#History/American #2025/2 *February 24, 2025* ![[Leadership Cover.png]] This book covers the life and work of 4 US presidents with very distinct personalities and leadership styles. Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. The sections of the book cover them through their early lives and development of ambition, to first successes and failures, through their most pivotal moments, and finally their deaths and legacies. I found it fascinating to see how different each president was as a person and a leader while still achieving great outcomes in their own ways. Lincoln was friendly, soft-spoken, highly intelligent, and a great storyteller. He led through empathy and conviction. Teddy Roosevelt was boisterous, inexhaustible, curious, and nontraditional. FDR was unwaveringly calm and confident, intelligent in an underhanded way, and led through making people feel like they were part of something great. LBJ was industrious, transactional, kind of an anti-example, though surely motivated by real idealism. What they all shared was a great sense of ambition. Lincoln and LBJ came from the most humble backgrounds on different frontiers at different points in time. Lincoln made his way almost entirely by his own inspiration, as his father couldn't see why he would aspire to a greater life than homesteading. He was infectious and lovable though and rose to prominence among the communities he traveled to. LBJ came from humble beginnings in Texas but was motivated by his father who was also a political man. He started his career as a teacher in what was essentially a one-room schoolhouse for Mexican children, but took the opportunity as seriously as he took the presidency. The Roosevelts both came from a privileged background, and in fact were distant cousins. Teddy Roosevelt was inspired to go into politics despite his family's discouragement, as they believed politics were beneath someone of their background. Teddy was motivated by a strong sense of curiosity and kinship with common Americans and jumped from opportunity to opportunity that allowed him to be in contact with people of different backgrounds; NYC cops, ranchers in the West, mounted warriors, and sailors. FDR was motivated by an ambition to follow in Teddy's footsteps, and indeed followed a very similar career path to the presidency, which is ironic given that Teddy's path was not especially premeditated. They all had to overcome serious failures. Lincoln's first term in Congress got off to a bad start as he spent time arguing against things that were politically popular and hurt the feelings of many fellow legislators with his remarks. He didn't last long as a Congressman and upon his exit fell into a deep depression before embarking on his path of growth as a frontier lawyer. Teddy Roosevelt was struck by the near-simultaneous death of his wife and his mother, which caused him to throw himself deeply into his work. He went overboard and ended up making political enemies by trying to reform too much too quickly in the New York legislature. He ended up leaving for the North Dakota frontier, spending time working as a cowboy on the ranch he owned. FDR suffered from severe polio that resulted in the paralysis of his lower body. He withdrew from significant involvement in politics while recovering, but was able to stay in the loop due to the help of his closest friends and family. Eleanor Roosevelt played a major role in continuing his rise as a political force even when he was relearning how to walk and recover from his illness. LBJ achieved great success in Congress due to his work ethic and willingness to take ownership for any kind of administrative work that others didn't want to do. Still, he ended up becoming somewhat disillusioned with politics and pursued power and wealth until eventually suffering from a heart attack that forced him to reckon with his true purpose and ideals. These backgrounds set each man to practice leadership in their own way as president. Each were confronted with some sort of crisis to handle. Lincoln's was notably the Civil War. His leadership style was one of deliberation and respect. He prioritized re-unifying the nation, but never let this daunting task blunt his leadership tactics. He chose men for his cabinet that may not have been the most politically friendly to him, but represented different stakes in the nation and were the most competent people for the job. His willingness to listen to them and defend them in the heat of the moment earned their full support when he chose to make drastic decisions like the emancipation of slaves. This decision wasn't made lightly, and wasn't made for purely abolitionist reasons, though Lincoln had a long track record of pushing for abolition. Once he had made up his mind, he shared the information with the cabinet and heard their feedback, but on this issue he was mostly rigid, accepting only slight revisions to the proclamation of emancipation. Teddy Roosevelt was faced with a coal miner strike that threatened law and order in the approach to winter. If people weren't able to stay warm, there would be chaos, so it was of great importance to settle the strike. Still, Roosevelt was a reformer at heart and wanted to find a good solution to the crisis. The situation was especially tricky because it was unprecedented at the time for the government to get involved in a labor negotiation. Even though Roosevelt, was generally unafraid of inserting himself into situations unsolicited, he recognized that the situation was delicate and took small, compounding steps to uncover information about the coal mine operators and the labor unions. He ended up being able to shape public perception against the coal mine operators to secure better working conditions for the miners, and used his assets as president to set the stage for negotiations instead of driving for a solution on his own terms. This proved effective, and settled the strike before things became tenuous. FDR was faced with many crises in his long presidency, but the book focuses primarily on the Great Depression. He recognized that the situation required comprehensive change due to the severity of the crisis and used his presidential platform to set the stage for innovation. He gave people in his administration the ability to pursue what they thought was the right thing to do under his direction, which led to many different long and short term solutions under the New Deal. He also saw that the scope of change was so significant that he would need to revolutionize the way the president communicates with the public, being direct and frequent in his communications. He spoke directly to the people over radio broadcasts, and frequently invited journalists to events in the White House so they could get information from him regularly. Before FDR, the White House was less transparent, but he recognized that in a situation as dire as the Great Depression this would be harmful to the national consciousness. LBJ faced a couple crises that led to the start and end of his presidency. He took over the presidency from John F. Kennedy due to the assassination, and in that moment recognized that he would need to show he was ready to lead the country. He set forth a plan for significant domestic policy advances within the first couple days of attaining the presidency and resolved to use every ability he had developed as the de facto leader of Congress before his vice presidency. This ended up creating one of the most productive Congresses in history which passed Civil Rights reforms, tax cuts, Medicare, and many other laws that he hoped would bring prosperity to the country. Unfortunately, his desire to be seen as the most productive and benevolent president for the people led him to make significant errors in handling the war in Vietnam. He didn't share much information with the people about the severity of the war, and his lack of confidence in foreign affairs led him to make simple-minded decisions about containing communism, even when the impact that would have on the West was probably irrelevant. Once the scope of the war was really seen by the public, the people lost confidence in LBJ and he decided to withdraw his candidacy for a 2nd term. It was really interesting to read about these different presidents and how their psychology and philosophy manifested in their decision-making and ambitions. I also found that I have a lot more curiosity about American history than I normally thought... whenever I read about past crises that the nation has faced it makes me more optimistic about our future but also more irritated about how people don't really understand any of the reasons things are the way they are today. This lack of understanding is the ultimate contributor to civilizational decline in my opinion. If people don't consider the trajectory that brought us here in a comprehensive way, then they won't be able to think clearly about what we ought to do to provide the best results for ourselves and our country.