Leadership

In Turbulent Times

Hardcover, 473 pages

English language

Published Sept. 9, 2018 by Simon & Schuster.

ISBN:
9781476795928

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5 stars (1 review)

In this culmination of five decades of acclaimed studies in presidential history, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin offers an illuminating exploration of the early development, growth, and exercise of leadership.

Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader?

In Leadership, Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights)—to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. By looking back to their first entries into public life, we encounter them at a time when their paths were filled with confusion, fear, and hope.

Leadership tells the story of how they all collided with dramatic reversals that disrupted their lives and threatened to shatter forever …

11 editions

A Look at the Human Side of Presidential Leadership

5 stars

Goodwin picks threads of similarity between all four leaders - origins, slumps, and victories - and uses her intimate knowledge of these figures to draw parallels between their situations. She draws on outside research on leadership traits and highlights those traits in practice through each of these stories.

There is a huge amount of US history here, relatable stories, and guidance on how to navigate leadership challenges. Wonderful work by one of America's foremost historians.