Tag Archives: Lincoln

Leadership: In Turbulent Times

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Published: September 18, 2018

Read: May 29, 2021

To be honest, I read this book to see how I stacked up to presidents.  Its not flattering to admit. Until the events of 2020 I had a low regard for presidential or any leadership.  


At some point the human at the top is irrelevant, right? The process and system (checks and balances) put into place supersedes anything that a single actor man can do.  Public polls, the press and the gossip feedback loop of the 24 hour news cycle (featuring twitter) and perpetual internet click bait had me convinced of the lack of agency or impact leaders actually have.

 
At some point during the COVID-19 pandemic, observing a leader focusing intently on proving his critics wrong and maintaining a winning argument, in contrast to attempting to create some connection with the millions watching him on the screen my mind changed. I found myself realizing that perhaps not legislatively but psychic a leader of men must represent those men and there is value to that psychic collective as opposed to just the nuts and bolts of legislation. No matter how large the organization there is calm, or direction, or purpose that can be put into one man who can make a difference.  Coming out of Leadership in Turbulent Times helped me in this regard.

Goodwin separates the portions of the book into the phases of each Presidents career rather than making a section on a single man. The early years, middle phase, and presidential leadership principles are hit for each man.  I presume that much of the material discussed here was already covered in her other books, but based on my remembrances of reading 40 pages of Team of Rivals in 2010,  the Lincoln material at least seems to be reaching further back in time that what that books focus was.  This time phasing of each of the men really is straddling to see how each dealt through phases of their own life.  From early days to the peak of their presidential contributions to leadership and then their post presidential years.

Goodwin frames Leadership as a guiding framework or case study more than a direct history.  Digging further into the working mental modes of each of the presidents and highlighting their differing personalities which is shown more in the early years and reinforced later.  Lincoln comes off as a massive depressive who is willing to experiment and shift his positions as he and the country developed.  Teddy Roosevelt singular focus on engaging with the large beasts whether they were physical or metaphorical. Franklin Delano Roosevelt smiling and laughing with his friends and as his body failed him. Lyndon Johnson working frantically through his life from being an educator to a politician.

Now I’ll write about me again! What is my own leadership style? To grab something and polish it until it’s fit to spit back out. Like Lincoln with the hard piece of metal slowly scratching into it until its bound to the memory for all time. Or am I more Johnson-esque “freeze out”,  showering co workers with affection and assuming performance and loyalty until that fades and then I withdraw entirely.  After reading this book, I would like to be a badass like Teddy Roosevelt, LBJ makes me feel like i don’t work hard enough, Lincoln would be just as depressed as i was and we wouldn’t have any fun, and FDR isn’t someone I want to hang out with no matter how much he lead America through a trying time.

Interesting to note that each of the presidents were connected to the previous in a way. Roosevelt used Lincoln numerous times as a basis, FDR as Theodore as well and Johnson was directly the protege of FDR going forward.

Yet the core of the book is an examination of four men who just happened to be president and analyzing how they dealt with the needs of the office with different strategies.
Self help has run dry for me in my 30s so perhaps history can help


What is well-spoken must be yoked to what is well-thought. And such thought is the product of great labor, “the drudgery of the law”. Without that labor, without that drudgery the most eloquent words lack gravity and power”

Abraham Lincoln


“A second class intellect but a first class temperament”

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. About Franklin Delano Roosevelt


” Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

Theodore Roosevelt


“You have to realize that a politician -a good one – is a strange duck”-

Lyndon Johnson

Lincoln in the Bardo

George Saunders

Written: February 14, 2017

Read: March 28, 2021

As I started with this review, I thought that I should transcribe some quotes here, but ultimately I decided each individual quote taken just in a vacuum would just diminish the impact they had within this novel.  Lincoln in the Bardo is a surreal experience that plays with language and reality and transcending death. Which made it Jake’s beach read pick for the year.

Firstly, I didn’t like this book nearly as much as the short stories i read of Saunders after i read this (I’m writing this review in November 2021).  This book can best be described by me as a meditation.  Various characters are tent-poles of the many ways to live and what level of I suppose penance you need to pay to reconcile your past and become something beyond your life.  Oh and yes, this story does include President Abraham Lincoln.


Without spoiling much, the book is written so different characters change different prose styles which gives this novel a short story collection within a larger arc structure.  Its a novel of death primarily and a story of ghosts( or ghostly people or spirits or something else) grappling with their lives and moving towards some other afterlife.  It has a fantasy pastiche mashed into eastern religion. It left me somewhat unsatisfied but entertained and with a few more ideas floating around. I also am a person who has both prayed and meditated and considered the boundary between the two at the personal level over the years, so I may just not be as open to seeing this as fundamentally new. This is in contrast to when I read Siddartha by Herman Hesse a few years back which did give me a new perspective.

Ok I give up, I’ll put this quote here, this is probably better than any more commentary I can give:


“Tying a shoe; tying a knot on a package; a mouth on yours; a hand on yours; the ending of the day; the beginning of the day; the feeling that there will always be a day ahead. Goodbye, I must now say goodbye to all of it.”

This section comes towards the end of the novel and really gets to one of the core issues (or perhaps a core feature) of Lincoln in the Bardo. Ultimately this book should be read aloud, and towards having someone else read it and talk about, even if the impact it had was not new territory for me.