Leadership Book Summary - Leadership Book explained in key points

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Leadership summary

Name: Leadership
Rating: 4.4 (80 reviews)
Author: Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin

In Turbulent Times

4.4 (80 ratings)

24 mins

What is Leadership about?

Leadership: In Turbulent Times (2018) examines the lives of four of the most transformational presidents in US history: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. By looking at the similarities and differences between how these men became great leaders, author Doris Kearns Goodwin provides insight into how and why they rose to the occasion at pivotal times in American history.

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Leadership
summarized in 9 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 9

What’s in it for me? Learn secrets of leadership from four of US history’s most transformative presidents.

If you go into just about any bookshop, you’ll find an abundance of books claiming to hold the secrets of how to become a great leader. Many of these books are speculative and/or consist of scattered anecdotes. Readers seeking a more empirically-grounded, systematic approach to understanding leadership will find relief in these blinks.

Based on detailed biographies of four of the most transformational presidents in US history, these blinks identify some key factors in the development of leadership. By comparing and contrasting Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, we’ll see the similarities and differences between their paths to the White House. This, in turn, will allow us to discern what is and isn’t required for someone to become a great leader. Along the way, we’ll find answers to some of the crucial questions of leadership studies: Are great leaders made, or do they make themselves – and if so, how?

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how reaching out to his former archrivals helped Lincoln’s success in the Civil War;
how purpose can explain Lyndon Johnson’s greatest achievements and failures;
the value of undergoing a personal crisis to becoming a great leader.

Great leaders can come from very different backgrounds.

If great leaders were just the products of their circumstances, then we might expect their backstories to share certain key features. But when we look at the lives of the transformational presidents, we see they come from dramatically different backgrounds.

Born to an illiterate father who eked out a living on one dirt farm after another, Lincoln grew up in the backwoods of Illinois in a cabin that was initially doorless, floorless and bedless. When he was about nine years old, his father disenrolled him from school so he could work on the farm.

Lincoln then had to educate himself. He walked long distances across the countryside to borrow books from people, then read them in his few spare moments. He did this without external support; indeed, if he was caught reading when he was supposed to be working, his father would sometimes beat him and destroy his books.

Upon entering adulthood, Lincoln was basically a nobody. Striking out from home to make a fresh start in life, he settled in the town of New Salem, Illinois. Because of his height and shabby appearance, the townsfolk regarded the newcomer as a bit of a freak. Through his friendliness and good deeds, like chopping wood for widows, he eventually won them over, but it took months of building relationships to earn enough of a reputation to run for a seat in the Illinois state assembly, which marked the beginning of his political career.

Lincoln’s lack of wealth, access to education, parental support and connections stand in stark contrast to the circumstances of Theodore Roosevelt. He was born with a trust fund bequeathed to him by his grandfather, a banker, merchant and real estate mogul who was one of the five richest individuals in New York.

His father was a well-respected philanthropist who provided him with a rigorous formal education and access to an extensive family library. If there was a book he didn’t already have, his father would help him procure it.

When Theodore Roosevelt reached early adulthood, he did not need to convince local citizens of his merit to enter politics. Thanks to the power already attached to his family’s name, he was recruited to run for the state assembly of New York by the local Republican Party.

If two people from such disparate circumstances could both become transformative presidents, the keys to becoming a great leader must lie somewhere else than in one’s background.

Great leaders can have very different personal characteristics.

Another place to look for the key to becoming a great leader might be shared personal characteristics. But the influential presidents under consideration suggest we look elsewhere. Their personal characteristics were as different as their backgrounds.

Franklin Roosevelt and Lincoln, for example, had drastically different temperaments. Growing up with loving parents who provided him with a warm, stable, peaceful and nurturing home environment, Roosevelt was blessed with a sunny, optimistic outlook on life. Lincoln, in contrast, was prone to melancholy, which began to appear at an early age, when his lofty ambitions and lowly circumstances seemed totally at odds with each other.

Great leaders have differing strengths and weaknesses, which are often linked.

In popular imagination, great leaders are sometimes portrayed as larger-than-life figures with almost superhuman strength. However, when we examine the transformational presidents, we see that this is an oversimplification. The presidents’ were undeniably gifted, but they were also undeniably human, with strengths that were remarkable but not miraculous, and with weaknesses as well.

Let’s start with their strengths. Like their circumstances and personal characteristics, these too were varied. Yet again, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt provide contrasting examples.

Ambition is one of the decisive factors in becoming a great leader.

The crucial role that ambition plays in the path to leadership can be clarified by contrasting Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt’s very different upbringings.

If you described Lincoln’s impoverished, formally uneducated background on paper, he wouldn’t exactly sound like he had the makings of becoming a successful politician, let alone arguably the greatest president in US history.

Having a greater purpose is another decisive factor in becoming a great leader.

One of the crucial elements in the transformational presidents’ ascendence to leadership was their abilities to combine their strengths and ambitions with a sense of greater national purpose. Lyndon Johnson clearly shows the importance of the latter, as his successes and failures largely hinged on the presence or absence of such a purpose.

One of Johnson’s strengths was his mastery of clever procedural tactics. This strength could lead him to very positive accomplishments, as in his promotion of Civil Rights. However, it could also lead him to very negative results, as in his escalation of the Vietnam War.

The path to leadership takes many twists and turns, with major setbacks along the way.

When he was 25 years old, Franklin Roosevelt envisaged a linear, step-by-step path that would take him straight to the White House – a path that combined his political ambitions with his lifelong interest in naval history. Step one, New York state legislator; step two, assistant secretary of the Navy; step three, governor of New York; step four, president of the United States.

Having achieved the first two steps by age 31, he seemed well on his way to the Oval Office. But then, the most devastating event of his life happened. At the age of 39, he developed polio, leaving him unable to walk or stand on his own.

Great leaders use crises as opportunities to retreat, reflect and rebuild, eventually reemerging stronger than before.

For each of the presidents, one of the most crucial steps in the path to leadership hinged on how they responded to their setbacks. For all four men, this meant retreating from politics for a while – not just to recover but also to reflect and rebuild themselves. As a result, these setbacks allowed them to forge the stronger selves that would eventually propel them to greatness.

Lincoln returned to a career as a lawyer, during which time he assiduously studied the law and developed his public speaking skills in front of juries – skills that would enable him to become one of the greatest orators in American history.

Great leaders are supported by great teams.

Franklin Roosevelt’s restricted mobility serves as a stark reminder of the reason why every leader needs a team for support: even with Lincoln-esque mobility, no one can be everywhere or do everything at once. Everyone needs help to establish relationships and obtain information. Everyone needs strong team members to augment his or her limited powers.

This was certainly true of the transformative presidents, and it was especially true of Lincoln, who knew he needed a supportive team right from the start of his presidency. Even before his inauguration, the southern states were already seceding and forming the Confederacy, posing the gravest national crisis in the history of the United States.

Great leaders respond to general crises by leveraging the strengths they have honed from their personal crises.

As we have seen, each of the transformative presidents faced a significant personal crisis from which they ultimately grew as leaders. Upon reaching the White House, each of them also faced a grave national crisis: for Lincoln, the Civil War; for Theodore Roosevelt, the Coal Strike of 1902; for Franklin Roosevelt, the Great Depression; and for Johnson, the assassination of President Kennedy.

Of the four presidents, Franklin Roosevelt provides the clearest illustration of the point at hand. That's in part because there were many parallels between the economic calamity behind the national crisis he faced and the physical affliction behind the personal crisis he weathered.

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About the Author

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a presidential historian who worked as a White House Fellow and staff member of Lyndon Johnson’s administration. After he left office, she helped him write his memoirs while teaching at Harvard University for the next ten years. She is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, as well as multiple bestselling books, including Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream; The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism; and Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, which provided source material for Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln.

Who should read Leadership?

Aspiring and current leaders looking for insights into the art of leadership
Presidential history buffs
Citizens looking for role models from the past

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