Last updated on July 8th, 2019
Workplace psychologist Dr. Chris Allen helps organizations and leaders develop the “people” side of the business. As a Forbes Coaches Council contributor, Dr. Allen offers regular insights on topics such as changing organizational culture, aligning cultural values and team building in Forbes.com articles and offers quick advice via the Forbes Q/A feature.
Read this article on Forbes here: “What Four U.S. Presidents Can Teach Us About Leadership Development”
The book Leadership: In Turbulent Times, by Doris Kearns-Goodwin, describes the different stages of four presidents’ lives: Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. Kearns-Goodwin explores the background, natural ability, temperament and personality of each man, as well as the challenges that each faced in the times they lived in and how they handled these challenges.
What Did These Four Presidents Accomplish?
Lincoln ended the horror of slavery, holding the United States together during the Civil War, arguably the most difficult period in our history. Teddy Roosevelt accomplished “The Square Deal,” busting corporate power and protecting the consumer and working class from the worst aspects of the Industrial Revolution. Franklin Roosevelt saw us through our worst depression and most of World War II, helping to bring back the economy and inspiring hope in dark times. Despite Johnson’s mistakes with Vietnam, he signed into law the Civil Rights Act, Medicare and the Voting Rights Act.
What Can We Learn About Leadership From These Presidents?
Kearns-Goodwin also asks the age-old questions about the nature of leadership as she takes us on this journey: Are leaders born or made? What do great leaders have in common? If you are not in a formal leadership role, can you in fact “lead from anywhere?” If you weren’t in leadership positions when you were young, can you become a leader later in life? Most importantly, how do you become a better leader?
In my journey with leadership, I have come to appreciate that leaders are typically the ones who are willing to risk failure to have an impact. They roll up their sleeves to do the work and are willing to take the heat. One of my goals in reading the book was to discover what lessons I could apply to myself and my clients as “everyday leaders.”
Here are my top takeaways:
1. No one kind of personality is best for leadership. What’s important is that you develop a keen awareness of your unique strengths and fully leverage them. FDR used his natural empathy and optimism in his “fireside chats” and in his reminders that the only thing we have to fear is “fear itself.” Lincoln used his capacity for storytelling, humor and his relentless love of learning to strengthen his leadership skills.
What are your unique strengths? How do you leverage them every day in your leadership role?
2. Great leaders are aware of their blind spots and weaknesses and correct for them. Lincoln learned not to use humor in ways that demeaned others. Johnson learned to face his fear of rejection in speaking to large crowds.
What are your weaknesses or blind spots? What can you do to correct for these?
3. Great leaders are both extraordinary and ordinary, and they suffer just like the rest of us, but great leaders learn from the failure and losses they experience. Learning from failure increases resilience and ability to handle adversity. Failure and loss also help you to become crystal clear on your values and what you believe is important to achieve.
All four men lost elections, suffered the loss of important people in their lives (including fiancées, wives, mothers and children), and faced other significant hardship (such as poverty and neglect for Lincoln, childhood illnesses for Teddy Roosevelt, polio for Franklin Roosevelt and a heart attack for Johnson). They experienced grief and depression that took different forms, almost leading Lincoln to take his own life and Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt to give up on political life.
Think of some of your losses and failures. What did you learn from them? How did you use them to help you build your resilience? How have they made you a better leader?
4. Great leaders are flexible and agile — like sailors they learn when to zig and when to zag. They learn from experience that sometimes they need to stand firm and be relentless in pushing toward a goal. And sometimes they intuitively know to do the opposite: to give way, to compromise and to make a deal. They can be both transactional and transformational. We can improve more than we imagine and accomplish more than seems possible when we become more agile.
What do you want to accomplish in your current leadership role? How do you need to grow, shift or change to achieve this goal?
5. Great leaders are ambitious, but they pair ambition with a desire to serve a larger purpose and to improve the lives of others. They are not ambitious for the sake of power, fame or fortune alone. Pairing ambition with a higher purpose is a potent combination.
What’s your purpose? What drives you to take risks or push for change?
6. Great leaders find the energy and determination to go the extra mile. They are relentless in the pursuit of goals once they decide something is important.
What happens when you go the extra mile? Can you think of a time when you persevered against the odds?
7. Great leaders have people around them to support and help them. Although it is “lonely at the top,” great leaders find others to help them think through different sides of issues.
Who’s on your team? Allies sometimes support us and sometimes spur us on by challenging us. Who do you count on for assistance?
When I read about these four larger-than-life leaders, I did not conclude that I could never be like them. Instead, they seemed less like giants and more like passionate human beings who dared to dream bigger and push for results. You and I can make a bigger difference as leaders by learning from them.
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