most powerful empires in the world. Each hoped to tip the balance of the war in their favor with Persian aid. Enter Alcibiades—charismatic, controversial, and brilliant—who had previously fought for Athens but was now offering counsel to the Persians. (1) (A brief biography of Alcibiades is included at the end of this article.) His strategy was cunning: make generous promises to both sides but commit to neither. Keep Athens and Sparta locked in a draining war, weakening them both, and ensuring that neither could ever pose a serious threat to Persian interests again. After all, the Greek city-states had once united to repel a Persian invasion; Persia had no interest in seeing them grow strong again.

When Persia Changed Its Mind

At a crucial point in the war, the Persian Empire shifted its position. Cyrus the Younger, a Persian prince and ambitious rival to his brother King Artaxerxes II, was appointed satrap (governor) of Lydia and Ionia—territories bordering the Aegean. Eyeing the Persian throne, Cyrus saw an opportunity: by supporting Sparta with funds and resources, he could help them defeat Athens and later leverage Spartan military power for his own rebellion (2).

Sparta succeeded in destroying the Athenian fleet. Ironically, it was Alcibiades—by then in exile—who tried to warn the Athenian admirals of critical tactical errors. They dismissed him arrogantly, saying, “We are in charge now,” and expelled him from their camp. Alcibiades was right. Athens suffered a crushing defeat, and the war was lost. There’s a timeless business lesson here: never let ego block valuable feedback.

Before concluding, let’s circle back to the early stages of the war, when Spartan forces ravaged Athenian farmland. Among the major landowners was Pericles himself—a brilliant statesman and strategist. Sparta had an opportunity for psychological warfare: destroy every farm except those owned by Pericles. It would sow suspicion. Was Pericles secretly colluding with the enemy? Anticipating this, Pericles made a bold move—he donated all his land to the state, neutralizing the potential for internal division. Yes, tactics matter too —but that’s a topic for Chapter 3.

Sparta won the war—but their victory would ultimately sow the seeds of their own downfall. That’s the story we’ll explore in the next chapter.

Feel free to reach out to me at info@vucastar.com if you’d like to explore these ideas further. You can also find lots of insights in my book True Leaders Deliver.

Peter Corijn, CEO VUCASTAR Consulting (www.vucastar.com)

Notes:

(1) Acibiades: Born into an aristocratic family, he quickly rose to prominence, famed not only for his striking beauty but also for his charisma, strategic brilliance, and rhetorical skill. Yet for every gift, there was a flaw: Alcibiades was also notoriously arrogant, hedonistic, and ruthlessly self-serving. He inspired both intense admiration and deep loathing in equal measure.

A rising star in Athenian politics and military command, Alcibiades played a leading role in the war against Sparta. But his meteoric rise was abruptly halted when he was charged with blasphemy and sentenced to death in absentia. In a dramatic twist, he defected to Sparta, offering his former enemies strategic counsel so effective it tipped the balance of power. His success, however, came at a personal cost: while King Agis was away on campaign, Alcibiades seduced the Spartan queen and fathered a son with her. Unsurprisingly, this made his position in Sparta rather difficult, and he fled once more—this time to Persia.

In Persia, Alcibiades again proved his worth, offering shrewd advice and maneuvering between great powers like a chess master. Meanwhile, Athens, suffering losses in the ongoing war, began to miss its most capable (if controversial) general. Alcibiades seized the moment, promising he could bring Persian support and was welcomed back by a desperate city. He returned to command Athenian forces—briefly. Eventually, shifting political tides led to his second exile. Exiled in Phrygia, he was assassinated under murky circumstances, likely at the behest of Persian or Spartan agents. 

(2) Cyrus’s gamble. He financed Sparta generously and later recruited an army of 10,000 Greek mercenaries for his own campaign against Artaxerxes. But the plan failed. Cyrus was killed in battle, and his mercenaries were stranded deep in Persian territory. Their dramatic escape—marching through hostile terrain under the leadership of Xenophon—became legendary. Xenophon later chronicled their journey in Anabasis (The Persian Expedition). As Peter Drucker rightly noted, it remains one of the great practical guides to strategy in action.

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Selected Biography:

Cartledge, Paul, “The Spartans. An Epic History”, Pan Books, 2003

Herodotus, “The Histories”, Penguin Classics, 1996

Holland, Tom, “Persian Fire. The First World Empire and he Battle for the West”, Abacus, 2005

Llewellyin-Jones, Lloyd, “Persians. The Age of the Great Kings”, Wildfire, 2022

Pfeijffer, Ilja Leonard, “Alcibiades”, De Arbeiderspers, 2023

Plutarch, “On Sparta”, Penguin Classics, 1988

Plutarch, “The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives”, Penguin Classics, 1960

Thucydides, “History of the Peloponnesian War”, Penguin Classics, 1972

Xenophon, “The Persian Expedition”, Penguin Classics, 1972

Xenophon, “A History of My Times”, Penguin Classics, 1979