Read 21 Great Leaders: Learn Their Lessons, Improve Your Influence Online
Authors: Pat Williams
As unemployment soared and the banking system collapsed, his candidacy was an easy sell. FDR reached out to disaffected minorities and union members, creating a new majority coalition that defines the Democratic Party to this day. He won in a landslide.
When Roosevelt took office, a quarter of the workforce was jobless. Farmers lost everything as the bottom dropped out of food prices. Panic was everywhere. Roosevelt met the challenge with a three-pronged strategy of Relief, Recovery, and Reform—relief programs to alleviate human misery; recovery programs to prop up the economy; and reform programs to provide long-term solutions to the Depression.
Historians and economists still debate whether his recovery and reform programs pulled the country out of the Depression—or prolonged it. One thing is beyond dispute: Roosevelt’s social programs provided sustenance for people who had lost everything, including their confidence in the future.
Paul F. Boller Jr., in
Presidential Anecdotes
, tells how Roosevelt’s political opponents had to warn each other lest they be taken in by the famed FDR charm. When a New York Republican leader learned that a friend was going to visit then-Governor Roosevelt at the governor’s mansion, he almost blew a gasket. “Lookout you don’t make the mistake of liking Roosevelt,” he warned. “I’ve seen people taken in by it.”
“By what?” the other man asked, puzzled.
“By a perfectly grand political personality, you fool!” snapped the party leader.
FDR’s personal magnetism was undeniable, and he used his people skills to serve those who were suffering and needy, just as Dr. Endicott Peabody had taught him.
8
Upon reaching the White House, Roosevelt did all he could to make it the people’s house.
Roosevelt believed God had given him the power and position of the presidency so that he could improve the people’s lives. One of his first orders as president was that his staff was to be polite and helpful to anyone who phoned the White House for help. Staffers were to listen to the problem then find a way to assist. It was FDR’s way of living out the ideals Dr. Peabody had taught him. Eleanor Roosevelt recalled that after FDR’s death, she received hundreds of letters from people describing how FDR and his staff had shown them kindness during the worst days of the Great Depression.
9
Roosevelt did not see himself as promoting a political agenda. He believed he was simply doing what had to be done to lift people out of their misery—hardworking people who had fallen on hard times through no fault of their own.
Once a reporter tried to pin him down about his political ideology. “Mr. President,” the reporter asked, “are you a Communist?”
“No.”
“Are you a capitalist?”
“No.”
“Are you a socialist?”
“No.”
“In that case, sir, just what
is
your political philosophy?”
“Philosophy? Philosophy!” Roosevelt snapped. “I am a Christian and a Democrat—that’s all.”
10
An indignant socialite once complained that FDR was “a traitor to his class.” The remark was picked up in the national press. It was intended as an insult, but Roosevelt wore it as a badge of honor. Though born to wealth and privilege, he understood that America is not about the privileges of position, but fairness and equality. When the word got out that “high society” saw Roosevelt as “a traitor to his class,” people loved him all the more.
Sometimes Roosevelt’s New Deal programs created personality clashes within his administration. He had to apply his people skills to keep his aides and cabinet members focused on serving the people instead of serving their own egos.
Two of the most important relief programs under the New Deal were the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Public Works Administration (PWA). The WPA was headed by Harry Hopkins, one of FDR’s closest friends (he had served in the New York governor’s office). WPA jobs generally went to people who were unemployed. The Public Works Administration, headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, also created government jobs, but applicants were not required to be needy.
Because the two projects competed for the same funding, administrators Hopkins and Ickes were locked in a continual feud. President Roosevelt repeatedly brokered peace between the two men, even taking them on a cruise of the Potomac on the presidential yacht. He hoped they would get to know each other and end their feud. No such luck.
In May 1936, a newspaper headline indicated that Ickes’s future in the administration was in doubt. Ickes blew up. He cornered President Roosevelt in the Oval Office and complained that Hopkins was plotting against him—and he accused FDR of collusion with Hopkins.
“Harold,” the president said ominously, “you’re being childish.”
Ickes stormed out. After cooling down, he realized he’d been foolish—and he’d probably trashed his White House career. That night Ickes recorded his regrets in his journal, writing, “I responded hotly. I never thought I would talk to a President of the United States the way I talked to President Roosevelt last night.”
But Roosevelt had no plans to fire Ickes. He knew Ickes was hot-headed by nature. It would do him good to suffer for a while.
A few days later, during a cabinet meeting, FDR singled Ickes out in front of everyone. Ickes was scheduled to testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee about the PWA. Roosevelt warned Ickes not to disparage Harry Hopkins or the WPA in front of the committee.
Ickes felt humiliated. President Roosevelt had just taken him to the woodshed in front of his peers. It was a public shaming, and Ickes could see out of the corner of his eye that some of his colleagues enjoyed his discomfiture. Yet Ickes could not deny he had it coming.
After the cabinet meeting, Ickes tried to get a few moments in private with the president so he could apologize—but FDR wouldn’t see him. Ickes’s remorse turned to outrage. He was sure the president planned to fire him. So, in a white-hot fury, he typed up his resignation letter, signed it, and sent it to the president’s attention.
The next day, Ickes was in the White House dining room, having lunch and feeling sorry for himself. He looked up and saw the president approaching in his wheelchair. The look in FDR’s eyes was part anger, part hurt. The president handed Ickes a handwritten memorandum:
Dear Harold
—
1. PWA is not “repudiated.”
2. PWA is not “ended.”
3. I did not “make it impossible for you to go before the committee.”
4. I have not indicated lack of confidence
.
5. I have full confidence in you
.
6. You and I have the same big objectives
.
7. You are needed, to carry on a big common task
.
8. Resignation not accepted!
Your affectionate friend
,
Franklin D. Roosevelt
.
That letter was a masterful demonstration of Franklin Roosevelt’s people skills. It was the perfect balance of tenderness and toughness—and FDR achieved his objective. Ickes learned his lesson and later reflected on how his boss had handled the situation:
“What could a man do with a President like that! Of course I stayed.”
11
The Ickes-Hopkins episode is a practical example of one of FDR’s own leadership maxims: “Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter.”
12
Frances Perkins admired the people skills of FDR. She wrote, “His capacity to inspire and encourage…was beyond dispute. I, and everyone else, came away from an interview with the President feeling better. It was not that he had solved my problem or given me a clear direction which I could follow blindly, but that he had made me more cheerful, stronger, more determined to do [my job]…. This is very important in the leadership of a democracy.”
13
During his presidency, Franklin D. Roosevelt owned two cars equipped with hand controls so that he could drive them without the use of his legs. Both cars also give us a fascinating window into FDR’s people skills.
The first specially equipped car Roosevelt owned was a 1931 Plymouth PA Phaeton, built by the Chrysler Corporation (“phaeton” refers to an automobile body type that is open, windowless, and has no weather protection). A Chrysler designer named W. F. Chamberlain created the hand controls, and Mr. Chamberlain and a mechanic personally delivered the car to the White House. Mr. Chamberlain later told the story of his encounter with FDR to author Dale Carnegie.
“When I called at the White House,” Chamberlain said, “the President was extremely pleasant and cheerful. He called me by name, made me feel very comfortable, and particularly impressed me with the fact that he was vitally interested in things I had to show him and tell him…. He remarked: ‘I think it is marvelous…. I’d love to have the time to tear it down and see how it works.’ ”
A crowd gathered around, including FDR’s wife, Eleanor, and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. They all wanted to see the president’s new car. Chamberlain instructed the president in the operation of the hand controls. Then FDR said, “Well, Mr. Chamberlain, I have been keeping the Federal Reserve Board waiting thirty minutes. I guess I had better get back to work.” The mechanic who accompanied Chamberlain was shy and hung back, but FDR sought him out, shook his hand, and thanked him by name.
14
No wonder FDR was elected to four terms as president! The man was loaded with people skills. He made sure to call Chamberlain and the mechanic by name (every leader should acquire that habit). He praised Chamberlain in front of everyone (public praise is a huge self-esteem builder). He took a vital interest in all of the special features Mr. Chamberlain had added to the car (taking an interest in people’s achievements lets them know you value them). If you want a reputation for charm and charisma, study the people skills of FDR.
The second specially equipped car Roosevelt owned was a 1936 Ford Phaeton. FDR used that car to enhance his people skills. The biggest obstacle Roosevelt faced in dealing with world leaders was his physical disability. He felt that confronting a prime minister or a dictator from a wheelchair made him look weak. So Roosevelt came up with an ingenious way of increasing his leadership stature: he drove a car.
By the late 1930s, Roosevelt had replaced the hand-controlled Plymouth with a hand-controlled Ford Phaeton (he liked the phaeton body design because it was lightweight, open, and fast). It was against Secret Service rules for President Roosevelt to drive—but how could the Secret Service order the boss not to drive if he wanted to?
In June 1939, when President Roosevelt hosted England’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, for a weekend at his Hyde Park estate, he treated them to a ride in his Ford. FDR himself did the driving—and he drove
fast
. The Queen Mother later described that ride as more frightening than the London blitz. She told journalist Conrad Black:
President Roosevelt drove us in his car that was adapted to his use, requiring great dexterity with his hands. Motorcycle police cleared the road ahead of us but the president pointed out sights, waived his cigarette holder about, turned the wheel, and operated the accelerator and the brake all with his hands. He was conversing more than watching the road and drove at great speed. There were several times when I thought we could go right off the road and tumble down the hills. It was frightening, but quite exhilarating. It was a relief to get to the picnic.
15
(The picnic, by the way, was an all-American repast of hot dogs and baked beans, with strawberry shortcake for dessert.)
16
Roosevelt merged his people skills with his driving skills—and in the process he replaced the image of a wheelchair-bound paraplegic with the image of a strong, adventurous leader who is going places fast. The King and Queen Mother probably had no idea that FDR was deliberately altering their mental image of him. But if they had come to America expecting to find him in a wheelchair with a shawl around his shoulders, he dispelled that image in a hurry.
Roosevelt had a similar welcome ready for Winston Churchill in June 1942 (this was their second meeting; the first had been in December 1941, not long after the attack on Pearl Harbor). Author Robert Cross describes Churchill’s arrival:
As the small plane carrying Winston Churchill banked over the majestic Hudson River, President Roosevelt waited patiently below in the driver’s seat of his blue, hand-controlled Ford. The plane bumped as it landed on the Hackensack airfield near Hyde Park…. After greeting his English friend, FDR drove Churchill around his Duchess County estate, talking business and giving the prime minister more than a few scares as the president “poised and backed on the grass verges of the precipices over the Hudson,” and drove his car through fields and woods, successfully playing hide-and-seek with his Secret Service guards.
17
Again, FDR had a serious purpose in scaring the daylights out of visiting dignitaries. After sharing a wild, frightening ride with President Roosevelt, Churchill knew he was dealing with a man of strength, daring, and courage—not a wheelchair-bound invalid. Roosevelt used his specially equipped Ford as a symbol of his leadership—and his formidable people skills.
One of the toughest challenges for Roosevelt’s people skills was Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. In 1943, Roosevelt flew to Tehran for a summit meeting with Churchill and Stalin. When the two leaders were introduced, Roosevelt found Stalin to be cold and unfriendly. Roosevelt tried working his charm on Stalin, but the Russian leader was made of stone. For the first three days of their summit, Roosevelt could find no way to establish trust between himself and Stalin.