Leadership: In Turbulent Times

By Doris Kearns Goodwin, Simon & Schuster, 2018, 496 pages
Reviewed by Tom Vogt, Dec. 9, 2020

Doris Kearns Goodwin discusses "Leadership" in a 24-minute online interview. THE LINK: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2019-02-13/the-david-rubenstein-show-doris-kearns-goodwin-video

Lyndon Johnson figured that the best way to achieve power was to get close to those who had power. So in college, he got a job mopping floors. He spent a lot of time working just outside the college president's office. Johnson chatted him up every chance he could, then volunteered to run errands and deliver messages. Before long, Johnson had a desk in the foyer. Decades later, LBJ had a desk in the Oval Office.

Presidential leadership qualities have been the topic of much discussion recently, which makes Doris Kearns Goodwin's book so interesting. "Leadership: In Turbulent Times" looks at how some of our greatest presidents were each tested at different stages of their lives. Their resilience in dealing with personal and political setbacks helped them meet historic challenges later.

The book examines the lives of Abraham Lincoln, and his decision to free the slaves during the Civil War; Theodore Roosevelt, and his solution to the 1902 coal strike; Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his response to the Great Depression; and Lyndon B. Johnson, and passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Lincoln's formal education was over by the time he was 10. Thomas Lincoln couldn't read, and felt that any time Abe spent with a book was wasted. But his father was a gifted storyteller, something he inherited, and Abe made up for the lack of formal schooling by educating himself. After a setback in Illinois politics, Lincoln was so depressed that his friends took all the knives and razors from his room, Goodwin wrote. He rebounded by focusing on his law career. Continuing his pattern of self-education, Lincoln would travel 20 miles to borrow a law book, take it home and absorb it, then make the return trip to borrow the next book on the shelf.

Teddy Roosevelt grew up with a lot of advantages. When he was bullied, his father hired an ex-prizefighter who taught the boy how to defend himself. But he suffered a crushing personal tragedy when his wife and mother died on the same day. His retreat to a ranch in the Dakota Badlands restored Roosevelt spiritually and rebuilt him physically.

Teddy's fifth cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was stricken with polio in 1921 at age 39. His rehabilitation efforts strengthened his upper body, but the disease also humbled him. He was more sympathetic to the poor and underprivileged – the people he would help during the Great Depression.

Sam Johnson was a Texas legislator who took little Lyndon campaigning on dusty back roads. At some point in his own political career, LBJ learned the importance of campaign backers who could buy you some votes. Johnson thought he'd won his first U.S. Senate race, but the opposing campaign bought enough last-minute votes to elect the other candidate, Goodwin wrote.

It was a detour, but not a dead end. The dead end came in 1960 when Johnson accepted the VP slot on John F. Kennedy's presidential ticket – or so he thought. But after Kennedy was murdered, Johnson found himself in precisely the right leadership position. As a Southern president, LBJ found a path to the Civil Rights Act that had eluded Kennedy.

The book ends with a brief summary of the four presidents' lives. Spoiler alert: not a lot of happy endings. But all four left notable legacies – something that Lincoln wasn't anticipating during a period of severe depression in 1841. Lincoln told a friend that he would gladly die, Goodwin wrote, but he had done nothing to make any human being remember that he had lived.