What Makes a Great Leader? Doris Kearns Goodwin Speaks!

Do you think leaders are born or made? Is leadership vested in a person or is it a set of learned behaviors? How can you make the most of your natural leadership skills? 
Every year I teach leadership skills to young colleagues in graduate studies. Every year I tell them my own personal definition of leadership: “Leadership is taking the lead.” No skills are more crucial in a successful career than the understanding of how to turn a complex set of challenges into progress for all involved.  
It is impossible to enjoy an extraordinary life without solid leadership at the helm in the towns we all call home. When I teach colleagues about how to lead group psychotherapy with families, groups and couples, I reacquaint myself with the work in social psychology and sociology that was central in my early training.
A favorite source of expertise is from Presidential historian, Dr. Doris Kearns Goodwin. She was at the right hand of Lyndon Johnson and is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of six critically-acclaimed and The New York Times bestselling books.
In an interview with Heather MacArthur, MacArthur recalled an earlier keynote speech by Doris Goodwin: “By studying the lives of others, we hope that we, the living, can learn from their struggles and their triumphs.”  In her recounting true stories about our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, we find universal leadership traits.
Tackle seriously challenging situations and remain level headed in the face of adversity. Early on, Lincoln realized later in life that, if he could accomplish something worthy in his life, he would live on in the memory of others. That one’s honor, one’s reputation can outlive one’s earthly existence.
2) Seek the challenge of opposing opinions by including the finest minds in your leadership team. The night of Lincoln’s election as president, he…made the decision…to put each of his chief rivals into his cabinet. He was asked, ‘Why are you doing this?’ He said, ‘It’s simple. The country is in peril. These are the strongest and most able men in the country. I need them by my side.’”
3) Openly discuss errors and learn from them. When Franklin Roosevelt concluded a New Deal program wasn’t working, he simply created a new one in its place built upon an understanding of what had gone wrong.
4) Give others credit for success as part of your leadership.  Over and over, you see in Lincoln’s papers, handwritten letters to his cabinet members and people in the government praising them for work well done, telling them that he was wrong about something and they were right.
5) Remain calm and in control. Hearing of the attack on Pearl Harbor, “FDR exhibited control over his emotions. While his aides and cabinet members were running around in panic, he remained steady.”
6) Storytelling and humor are powerful teaching tools. “Lincoln’s greatest form of relaxation was actually his unparalleled sense of humor and his gifts for storytelling. Lincoln developed a reputation so the people would come from miles around to listen to him tell funny stories as he would stand on the tavern with his back to a fire.”
7) Reach out to the people and connect during difficult leadership moments. “Franklin Roosevelt traveled throughout the country during those early days of the war, visiting factory, shipyards, boosting the morale of the workers but even more, and getting a feeling for how fast the country could move in what directions by being out among the people.
8) Be aware of the power of timing in leadership. “Lincoln later said if the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed six months earlier, he would have lost the Border States. If it had been signed any later, he would have lost the morale boost it provided.”
9) Use voice and presence to imbue confidence at difficult times. “FDR’s very first inaugural…projected such serene confidence in the fundamental strength of his countrymen that he renewed hope in millions who sent telegrams and letters saying, everything is going to be alright.”
“For most of us,” Goodwin concludes “the chance to have our story told may not be realized in the monument in Washington but rather through the memories of our children, our friends, and our colleagues. The private people we have loved and lost in our families…really can live on so long as we pledge to tell and to re-tell the stories of their lives.”
To consider: As you consider those individuals who have influenced you most in your life, who comes to mind? What qualities from the list above would you attribute to them?  Do you have your own stories that need telling? Which qualities do you show that others find stimulating and helpful in their own development?
To read: Team of Rivals. Doris Kearns Goodwin, 2006. Simon and Schuster. New York 
To explore:
• The O.C. Tanner Institute, including interviews by Heather MacArthur,   (www.octannerinstitute.com) is a global forum that researches recognition.
• The work of Dr. Goodwin is legendary on the power of the American Presidency (www.doriskearnsgoodwin.com). 
Find Dr. Judith Coche at Rittenhouse Square and Stone Harbor, helping clients tell their wonderful life stories to those they love. To reach her, www.cochecenter.com.