Leadership: In Turbulent Times
Doris Kearns Goodwin · 2018
Leadership (2018) is a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin on Historical & crisis leadership. Goodwin studies Lincoln, TR, FDR, and LBJ to ask whether leaders are born or made. Her verdict: ambition is common, but adversity plus deliberate growth and the right historical moment forge greatness.
Four presidents, four crises, one question that outlasts them all: is a great leader born, or forged in the fire of their worst day?
Three of the ideas you’ll keep
The Clif summary of Leadership pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first three.
- Leadership is MADE, not merely born, talent and ambition are widespread, but adversity plus deliberate self-cultivation is what separates the great leader from the merely gifted one.
- Part Three maps each president to a leadership mode via one crisis: Transformational (Lincoln), Crisis Management (Theodore Roosevelt), Turnaround (FDR), Visionary (LBJ).
- 'Fit between the leader and the times', greatness is contextual, arising when a specific temperament and skill set meet a matching historical moment, not from absolute traits.
The other 4 — and the full 11-minute summary — are in the app.
What’s inside: 9 chapters
The whole summary runs about 11 minutes, read or listened to.
- The Questions Behind the Book
- Part One: Ambition and the Recognition of Leadership
- Part Two: Adversity and Growth
- Transformational Leadership: Lincoln and Emancipation
- Crisis Management: TR and the Coal Strike of 1902
- Turnaround Leadership: FDR and the Hundred Days
- Visionary Leadership: LBJ and Civil Rights
- The Fit Between the Leader and the Times
- Epilogue: Of Death and Remembrance
Finish Leadership tonight.
Read or listen to the full summary in about 11 minutes, then keep the ideas with a minute of review a day. Start with the 2-minute quiz — no card required.
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