21 Great Leaders: Learn Their Lessons, Improve Your Influence (32 page)
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Authors: Pat Williams
In 1922, thanks to Truman’s wartime friendship with James Pendergast, Truman became acquainted with James’s uncle, political boss Tom Pendergast. With the aid of the Kansas City Democratic Party political machine, Truman won election as a County Court judge. He won a presiding County Court judgeship in 1926, was reelected in 1930, and was appointed Missouri’s director for the Federal Re-Employment Program (one of FDR’s New Deal programs) in 1933. In that position, Truman became acquainted with FDR’s longtime friend Harry Hopkins.
In 1934, Truman was elected United States senator from Missouri. Widely known as a machine politician beholden to Tom Pendergast, he was often referred to as “the senator from Pendergast.” This derisive title chafed at Truman. Even worse, he once attended a political dinner in which the evening’s entertainment was provided by a ventriloquist. The dummy joked that his relationship to the ventriloquist was like Senator Truman’s relationship to Tom Pendergast. The audience roared. Truman wasn’t amused.
5
In 1939, Pendergast was indicted for failing to pay taxes on bribes. Though Truman was not involved in the scandal, his association with Pendergast left him vulnerable to a primary challenge. Truman faced two opponents in the 1940 primary. Had he only faced one challenger, he would have lost, but the two challengers split the anti-Pendergast vote. Truman went on to win reelection.
In late 1940, Truman chaired a Senate committee investigating war profiteering. His leadership of the Truman Committee elevated him to national prominence. His efforts reportedly saved the government up to $15 billion—and landed him on the cover of
Time
. These accomplishments eradicated the stain of the Pendergast scandal.
In 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democratic Party needed a replacement for Vice President Henry Wallace. The liberal and labor-friendly Wallace had been the perfect FDR running mate during the Great Depression. But the leftist views of Wallace were seen as a bad match for the war years. Truman’s war record and political accomplishments made him the perfect running mate for the times.
The FDR-Truman ticket won by a landslide. Truman was inaugurated as vice president on January 20, 1945. Throughout the campaign and in the opening months of his vice presidency, Truman had very little contact with President Roosevelt. As a result, he didn’t realize that Roosevelt’s health was failing.
HE
B
UCK
S
TOPS
H
ERE
”
On April 12, 1945, about three months after the inauguration, the nation was stunned by the news that President Roosevelt had died of a massive stroke. After fewer than a hundred days’ as vice president, Harry S. Truman found himself the chief executive of a nation at war. During his brief time on the job, he had received no briefings on matters related to the war. He had not even been told about the existence of America’s secret weapon, the atomic bomb.
The day after taking office as president, Truman told reporters, “Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don’t know if you fellas ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.”
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President Truman felt the weight of the challenges he faced as FDR’s successor. Yet he knew that the times called for bold leadership. Historian David McCullough records that Truman told his cabinet that he “welcomed their advice. He did not doubt that they would differ with him if they felt it necessary, but final decisions would be his, and he expected their support once decisions were made.”
7
Truman presided over the Allied victory in Europe; then he made the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war in the Pacific. In the postwar period, he dealt with record-high inflation, a crippling national railway strike, the creation of the United Nations, the beginning of the Cold War, implementing the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the Berlin Airlift, recognition of the state of Israel, the Korean War, and more.
In 1960, eight years after leaving office, Truman said, “I have been asked whether I have any regrets about any of the major decisions I had to make as President. I have none.”
8
When asked if he agonized over the atomic bomb decision, Truman always replied that the decision was not complicated. The atomic bomb, he said, “was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness. The dropping of the bombs stopped the war [and] saved millions of lives. It was a purely military decision.”
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Much more difficult, he said, was the decision to enter the Korean War.
Though Truman appeared to make decisions quickly and firmly, historian Alan Axelrod notes that Truman was never hasty:
There was never anything “automatic” about the decisions he made. But he was so incisive and absolute a decision maker that it often appeared as if he breezed through the process. He was not a man who agonized, at least not visibly. The president’s job, Truman believed, was to make decisions, and he was very good at his job. Instead of a nameplate on his desk, he had his famous sign proclaiming, “The Buck Stops Here.” He explained in 1952: “The papers may circulate around the government for a while but they finally reach this desk. And then, there’s no place else for them to go. The president—whoever he is—has to decide. He can’t pass the buck to anybody.”…
The idea, of course, was always to make the
right
decision. But this was less important than making
some
decision…. Truman wrote, “Presidents have to make decisions if they’re going to get anywhere, and those presidents who couldn’t make decisions are the ones who caused all the trouble.” Of course, the
right
decision was the best decision, but the worst possible outcome did not result from a
wrong
decision. It resulted from the failure to decide.
10
Many historians have studied the presidency of Harry S. Truman, seeking the secret of his bold, decisive approach to leadership. But Truman has explained his philosophy quite simply in his book
Mr. Citizen:
Whenever I felt a mistake had been made, I always tried to remedy the mistake by making another decision. Everybody makes mistakes and the important thing is to correct them, once they are discovered. Sometimes you have a choice of evils, in which case you try to take the course that is likely to bring the least harm.
I am not one who believes it does any good to cry over past mistakes. You have got to keep looking ahead and going straight ahead all the time, making decisions and correcting the situation as you go along. This calls for a fundamental policy, a basic outlook, for the making of major foreign and domestic decisions. Otherwise the operations of the government would be reduced to improvisation—and inevitable trouble….
The man who keeps his ear to the ground to find out what is popular will be in trouble. I usually say that a man whose heart is in the right place and who is informed is not likely to go very far wrong when he has to act.
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Our political leaders, corporate leaders, and religious leaders face crises on every hand. The world cries out for bold leadership. As our civilization is increasingly rocked by threats of war and terrorism, economic upheaval and social collapse, moral corruption and spiritual malaise, we see one leader after another failing the boldness test. Our government is paralyzed by political division and indecision. The people around us are like sheep without a shepherd. They look for leaders—and find none.
We need leaders who are complete in all Seven Sides of Leadership. But we especially need leaders who are strong in the Sixth Side of Leadership, leaders who are bold, courageous, and decisive. We need leaders with the boldness of Harry S. Truman.
Who will step up? Why not you?
HE
L
EADERSHIP
L
ESSONS OF
H
ARRY
S. T
RUMAN
Truman was not a born leader. He had to acquire leadership skills the same way you and I do: experience, testing under fire, making tough decisions, learning from mistakes, and seeking bigger, tougher challenges all the time. Here are some of the lessons in bold leadership we can learn from the example of Harry S. Truman.
1.
Don’t let your “limitations” limit you
. Truman never went out for sports, was hampered by poor eyesight, and never went to college. As a businessman, he went bankrupt. He refused to let his “limitations” limit his future. I don’t recommend cheating on your eye exam, but Truman showed he was willing to do anything to achieve a military career. Once in the military, he excelled as a leader. He discovered depths of character and leadership ability he never knew he had. What are the “limitations” that hold you back as a leader? And what can you do to overcome them?
2.
You don’t have to be liked—but must be respected
. When Truman took command of D Battery, he knew he was dealing with a poorly disciplined unit. He intended to change that, so he called together his sergeants and corporals and laid down the law. It was essentially the old “my way or the highway” speech—and after Truman delivered his ultimatum, he got the cooperation he demanded.
Many leaders fail because they have a neurotic need to be liked. I’m not recommending that you become a tyrant. But a bold leader must make tough decisions—decisions that will make you about as popular as a skunk at a garden party. Leadership is not a popularity contest. Sometimes your harshest critics will be the very people you are trying to help.
Harry S. Truman was not always popular as president. In fact, he very nearly lost the 1948 election. Today, however, he is widely regarded as one of our greatest presidents. If you believe you’re on the right path, stay on it. If you lead boldly and decide firmly, you may not always be popular, but odds are, you will ultimately be respected.
3.
To increase your boldness as a leader, continually accept bigger and more difficult leadership challenges
. For Truman, leadership was a series of stepping-stones up a mountainside, leading to the pinnacle. He had to follow that path, step-by-step, stone by stone. He had to go to France and learn leadership under fire. He had to try his hand in business—and even failure taught him something about himself. He got into politics, and with each new position, he increased his ability to lead boldly. When thrust into the White House by the death of FDR, he may not have felt prepared to lead. But Truman had the ability to make bold decisions and to stick by them. That’s why Harry S. Truman was the indispensable leader for his times.
Are you growing in your leadership skills and strengths? Are you accepting the leadership challenges that come your way? Are you following the stepping-stones that will lead you to your leadership destiny?
4.
Don’t dither
—
decide
. Truman understood that a failure to decide was far worse than any wrong decision he might make. A wrong decision can be corrected; there’s no way to correct indecision.
Truman also understood that good decision making is guided by principles—what Truman called, “a fundamental policy, a basic outlook.” When you have a framework of values and principles to guide your thinking, decision making becomes much easier. Your options become clearer. You make high-quality decisions based on sound and proven principles.
The leader who tries to make decisions without a clear set of principles must make it up as he goes along, basing his decisions on all the wrong considerations: Which decision will make me popular? Which option will benefit me the most in the short term? Which decision requires the least effort to implement? Which is the least risky option?
When your decisions align with your guiding principles, you can be confident you’re making the right decision. Every decision you make will be firm, final, and confident. At the end of each day, when your head hits the pillow, you’ll sleep well, knowing you did your best and you have no regrets.
There has been a lot of talk lately about the burdens of the Presidency. Decisions that the President has to make often affect the lives of tens of millions of people around the world, but that does not mean that they should take longer to make. Some men can make decisions and some cannot. Some men fret and delay under criticism. I used to have a saying that applies here, and I note that some people have picked it up, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
H
ARRY
S. T
RUMAN
M
ARGARET
T
HATCHER
The Lady’s Not for Turning
Being prime minister is a lonely job…. You cannot lead from the crowd
.
M
ARGARET
T
HATCHER
I
t was nearly three in the morning on October 12, 1984.
Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, was working late in her room at the Grand Hotel in Brighton. As she was putting the finishing touches on the speech she was to deliver the next day—