Review: Leadership: In Turbulent Times

Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Doris Kearns Goodwin profiles four past presidents who endured tumultuous times during their administrations. Abraham Lincoln had to work through warring factions in the US to see the Emancipation Proclamation become law. Teddy Roosevelt had to deal with a miners strike. FDR took over the country during the depression, seeing multiple programs and projects instituted for his New Deal to come to fruition to stabilize the country's economy. Lyndon Baines Johnson took over as president when the nation lost JFK to an assassin's bullet. He worked hard to see Civil Rights legislation passed during a tumultuous time in our history. All four men had specific leadership qualities that allowed them to persevere through trials and tribulations during their administrations to achieve major goals in moving our country forward. Are these qualities learned or ingrained in these men? They all had uphill battles throughout their lives and their learned experiences in life certainly contributed to their leadership styles.

Goodwin looks at the lives of these men in three sections. The first section covers their young lives and leadership traits they developed before their foray into politics. The second section described some of the hardships they endured in life and their uphill battle getting into politics. The final section covers a specific case study for each president: Emancipation Proclamation, miner's strike, New Deal programs, and Civil Rights legislation. For each president, Goodwin details the leadership qualities that helped these men persevere through turbulent times to become great leaders.

I enjoy Goodwin's writing and how she analyzed each president and their leadership qualities. They were not perfect men, so she did show some of their flaws. In the final chapters, she focused on specific case studies that showed these qualities and the strengths of each man. She did not go into other issues that the presidents dealt with, outside of a brief discussion on the Vietnam war. That seemed a little out of place. I liked how Goodwin focused on one aspect of each man to really show what makes a person a great leader.

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