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    Leadership
    Leadership
    Leadership
    Audiobook18 hours

    Leadership

    Written by Doris Kearns Goodwin

    Narrated by Intro and Afterword Read by the Author

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    From Pulitzer Prize–winning author and esteemed presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, an invaluable guide to the development and exercise of leadership from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

    The inspiration for the multipart HISTORY Channel series Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

    “After five decades of magisterial output, Doris Kearns Goodwin leads the league of presidential historians” (USA TODAY). In her “inspiring” (The Christian Science Monitor) Leadership, Doris Kearns 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 their ambitions. Nonetheless, they all emerged fitted to confront the contours and dilemmas of their times. At their best, all four were guided by a sense of moral purpose. At moments of great challenge, they were able to summon their talents to enlarge the opportunities and lives of others. Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader?

    “If ever our nation needed a short course on presidential leadership, it is now” (The Seattle Times). This seminal work provides an accessible and essential road map for aspiring and established leaders in every field. In today’s polarized world, these stories of authentic leadership in times of apprehension and fracture take on a singular urgency. “Goodwin’s volume deserves much praise—it is insightful, readable, compelling: Her book arrives just in time” (The Boston Globe).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateSep 18, 2018
    ISBN9781508232964
    Author

    Doris Kearns Goodwin

    Doris Kearns Goodwin is a world-renowned presidential historian and author. She has written six critically acclaimed, New York Times–bestselling books, the most recent of which is The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism. Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Studios has acquired the film rights to the book. Goodwin previously worked with Spielberg on the film Lincoln, based in part on her award-winning Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, for which Daniel Day-Lewis received an Academy Award for his portrayal of Lincoln. Goodwin earned the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. She also authored Wait Till Next Year, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, and The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, which was adapted into an award-winning TV miniseries. She is well known for her commentary and interviews on television and in documentaries, including Ken Burns’s Baseball and The Civil War. Goodwin served as an aide to President Lyndon Johnson in his last year in office and later assisted him in the preparation of his memoirs. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, Richard N. Goodwin.

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    Reviews for Leadership

    4.5/5

    292 ratings24 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This book has mini biographies of four presidents selected by the author as exemplars of leadership abilities: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. There is a chapter for each, under each of three themes: ambition and early recognition of leadership ability; adversity and growth; and how they led during crises in their presidencies. There is also an epilogue that describes the ends of their lives. Aside from Lincoln, I hadn't really thought about that, and it was interesting to learn that each man died relatively young, Lincoln in his 50s and the others in their 60s. Of course I learned a lot more than that from this book, and one of the best things about it was that it made me want to learn even more about each of these men. I liked reading about the early experiences that shaped these men, but the most interesting chapters to me were the ones describing how each president faced a particular crisis during his presidency. Lincoln struggled with when to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Theodore Roosevelt faced a coal strike threatening the country. In 100 days during the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt had to lead the country through bank failures and create the New Deal programs. Johnson had a brief window after Kennedy was assassinated in which he could convince Congress to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Since the author was also Johnson's biographer, this chapter of the book felt fuller and more immediate. It included other Johnson accomplishments like the voting rights act, Medicare, tax cuts, federal aid to education, Head Start, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the expansion of immigration to admit people other than Europeans. She also described his great failure, the Vietnam War, during which he made terrible decisions and lied to the public. It was nice to read about presidents who actually believed that the government could and should help people and that leaders could and should bring people together.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Well researched and written. Reveals interesting leadership attributes of these great men.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I’m giving this book to my son who is inspired to be a public servant for the people. In addition to these four presidents, I would include Barak Obama among them who embodies the principles of what right leadership looks like.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Great book! Very thorough and well documented. The readers were very engaging.
    • 4/5
      Great content, but found the changing narrators less than helpful.
    • 5/5
      Gripping reminders of the benefits we have in today’s United States and who pushed for them
      I did enjoy the change in narrators
      I loved the boo
    • 5/5
      A perfect topic for these times. Excellent examples of leadership and courage.
    • 5/5
      Goodwin is a remarkably gifted writer. Beautiful prose. And the stories of some of America’s greatest leaders will inspire you to begin fostering the character traits they so embodied in your own life.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book! Loved the way it was staged. If you love presidental history this is for you.
    • 5/5
      One of the best books to read out there on leadership.
    • 5/5
      A very inspiring book. I enjoyed it thoroughly. It provides a sample of the qualities we should expect from those who are privileged to lead.
    • 4/5
      This is a book that made me slow down and savor what I was reading, which is a change of pace from the fluff that I've read most of this year. Leadership in Turbulent times is a historical fiction/leadership book that recounts how four different presidents handled adversity and hardship. Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson became presidents at trying times. The Great Depression, The Civil War, Civil Rights, and the industrial revolution. Doris Kearns Goodwin does a remarkable job relating the character and leadership styles of each president from childhood through early politics and all the way through the White House. None of these men were saints and most suffered many setbacks and failures, but learning how they overcame those as well as their successes is what makes this book great. Utterly fascinating and compelling. Leadership has many styles and reading the profiles on these four leaders is a feast for the heart and mind.
    • 4/5
      Goodwin looks at critical times in the Lincoln, Teddy & Franklin Roosevelt and LBJ presidencies. She builds a little history into what made each man - the road each traveled to the presidency and how those roads built their character and decision making. She then looks at the critical moment in each's reign and finally their final days on earth as each wrestled with the decisions made. It was a very interesting book, very well written. It left me hungry for more of each man than the small chapters of their presidency covered by this book, but a complete presidential biography was not the purpose of the book but rather how difficult times challenged them and how they rose above it to lead a nation through its ills.
    • 5/5
      In this work, Goodwin charts the lives of four influential US Presidents – Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. Having written leading biographies previously of each of these, she combines her insights to profile the character of leadership, at least in an American form. She distills prior deep study of these presidents into an interwoven narrative that highlights how their personal narratives enabled them to meet the challenges of their times of leadership. In so doing, she leads us to understand how we can learn from and be formed by our life crises. Studying these events hopefully molds us readers to lead in our moments in our situations.Most educated American adults know something of these leaders’ presidential history. What Goodwin does most effectively is to correlate their behavior in office to their individual histories before taking office. Further, she charts how their times after office and their deaths reflected the style of leadership they displayed during their respective seminal crises. As such, she does not merely focus on how each dealt with the crisis at hand; rather, she extends it towards a study of individual character – and the reflected character of the American people.Written during the era of Trump (in which the nature American leadership seems to be questioned), this book displays a historical critique of this new style of “leadership.” By tying her analysis to leaders of change in American history, she seems to tacitly argue that this new style is neither progressive nor definitively American. Each of these presidents were progressive in their time, yet the changes they wrought have become central to subsequent American self-understanding. (Johnson’s principal change, in Goodwin’s telling, is limited to the Civil Rights Acts and does not extend to the Great Society, which had mixed results.) Turbulence marks the current era. What kind of leadership will emerge? Goodwin argues that a knowledge of history ought to inform our response.This book has broad appeal, particularly among Americans and particularly among societal leaders. It entertains. It educates. It ties contemporary discussions to historical events. It discusses themes which most Americans deal with in their everyday lives. How do we choose to conduct our lives? How can we treat our neighbors with dignity? How should we proceed with self-government? Citizens of democracies all face these common problems. Goodwin’s individual biographies of these leaders have won critical accolades like the Pulitzer Prize. This work summarizes this erudition in an acceptable and interesting series of case studies. Almost any reader can learn how to navigate the future better through this map of well-told history.
    • 4/5
      The instructive nature of history feels apparent in this volume by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Comparing the lives, presidencies, and leadership styles of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, and LBJ, this text calls attention to the similarities between these remarkable presidents, but also displays the differences in leadership each man. Still, each of these presidents suited their own tumultuous era and used their unique and hard-won abilities to guide the nation they governed. This book is not a summary of each man life or presidency; rather, significant events are examined in detail and other happenings are unmentioned. Those seeking comprehensive histories of any of these presidents should likely seek another book. However, this thoughtful examination of leadership in American history is a book well suited to the present and is a volume I would recommend for those seeking both history and context for contemporary American politics.
    • 4/5
      Doris Kearns Goodwin returns to her favorite subjects: Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and LBJ to illustrate the qualities that make an effective leader. Although remarkable different in their backgrounds all four men possessed a fierce ambition to succeed and make their mark upon society, as well as an uncommon ability to face and overcome adversity in their personal lives. This book should be required reading for every politician in this country.
    • 3/5
      At times, I felt like Goodwin just combed through her previous books and research to put together this study of leadership. At other times, I was very interested by what she had to say about how Lincoln, the two Roosevelts and LBJ rose to the challenges they faced or why, in the case of LBJ, he didn't stop the escalation in Vietnam.
    • 4/5
      In Leadership in Turbulent Times, Doris Kearns Goodwin seeks to uncover what traits make a leader of nations using Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson as case studies. She writes, “These four extended examples show how their leadership fit the historical moment as a key fits a lock… While there is neither a master key to leadership nor a common lock of historical circumstance, we can detect a certain family resemblance of leadership traits as we trace the alignment of leadership capacity within its historical context” (pg. xv). To this point, Goodwin argues, “These four men form a family tree, a lineage of leadership that spans the entirety of our country’s history” (pg. xvi). Describing leadership qualities, Goodwin cites Lincoln’s natural empathy, Theodore Roosevelt’s intellect and ability to step outside his world of privilege, Franklin Roosevelt’s temperament, and Lyndon Johnson’s persistence.Goodwin writes of Abraham Lincoln’s early foray into politics, “Lincoln revealed early on a quality that would characterize his leadership for the rest of his life – a willingness to acknowledge errors and learn from his mistakes. The pact Lincoln offered the people – the promise of unremitting labor in return for their support – was for him a covenant… From the start, the destiny he sought was no simple craving for individual fame and distinction; his ambitions were, first and always, linked with the people” (pg. 12). Even in defeat, Goodwin demonstrates how Lincoln set an example for leadership, writing, “Lincoln voiced a sentiment that would become a refrain in his troubled passage to middle age: ‘How hard – Oh how hard it is to die and leave one’s country no better than if one had never lived’” (pg. 105). Further describing setbacks, Goodwin writes, “There are points of likeness in the seminal disasters that befell both Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt in the early stages of their careers. Both crucibles were precipitated by a combination of intimate, personal crises and public repudiation that seemed to crush their core ambitions. Both swore off politics or at least paid lip service to deserting politics forever. Both suffered severe depressions. Healing change had to come from within while they waited for the historical kaleidoscope to turn” (pg. 130). Discussing the onset of FDR’s polio, Goodwin writes, “Franklin Roosevelt’s ordeal provides the most clear-cut paradigm of how a devastating crucible experience can, against all expectation and logic, lead to significant growth, intensified ambition, and enlarged gifts for leadership” (pg. 162). She writes of FDR’s leadership and frankness during the First 100 Days, “If ever an argument can be made for the conclusive importance of the character and intelligence of the leader in fraught times, at home and abroad, it will come to rest on the broad shoulders of Franklin Delano Roosevelt” (pg. 305). Goodwin credits “Johnson’s gargantuan ambition, driving temperament, and unique legislative experience” for his early Presidential successes (pg. 327). She does, however, discuss the paradox of his success at domestic policy and failings in foreign policy, specifically his handling of Vietnam. Writes Goodwin, “From the first day of his presidency, when engaging domestic affairs and civil rights, Johnson had a concrete vision of the goals he wanted to achieve and a clear strategy for how to rouse Congress and the people to attain those goals. By contrast, when he drew his countrymen into a ground war in Vietnam he was motivated less by a set of positive goals than by a powerful sense of what he wanted to avoid – failure, loss, and a humiliating defeat for himself and his country” (pg. 338-339).Like much of Goodwin’s work, Leadership in Turbulent Times is primarily a synthesis of scholarship on the four presidents and theories of leadership, relying largely on the “great men doing great things” formula of writing history. That said, the work itself is highly readable with insights that both academics and non-academics may find useful, especially in applying the lessons Goodwin extracts from her subjects’ lives. Goodwin discusses Lincoln’s philosophy, writing, “He considered history, an understanding of how we came to be, the best vehicle for understanding who we are and where we are going” (pg. 368). Such a philosophy guides Goodwin’s focus in this work. This Easton Press edition is gorgeously leather-bound with gilt page edges and signed by the author. It makes a lovely gift for recent college or university graduates studying history.
    • 5/5
      Excellent description of our past leaders.
    • 4/5
      Goodwin divides the book into three sections that cover ambition, adversity, and leading. Each section has how Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson approached the topic, outside influences, and how it influences their presidency. Since this is based on actual historic figure, some information may be familiar to readers. What is different and stands out is the ability the reader will have to identify the contrasts and similarities between the four. Extensive notes and index is provided.
    • 5/5
      Good assembly of ideal examples of presidents exhibiting true leadership! Lincoln,Teddy Roosevelt,FDR,and most impressively,LBJ.
    • 5/5
      Every American voter should read this book or expect the kind of leadership we are suffering through today. Goodwin studies the lives of Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt and LBJ and looks for what makes them great leaders. Some of their overriding principles include intellectual curiosity reading and listening to vast amount of information. They surround themselves with people with different opinions and truly listen to what they have to say. They are also will to change course if necessary. There are many other qualities that are sorely lacking today.
    • 5/5
      Wow. A powerful book, much better listened to than read because of the excellent narrators.Goodwin is a powerful researcher and historian. Although I have read much of Lincoln and his Civil War presidency, I still gleaned more from this book. Teddy Roosevelt meant nothing more to me than his caricature and San Juan Hill--whatever and wherever that was. Franklin Roosevelt was overly familiar, and yet, he too became more alive under Goodwin's hand. And Johnson!I enjoyed the manner in which she broke up the telling of their stories, concentrating on youth, preparation for leadership, presidential leadership, and, for T. Roosevelt and Johnson, the aftermath of the limelight. As an example, I knew that (of course) Lincoln had authored the Emancipation Declaration, but not that it was written so far in advance of the issuance thereof or how much he used his cabinet as a sounding board prior to the final draft. I knew that F. Roosevelt had been undersecretary of the Navy, but no idea that he followed in his Uncle's footprints. Johnson has been forever linked with the sour taste of the war in Vietnam, and although I knew Johnson had his "Great Society," I was unaware of that this meant more to LBJ than pure political pragmatism.The narrators hired by Simon & Schuster brought these four men to life!
    • 4/5
      Excellent book about 4 presidents. I always wonder why she gives FDR a pass on so many of the things he did and did not do before and during the WWII. She is much more critical and balanced when discussing LBJ making him seem much more sympathetic. Worth the read.