Leadership: In Turbulent Times

Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“After five decades of magisterial output, Doris Kearns Goodwin leads the league of presidential historians. Insight is her imprint.”—USA TODAY

“A book like Leadership should help us raise our expectations of our national leaders, our country and ourselves.”—The Washington Post

“We can only hope that a few of Goodwin’s many readers will find in her subjects’ examples a margin of inspiration and a resolve to steer the country to a better place.”—The New York Times Book Review

In this culmination of five decades of acclaimed studies in presidential history, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin offers an illuminating exploration of the early development, growth, and exercise of leadership.

Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader?

In Leadership, 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.

No common pattern describes the trajectory of leadership. Although set apart in background, abilities, and temperament, these men shared a fierce ambition and a deep-seated resilience that enabled them to surmount uncommon hardships. 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.

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.An Amazon Best Book of September 2018: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin demonstrates how leaders are made, not born, as she thoughtfully explores the highs and lows of four U.S. presidents who faced moments of horrific national crisis. Goodwin’s clean, assured sentences set the stage as each future president discovers within himself the desire to enter politics, the calamitous blows that knocked each one down, and how they tackled the struggles that tore at the sinews of the country. Most fascinating is Goodwin’s revelations about how very differently Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson approached not only their political careers but how they developed the character traits that helped them see—or make—a path toward a critical response that many others disagreed with. Lincoln’s delivery of the Emancipation Proclamation, Theodore Roosevelt’s handling of labor strikes, FDR’s battle against the Great Depression in his first 100 days, and Johnson’s prioritization of civil rights while a nation mourned were actions that could have ripped the country further apart but eventually bound it together and strengthened its democratic foundations. The rare weakness within Leadership: In Turbulent Times is the outlining of specific qualities, such as “Take the measure of the man” and “Set a deadline and drive full-bore to meet it,” that are meant to distill leadership wisdom into bullet points, like contemporary business books. Goodwin’s strength is in the rich context she provides as she shows that great leaders develop in dissimilar ways but ultimately have a vision they reach for and rely on when times are at their most turbulent. —Adrian Liang, Amazon Book Review

中文：

书名：Leadership: In Turbulent Times

《纽约时报》 BESTSELLER

在50年的权威产出之后，多丽丝·卡恩斯·古德温领导着总统历史学家联盟。洞察力是她的印记。USA TODAY

“一本像这样的书 Leadership 应该有助于我们提高对国家领导人、我们的国家和我们自己的期望。《华盛顿邮报》

我们只能希望古德温众多读者中的一小部分人会从她的主题例子中找到灵感的余地和带领国家走向更好地方的决心。《纽约时报》书评

普利策奖获得者多丽丝·卡恩斯·古德温对总统历史上50年来广受好评的研究达到了顶峰，作者多丽丝·卡恩斯·古德温对总统早期的发展、成长和领导力的行使进行了富有启发性的探索。

领导者是天生的还是后天养成的？野心从何而来？逆境如何影响领导力的成长？是领导者创造了时代，还是时代造就了领导者？

In Leadership古德温以她最密切研究的四位总统–亚伯拉罕·林肯、西奥多·罗斯福、富兰克林·D·罗斯福和林登·B·约翰逊(民权)–为例，展示了他们是如何认识到自己的领导品质，并被其他人认可为领导者的。通过回顾他们第一次进入公共生活，我们遇到了他们，当时他们的道路充满了困惑、恐惧和希望。

Leadership 讲述了他们如何遭遇戏剧性的逆转，扰乱了他们的生活，并有可能永远粉碎他们的雄心。尽管如此，他们都适合面对各自时代的轮廓和困境。

没有共同的模式来描述领导力的轨迹。尽管在背景、能力和气质上有所不同，但这些人都有强烈的野心和根深蒂固的韧性，使他们能够克服不同寻常的困难。在最好的情况下，这四个国家都受到一种道德目的感的指导。在面临巨大挑战的时候，他们能够调动自己的才华，扩大他人的机会和生活。

这项开创性的工作为每个领域有抱负的和成熟的领导者提供了一个可访问的和必要的路线图。在当今两极分化的世界里，这些真实领导力的故事在恐惧和分裂的时代具有特别的紧迫性。2018年9月亚马逊最佳图书： 普利策奖获得者多丽丝·卡恩斯·古德温展示了领导人是如何培养出来的，而不是天生的，她深思熟虑地探索了四位面临可怕国家危机时刻的美国总统的起伏。古德温干净、自信的句子为每一位未来的总统奠定了基础，因为他发现自己内心有进入政坛的渴望，发现了让每个人倒下的灾难性打击，以及他们如何应对撕裂这个国家支柱的斗争。最令人着迷的是古德温揭示了亚伯拉罕·林肯、西奥多·罗斯福、富兰克林·D·罗斯福和林登·B·约翰逊是如何截然不同地对待自己的政治生涯，以及他们是如何发展出帮助他们看到或创造出一条通往批判性回应的道路的，这一点其他许多人都不同意。林肯发表的《解放宣言》，西奥多·罗斯福对劳工罢工的处理，罗斯福上任头100天与大萧条的斗争，以及约翰逊在举国哀悼时将民权放在首位，这些都是本可以使美国进一步分裂的行动，但最终将美国团结在一起，并加强了其民主基础。内心罕见的弱点 领导力：在动荡的时代 是对具体品质的概述，比如衡量人的标准，设定最后期限并全力以赴完成目标，这些品质旨在将领导力智慧提炼成要点，就像当代商业书籍一样。古德温的优势在于她提供的丰富背景，因为她表明，伟大的领导者以不同的方式发展，但最终都有一个愿景，在时代最动荡的时候，他们会去追求和依赖。 –亚马逊书评禤浩焯亮