Notes on Doris Kearns Goodwin, Leadership In Turbulent Times Week 6 – October 18, 2019 Chapter 9 – Transformational Leadership: Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation p. 212 – “’I consider the central idea pervading this struggle is the necessity upon us of proving that popular government is not an absurdity,’ [Lincoln] told his secretary John Hay. ‘We must settle this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the government whenever they choose. If we fail it will go far to prove the incapability of the people to govern themselves.’” … “Lincoln created a team of independent, strong-minded men, all of whom were more experienced in public life, better educated, and more celebrated than he.” … “When asked why he was doing this [the makeup of his cabinet], Lincoln’s answer was simple: The country was in peril. These were the strongest and most able men in the country. He needed them by his side. Furthermore, Lincoln had sufficient confidence in his leadership that he would be able to meld this contentious, personally ambitious, gifted, yet potentially dysfunctional group into an administrative family whose loyalty to the Union was unquestionable.” p. 212-213 – “The life Lincoln had led, a life marked by perpetual struggle, provided the best preparation for the challenges the country faced. His temperament was stamped with melancholy but devoid of pessimism and brightened by wit. He possessed a deep- rooted integrity and humility combined with an ever-growing confidence in his capacity to lead. Most of all, he brought a mind tempered by failure, a mind able to fashion the appalling suffering head into a narrative that would give direction, purpose, and lasting inspiration.” p. 213 – “On July 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln convened a special session of his cabinet to reveal – not to debate – his preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. … At the outset, however he ‘wished it to be understood that the question was settled in his mind’ and that ‘the responsibility of the measure was his.’ The time for bold action had arrived.” … Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Acknowledge when failed policies demand a change in direction p. 214 – “’Things had gone from bad to worse,’ Lincoln recalled of that midsummer,’ until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had played out our last card and must change our tactics.’” Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Gather firsthand information, ask questions.

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“Equally important, Lincoln’s accessibility to his soldiers afforded him the chance to gather information and ask questions – questions and observations that led to a major revision of his thoughts about the role of slavery in the war.” Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Find time and space in which to think. p. 216 - Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Exhaust all possibility of compromise before imposing unilateral executive power. “Four months earlier, Lincoln had sent a message to Congress calling for federal aid to the four loyal border states – Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland – if they were willing to adopt a plan for the gradual abolition of slavery. In return for voluntarily relinquishing their slaves, slave owners would be compensated at an average price of $400 per head. … “’I am a patient man,’ Lincoln told one of the group, ‘but it may as well be understood, once and for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed.’ That final card was the unveiling of his first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.” p. 217 – “By setting the effective date for the Proclamation nearly six months hence, Lincoln offered the rebellious states a last chance to end the war and return to the Union before permanently forfeiting their slaves.” p. 218 - Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Anticipate contending viewpoints “So clearly did he know each of the members [of the cabinet], so thoroughly had he anticipated their responses, that he was prepared to answer whatever objections might raise.” p. 221 - Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Assume full responsibility for a pivotal decision “While Chase considered graduated emancipation by the generals a safer course, he was now ‘fully’ satisfied, he told the president, ‘that you have given to every proposition which has been made, a kind and candid consideration. And you have now expressed the conclusion to which you have arrived, clearly and distinctly.’” p. 222 – “How had Lincoln been able to lead these inordinately prideful, ambitious, quarrelsome, jealous supremely gifted men to support a fundamental shift in the purpose of the war? The best answer can be found in what we identify today as Lincoln’s emotional intelligence: his empathy, humility, consistency, self-awareness, self-discipline, and generosity of spirit.” p. 223 - Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Understand the emotional needs of each member of the team. “An ongoing attentiveness to the multiple needs of the complex individuals in his cabinet shaped Lincoln’s leadership.”

2 p. 224 - Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Refuse to let past resentments fester; transcend personal vendettas. “Lincoln never selected members of his team ‘by his like, or dislike of them,’ his old friend … observed. ‘If a man had maligned him, or been guilty of personal ill- treatment and abuse, and was the fittest man for the place, he would put him in his Cabinet just as soon as he would his friend.’” p. 225 - Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Set a standard of mutual respect and dignity; control anger. p. 226 – “Not only would Lincoln hold back until his on anger subsided and counsel other to do likewise, he would readily forgive intemperate public attacks on himself. Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Shield colleagues from blame. “In the end, it was Lincoln’s character – his consistent sensitivity, patience, prudence, and empathy – that inspired and transformed every member of his official family. In this paradigm of team leadership, greatness was grounded in goodness. And yet, beneath Lincoln’s tenderness and kindness, he was without question the most complex, ambitious, willful, and implacable leader of them all. They could trumpet self-serving ambitions, they could criticize Lincoln, mock him, irritate him, exacerbate the pressure upon him; everything would be tolerated so long as they pursued their jobs with passion and skill, so long as they were headed in the direction he had defined for them and presented a unified front when it counted most, … “ p. 227 - Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Maintain perspective in the face of both accolades and abuse. p. 228 – 229 - Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Find ways to cope with pressure, maintain balance, replenish energy. “What strategies did Lincoln use to keep some kind of balance? How did he maintain sufficient stability to weather the long winter of discontent? … When Lincoln was under appalling duress, nothing provided greater respite and renewal than a visit to the theater. During his four years as president, he went to the theater more than a hundred times. … He understood that people might think his frequent theatergoing ‘strange, but I must have some relief from this terrible anxiety, or it will kill me.’” p. 229-230 - “Amid the isolation of ultimate responsibility – when people were dying day after day as a consequence of his directives – Lincoln found a way to lighten his grief through the use of the pardoning power. … Lincoln, … looked ‘for any good excuse for saving a man’s life.’ As he studied each petition, he tried to comprehend the soldier’s perspective … When he grasped a reason to reduce the sentence, he said, ‘I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him and his family and his friends.’” p. 230 - Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Keep your word.

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“All through his life, the honor and weight of his word had ben ballast to his character, the ‘chief gem’ of his pride.” p. 233 - Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Know when to hold back, when to move forward. “’It is my conviction that, had the proclamation been issued even six months earlier than it was, public sentiment would not have sustained it,’ Lincoln later said. … A man watches his pear-tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear at length falls into his lap.’” p. 234-235 - Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Combine transactional and transformational leadership. “Among the many variants of leadership, scholars have sought to identify two seemingly antithetical types – transactional, by far the most common, and transformational. Transactional leaders operate pragmatically. They appeal to the self- interest of their followers using quid pro quos, bargains, trades, and rewards to solicit support and influence the behavior of their followers. Transformational leaders inspire their followers to identify with something larger than themselves – the organization, the community, he region, the country – and finally, to the more abstract identification with the ideals of that country. Such leaders call for sacrifice in the pursuit of moral principles and higher goals, validating such altruism by looking beyond the present moment to frame a future worth striving for.” p. 236 - Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Be accessible, easy to approach. “In letters the soldiers wrote home, accounts of Lincoln’s empathy, responsibility, kindness, accessibility, and fatherly compassion for his extended family were common. They spoke of him as ‘one of their own’; they carried his picture into battle. ‘What depth of devotion, sympathy, and reassurance were conveyed through his smile,’” p. 238 - Lincoln’s Leadership Lesson: Put ambition for the collective interest above self-interest. p. 240 – ‘Lincoln swept the Electoral College by a tally of 212 to 21, and captured more than seven out of ten soldiers’ votes. In casting their ballots for Lincoln, the soldiers knew that in all likelihood they were prolonging their personal risk and the duration of their wartime service. They were voting against their self-interest for the greater collective interest that Lincoln had powerfully expressed in his talks with them. … ‘I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am a living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has. It is in order that each of you may have through this free government which we have enjoyed, an open field and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise and intelligence; that you all have equal privileges in the race of life, with all it desirable human aspirations. It is for this the struggle should be maintained.’”

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Chapter Ten – Crisis Management: Theodore Roosevelt and the Coal Strike p. 244 – “’In this hour of deep and terrible bereavement, I wish to state that I shall continue absolutely unbroken the policy of President McKinley for the peace, prosperity and the honor of the country.’” p. 245 – “Throughout his political career, Roosevelt’s conception of leadership had been built upon a narrative of the embattled hero (armed with courage, spunk, honor and truth) who sets out into the world to prove himself. It was a dragon-slaying notion of the hero-leader, and Roosevelt had the good fortune to strike the historical moment in which he could prove his mettle. Under the banner of ‘the Square Deal,’ he would lead his country in a different kind of war, a progressive battle designed to restore fairness to America’s economic and social life.” “The Great Coal Strike of 1902” … p. 245-46 - “What made this situation so frustrating for Roosevelt was the remarkable fact that neither legal nor historical precedent warranted presidential intervention to manage a single aspect of the crisis. So pervasive was the belief that the government should refrain from interfering in the workings of an unregulated free market that quarrels between labor and management were considered wholly private matters.” p. 247 – Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Calculate risks of getting involved. “Even at this early stage of the strike, Roosevelt was ‘thoroughly awake’ to the potential perils of the situation. … In other words, if people were hurt, their leader would be held accountable whether or not he had the legal authority to act.” p. 247-48 – “Furthermore, passivity ran counter to Roosevelt’s disposition as well as his conception of leadership. His study of history persuaded him that there were ‘two schools of thought’ regarding presidential power. The first, identified with James Buchanan, was a ‘narrowly legalistic view that the President is the servant of Congress rather than the people, and can do nothing, no matter how necessary, unless the Constitution explicitly commands the action,’ thus resolving ‘every doubt in favor of inaction against action.’ A second, opposing philosophical stance, exemplified by Abraham Lincoln, considered the executive ‘the steward of the people.’ Under this conception, to which Roosevelt wholeheartedly ascribed, it was not only the executive right but his responsibility ‘to do whatever the needs of the people demand, unless the Constitution or the laws explicitly forbid him to do it.’” p. 248 - Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Secure a reliable understanding of the facts, causes, and conditions of the situation. “On June 8, a month into the strike, the president took a small, establishing step to prepare for future executive action.” …

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“Roosevelt’s call for the report was not simply a request for a statistical accounting. As he hoped, a report would push the thing forward. … ‘President Roosevelt evidently looks upon the strike not as a private quarrel, but as a conflict in which public interests are directly involved’ … By making this directive … public, Roosevelt had taken the first step, however tentative, in what would become a slow, deliberate process of seeding ‘a new and untried field’ of presidential power.” p. 249 - Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Remain uncommitted in the early stages. p. 250 – “Caught in a crossfire, Roosevelt decided for the time being against making the report public.” Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Use history to provide perspective. p. 251 – “A lifelong student of history, a voracious reader, and a historian himself, Roosevelt recognized that the collision between the owners and the miners, capital and labor, the rich and the poor, had been decades in the making. ‘The labor problem,’ he comprehended, ‘had entered a new phase’ in the wake of the Industrial Revolution.” … “He had confronted a larger vision of American diversity and had developed a more complicated conception of public responsibility and leadership. The history that was being played out in the strike of 1902 was part and parcel of his knowledge of history and his own family life, his biography, and his times. p. 252 – “Most of all, Roosevelt emphasized, Lincoln’s character provided the most telling model – ‘to try to be good-natured and forbearing and to free myself from vindictiveness.’” Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Be ready to grapple with reversals, abrupt intrusions that can unravel all plans. p. 253 – “’It is a dreadful thing to be brought face to face with the necessity of taking measures, however unavoidable, which will mean the death of men who have been maddened by want and suffering.” … Because Theodore Roosevelt did not rush in, because John Mitchell did swiftly and effectively respond, an uncertain peace was restored once again to the anthracite region.” Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Reevaluate options; be ready to adapt as a situation escalates. p. 254 – “With the Northern Securities suit, the first of a series that would establish for Roosevelt the moniker ‘ trust-buster,’ the president intended ‘to serve notice on everybody that it was going to be the Government,’ not Wall Street, ‘who governed these United States.’” … … “This time, however, after consulting with additional advisers, Roosevelt chose to move ahead and release the report to the press. Let the case be laid before the public!

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In the appendix of the report, which included the letters exchanged between the operators and the miners, the virulent animosity of the operators toward their employees spoke loud and clear.” … “Most significantly, the report revealed that the operators did not in any way feel answerable to the public.” p. 255 – “And, slowly, the idea that the public – whose lives and livelihoods hung in the balance of this increasingly bitter struggle – had a role to play was beginning to take a firm hold. The seeds that Roosevelt had planted early in the struggle had begun to grow, nurtured by the expectations and needs of the public. Incrementally, the president had constructed a new kind of platform from which he could speak. And now the time had come to build a foundation of support among the citizenry in the eye of the coming storm – the people of New England.” Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Be visible. Cultivate public support among those most directly affected by the crisis. “Roosevelt understood that people were drawn ‘to see the President much as they would come to see a circus.’” p. 256 – “He challenged them to look forward, not backward – to a time when public sentiment was ready for the national government to find constructive ways to intervene in the workings of the economic order, to regulate the trusts, stimulate competition, and protect small companies. He agreed with Lincoln about the essential role that public sentiment plays when a leader hopes to move his countrymen in a different direction.” … … “The power of public sentiment was creating space for the president to act.” Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Clear the deck to focus with single- mindedness on the crisis. p. 257- “This man of action who had always dealt with private tragedy and adversity with a flurry of distracting motion was now incapacitated. Ironically, his lingering injuries would provide the occasion for a single-minded focus on the coal strike at the very moment when the worsening consequences of the strike were about to burst into public consciousness. He did not need to clear he deck of all superfluous matters; the accident had cleared the deck for him.” … “In the course of two weeks of convalescence, Roosevelt would make a precedent-breaking decision to intervene in the coal strike. ‘I had as yet no legal or constitutional duty – and therefore no legal or constitutional right in the matter,’ he acknowledged. ‘I knew I might fail; but I made up my mind that if I did fail it should be at least not because of adopting the Buchanan-like attitude of fearing to try anything.’ What had transpired during his immobility that emboldened Roosevelt’s decision? Scarcely had he settled inti his bedroom overlooking Lafayette Park when he was pelted by a veritable nor’easter of alarming forecasts. Urgent pleas came from mayors of big cities in the path of the storm.”

7 p. 258 - Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Assemble a crisis management team. p. 260 - Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Frame the narrative. “Roosevelt opened the meeting by reading a carefully scripted statement laying out the ground rules for their discussion: ‘There are three parties affected by the situation in the anthracite trade – the operators, the miners, and the public.’ He assured them that he championed ‘neither the operators or the miners.’ He spoke for ‘the general public.’ While disclaiming any legal ‘right or duty to intervene,’ Roosevelt considered the current situation so ‘intolerable’ that he felt compelled to use whatever personal influence he had o bring the parties together. ‘I do not invite a discussion of your respective claims and positions. I appeal to your spirit of patriotism, to the spirit that sinks personal considerations and makes individual sacrifices for the general good.’” p. 261 - Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Keep temper in check. “From start to finish, Roosevelt later wrote, the operators ‘did everything in their power to goad and irritate Mitchell, becoming fairly abusive in their language to him, and were insolent to me. I made no comment on what they said, for it seemed to me that it was very important that I should (keep my temper and be drawn into no squabble).’” p. 262 - Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Document proceedings each step of the way. “Earlier that morning, before the start of the meeting, Roosevelt had obtained the permission of the conferees, given the gravity of the circumstances, to bring in his stenographer to make a record of the entire proceeding. This would be ‘the first time since the foundation of the Republic,’ one journalist remarked, that a verbatim report of a presidential meeting had ever been recorded.” … … “Pamphlets were handed to the press in time for the papers to meet their midnight deadline for publication in the morning edition.” p. 262 -63 - Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Control the message to the press. “As the press exposed the narrative of the conference in front-page stories across the country the next morning, Roosevelt’s sense of failure quickly dissipated. The majority of the press contrasted the president’s patient, courteous, dignified and evenhanded behavior with the surly demeanor of the coal barons…. As Roosevelt’s opening statement was read in city homes and country farms, the idea that a third party had rights and interests in this ‘private struggle’ gained a powerful grasp on the public. … “Furthermore, as the contrasting tones of John Mitchell and George Baer were read and reread, public sentiment canted overwhelmingly in favor of the miners.” p. 263- Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Find ways to relieve stress.

8 p. 264 - Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Be ready with multiple strategies; prepare contingent moves. “In the wake of the failed conference, Roosevelt’s activity markedly quickened. If the several plans he now contemplated differed in the degree and severity of executive interference (ranging from demonstration to persuasion to coercion), they all shared the same goal: to protect the public from the lack of fuel once plummeting temperatures enveloped the region. The situation that had troubled him in both spring and summer had come to pass in a full-blown crisis.” p. 265 – “As Roosevelt figured out details of his radical plan, he pressed ahead on two less extreme fronts. ‘It is never well to take drastic action,’ he liked to say, ‘if the result can be achieved with equal efficiency in less drastic fashion.’” p. 266 – “[T]he prospect of a Blue Ribbon Commission was more than a simple replication of Wright’s earlier investigation, for it signaled bipartisan support at the approach of midterm elections and, most importantly, supplied a persuasive instrument to build ‘the strongest possible bulwark of public opinion’ should Roosevelt find it necessary to deploy the harshest, most problematic, and least desirable of his plots to compel the ending of the strike.” Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Don’t hit unless you have to, but when you hit, hit hard. “’Wherever the fault might lie the present system of management had failed,’ Roosevelt asserted, ‘and the needs of the country would brook no delay in curing the failure.’ His strategy of ‘last resort’ was to organize an invasion of the coalfields with ten thousand regular army troops under ‘a first-rate general.’ The troops would ‘dispossess he operators’ and run the mines as a receiver for the government until such time as a settlement could be reached.” p. 267 – [T]he governor should formally request federal troops, thus triggering the sole constitutional power a president had to intervene – the power to keep order.” … “Yet, everything we know about Roosevelt’s temperament suggests that he was not bluffing. Although he had exhibited an exemplary caution and patience throughout the strike, the situation had reached a state of acute danger to the people he was pledged to protect. When the people needed help, Roosevelt’s spirit would not tolerate ‘any implication that the government of the United States was helpless.’” … “Theodore Roosevelt later contended that his scheme of military seizure of the coal mines provided the long-sought key to the resolution of the strike. Threat of ‘the intervention that never happened’ provided the ‘big stick’ that Elihu Root carried with him to New York, where he met with J.P. Morgan…” p. 268 - Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Find ways to save face.

9 p. 269 – “’It looked as if a deadlock were inevitable,’ Roosevelt recalled. ‘They had worked themselves into a frame of mind where they were prepared to sacrifice everything and see civil war rather than back down.’ Then, as midnight drew nigh imminent tragedy turned to farce. ‘Suddenly it dawned on me, Roosevelt said, ‘that they were not objecting to the thing, but to the name. I found they did not mind my appointing any man, whether he was a labor man or not, so long as he was not appointed as a labor man,’ so long as the appointment somehow fell under one of the five-agreed upon titles.” p. 270 – “Thus, after 163 days of deadlock, the potentially most devastating strike in American history reached a peaceful conclusion. Acting as ‘the people’s attorney,’ Roosevelt had defined the public interest in the hitherto private struggle between labor and capital. He had waited patiently though five months of the strike, moving one step at a time, until the ‘steady pressure of public opinion’ created space for bringing the two sides together in a first-ever federal binding arbitration.” Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Share credit for the successful resolution. p. 271 – “So, while not a blanket solution or an unqualified victory for labor or for capital, the binding arbitration resulted in a durable adjustment in the power relationship between capital, labor, and the federal government.” Roosevelt’s Leadership Lesson: Leave a record behind for the future. “Once the crisis was resolved, he wanted to clarify the nature of this unusual event, to define and restrict what he had done, to make clear the unique circumstances that compelled him to intervene. This was of paramount importance in order to avoid a carte blanche for an alarming, even despotic expansion of executive power.” p. 272 – “’[I]f the President of the United states may not intervene to prevent a calamity, what is his authority for?’” “Theodore Roosevelt’s leadership during the experimental resolution of that crisis would prove to be the dawn of a new era. Under the banner of his Square Deal, a mood of progressive reform swept the country, creating a new vision of the relationship between labor and capital, between government and the people. As he explained to his friend Bill Sewall of Maine, ‘Now I believe in rich people who act squarely, and in labor unions which are managed with wisdom and justice; but when either employee or employer, laboring man or capitalist, goes wrong, I have to clinch him, and that is all there is to it.’”

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