From the new book: Reinvent Yourself

Chapter Eleven    How to Become a Good  Leader 

Ideas of Dwight D. Eisenhower   Warren Bennis

            There is a question about leadership that has probably been asked  since the days of Julius Caesar and Charlemagne: Are a select few born to be leaders, or can the techniques of leadership be learned and practiced by many? Warren Bennis, Professor of Management at the University of Southern California, believes emphatically that leadership can be learned. He interviewed 90 top leaders across America. They ranged from executives of major corporations to senators, governors, successful athletic coaches, symphony conductors and film directors. He analyzed their “strategies for taking charge” in his book, Leader, co-authored with Burt Nanu.

One of the first steps he recommends is to recognize your strengths and compensate for any weaknesses.  He believes that a positive self-regard is extremely important and you can achieve that by nurturing of skills with discipline – keep developing your own talents.  “It’s the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguished leaders from followers. They seemed to be responsible for their own evolution and even could appropriately be called ‘self-evolvers.’” This capacity is one of the keystones of reinventing yourself.

Here are some answers to questions I posed.

Q. Do successful leaders have certain traits in common?

“Leaders tend to be remarkably well-balanced people. Most are experts in one certain area, such as accounting or engineering or music. But they also teach themselves to be generalists with some knowledge of many fields.

            “Four major themes did become apparent in our interviews with these leaders. They embodied four areas of competency:

1.      Attention through vision

2.      The means to communicate that vision

3.      Positive self-regard

4.      The ability to build trust with associates

Q. What role does vision play in developing leadership?

            “Visions – dreams – create attention and draw others to it. Many leaders are passionate dreamers. They have deeply-felt convictions about what they want to achieve. There’s a quote from Walt Disney on a sign at EPCOT in Orlando, Florida. ‘If you can dream it, you can do it.’ That’s an inspirational thought, but there are many unrealized dreams in the world.  Successful leaders have learned how to communicate their visions to others and inspire participation.

            “These leaders aren’t autocrats who force their ideas on others. Maestro Carlo Giulini talking of his years as conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic said, ‘I explained my views to the orchestra. I did not impose them. The right response, when forced, is not the same as the right response when it comes out of conviction.’”

Q. How do leaders communicate their ideas?

            “Many leaders are very articulate. However, some also found unusual non-verbal ways to communicate. When the famous city planner and developer James Rouse became unhappy with drawings submitted by architects for his Columbia, Maryland project, he illustrated his vision by sending his people on a trip to see some of the best architecture in the world. When actor Robert Redford was directing his first motion picture, Ordinary People, he said to his cinematographers. ‘I want you to listen to this, and I want you to think what a suburban scene would look like if it corresponded to the music.’ Then he played a record of Pachibel’s Canon in D, the theme music that opened the movie.”

Q. How do positive self-image and trust contribute to a leader’s qualities?

            “Most of the best leaders have a positive self-image. This is not an ego thing. They are aware of their capabilities and have the confidence to share power with their colleagues.

            “Positive self-regard allows leaders to be more tolerant of the mistakes and feelings of others. Los Angeles Rams’ John Robinson rarely criticizes any player until that person is completely convinced of the coach’s unlimited confidence in the player’s abilities.

            “Leaders look upon mistakes as learning experiences. Some years ago when a junior executive at IBM became involved in a company venture that lost a great deal of money he offered his resignation to Tom Waters, Jr., the former chairman of IBM. ‘You can’t be serious,’ said Mr. Watson. ‘We’ve just spent $10 million educating you!’”

Q. How can people learn to be leaders?

            “I am convinced that people can teach themselves the skills of leadership. That’s exactly what many of the leaders I interviewed did.  They paid special attention to their own life experiences. They watched others in leadership positions. They also accepted candid feedback from trusted colleagues.

            “Leadership is needed by every strata of our society. The experiences of many of our country’s top leaders have convinced me that leadership skills can be learned.”

            During the second inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower as president of the United States, a picture was taken of two young children. The boy is staring at a little girl who has a black eye. The boy was David Eisenhower and the girl was Julie Nixon who had received the black eye from a minor ski accident.  Fast forward several years and the grandson of President Eisenhower, David, and the daughter of President Nixon, were being married. President Eisenhower was so proud of his grandson that he named his presidential retreat, Camp David. 

            Today David Eisenhower is the director of the Institute for Public Service at the Annenberg Public Policy Center. When I talked with him some years before, he had just written a book about his grandfather as Supreme Commander of the Expeditionary Forces in Europe, Eisenhower at War, 1943-1945.  The book was based on David’s extensive interviews with Dwight D. Eisenhower and with his grandfather’s military colleagues.

I went to David’s pleasant suburban home to talk with him about his grandfather’s leadership qualities as a general and as president of the United States.  David has a deep voice and seems almost like a thinner version of his grandfather. His wife Julie came out to greet me, and with a start I had to remind myself she was the daughter of Richard Nixon. A few minutes later she was on the phone in the kitchen with her mother, Pat Nixon.  Not exactly your typical  household.

I asked David what he had learned about his grandfather during the wartime years.

            “He was suddenly given an unprecedented command over five million people,” David said. “An incredible polyglot force of Americans, British, Polish, French, Norwegian exiles, and later Belgian troops.

            “The command directive he had been given was only about a half page long. It said in effect, ‘win the war.’”

            Only a few months before I had interviewed Warren Bennis.  Now as I listened to David talk about his grandfather, I had a sudden sense of déjà vu.  The General Eisenhower he was describing was almost a mirror image of what Bennis had said about the qualities that make a great leader.         

            Bennis:  “Most leaders have a positive self image.”

David:  “My grandfather was very sure of himself. He had the ability to improvise.”

Bennis: “ Leaders watched others in leadership positions. They also accepted candid feedback from trusted colleagues.”

David:  “He found roles for important people. He preferred people who could solve problems on their own, and he stuck with them.”

Bennis: “Leaders look upon mistakes as learning experiences.”

David:  “My grandfather firmly believed it is wise to give someone a second or third chance because they will know that they were in the wrong and will work twice as hard to get back into the right.”

There were a number of other parallels between my discussions with Warren Bennis and David Eisenhower. As I looked back on them and other conversations with very successful people, I realized there was a universality of certain traits of character. People can learn from each other and learn new ways to repair or reinvent their lives.

David talked about other traits of his grandfather that helped him become a great leader.

“He always assumed the best in people. He had a number of disputes with the British General Montgomery.  But he always assumed that Montgomery was making problems not because he was an egotist but because it was his concept of how British interests should best be served.

“He had never heard a shot fired in anger because he had never served on a battlefield. In World War I and after that war, he held military desk jobs.  But that also meant he did not have any preconceived ideas.  He had to adjust to changing times and become a modern general.  He had all the characteristics of a great battlefield commander. He was physically strong, active in his youth in baseball and football.

“He had a high energy level and was very patient with people. Before the war, he was good friends with General Patton. But Patton while a great warrior sometimes created political problems with the British, particularly with Montgomery, and exceeded his orders in other areas. General Eisenhower had to take a firm hand with him.

“Their initial friendship was obviously weakened.  Patton later wrote to a colleague, ‘A friend in power is a friend lost.’

“My grandfather was a powerful negotiator. Anticipation of problems was one of his strong points.  He tried to involve as many of the key players in major decisions. He felt that anyone left out of the decision process could be a potential opponent of that decision.”

General Eisenhower could also be very mentally strong, even challenging heads of state when he felt they were wrong. Here is an incident David recounts in his book about his grandfather’s war years.

That night Admiral Ramsay telephoned from Portsmouth with the news that Prime Minister Churchill now insisted upon accompanying the invading force across the channel on D-Day. The matter had come up several times that spring, and in each case Eisenhower had discouraged the Prime Minister’s romantic notion. Were Churchill’s ship to be hit by a torpedo or a bomber, at least five neighboring ships would have to come to the rescue – five ships that otherwise would necessarily proceed and concentrate on gunfire support duties and protection of the convoys of troops. According to Ramsay, the Prime Minister seemed “set on the idea.” As Prime Minster and Administrative Chief of the British Navy, Churchill had the power to induct himself into the Navy for the first twenty-four hours of the invasion.

Eisenhower was sympathetic. He told Ramsay he understood Churchill’s natural desire to share the dangers of the invasion force. But Churchill’s presence would be an intolerable burden and disruption. Eisenhower asked Ramsay to tell Churchill his request had been “disapproved.”

Forty-eight hours later Churchill petulantly decided not to accompany the force ashore. Meanwhile, King George had said that if Prime Minister Churchill went, the King would feel obligated to go also. In his memoirs, Churchill made it plain that he deferred to the Crown, not to Eisenhower.

Reinventing yourself

Think about:

Everyone who heads a family, a Boy or Girl Scout troop, a business or civic group can benefit from leadership skills. What’s your “leadership score?” Do you have a positive self image?  Do you try to learn from the mistakes of others and your own? Do you accept candid criticisms? If you answered a qualified “no” to any of these, what can you do to change your attitude or your actions - starting today? 

Take action:

Real leadership is not prodding or pulling people. It’s giving them a vision, an idea they can share. Then giving them ideas and encouragement every step of the way toward that goal.

Words to consider: 

“Real leaders are ordinary people with extraordinary determinations.”

John Seaman Garns

Learn more about Dwight D. Eisenhower, the remarkable man who led the world's largest Army and the United States

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