Leadership in Turbulent Times

---

Leadership in Turbulent Times offers captivating looks at four American presidents performing at their best in response to crises of their times.  Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has leveraged her decades-long research of those she has called “my four boys”—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. The stories illustrate the positive impact of effective—and sometimes inspirational—leadership.

Goodwin divided her book into three primary sections. 

The first describes each of the four young men as they matured, developing and exercising their leadership capabilities in the process. 

The second depicts the ways in which each coped and overcame a serious setback, such as Franklin Roosevelt’s polio.

The third, and most interesting section, shows how the four used their leadership capabilities to push beyond conventional boundaries.  In each case, they inspired the American people and their government to address a crisis of their times.  For Lincoln, it was the Emancipation Proclamation.  Theodore Roosevelt was faced with a coal strike during a particularly harsh winter.  Franklin Roosevelt battled a banking crisis.  And Johnson fought for civil rights, voting rights, and improved healthcare.

Goodwin’s epilogue details each man’s last days before their deaths.  She focuses on their apparent thoughts concerning their legacies.

As always, Goodwin employs a smooth and easy writing style. It’s worth noting, too, that she includes almost 80 pages of bibliography and notes.  In the early 2000s, she was accused by some of plagiarism.  Whether or not the accusations were justified, she goes out of her way to support this book’s narrative.

Leadership in Turbulent Times illustrates the positive impact effective presidential leadership and bipartisan cooperation can have when unencumbered by chronic questionable judgment, meager ethics and overt corruption.

---

Quotes

[Re. TR]   “There is an increasing suspicion,” one observer noted, “that Mr. Roosevelt keeps a pulpit concealed on his person.”

[Re. TR]   Roosevelt’s leadership style was, in actuality, governed by…a series of simple dictums and aphorisms:  Hit the ground running; consolidate control; ask questions of everyone wherever you go; manage by wandering around; determine the basic problems of each organization and hit them head-on; when attacked, counterattack; stick to your guns; spend your political capital to reach your goals; and then when your work is stymied or done, find a way out.

[Re. TR]   Roosevelt recognized the importance of building a police force that represented the diversity of the city.  By the end of his tenure, all the dominant ethnic strains were included—Irish Americans, German Americans, African Americans, Jews, Scandinavians, Italians, Slavs, and many other nationalities.  Seeking to weld them into “one body,” he acted swiftly when signs of prejudice or discrimination became visible.  “When one man attacked another because of his breed or birthplace, I got rid of him in summary fashion,” Roosevelt claimed.

[Re. AL]   “Abraham Lincoln will take no step backward,” [Frederick Douglass] insisted.  “If he has taught us to confide in nothing else, he has taught us to confide in his word.”

[Re. AL and the Emancipation Proclamation]   “I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper,” Lincoln said.  “If my name ever goes down in history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.”

---

---

---