The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from Roosevelt to Clinton - Hardcover

Greenstein, Fred I.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684827336 ISBN 13: 9780684827339

Publisher: Free Press, 2000

Synopsis

A scholar specializing in the study of the U.S. presidency takes a close-up look at the leadership style and strategy of American presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, assessing each in six general categories--communication, organization, natural skill, vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence.

About this title

About the Author

Fred I. Greenstein is Professor of Politics at Princeton University and Director of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School program in leadership studies.

Reviews

What makes a successful president? Greenstein (The Hidden-Hand Presidency), a noted Princeton political scientist, attempts to answer that question by examining the terms of every chief executive of the last 70 years. He considers them in six categories: political communication, organizational capacity, political skill, vision, cognitive style and emotional intelligence. FDR receives high marks almost across the board; Eisenhower wins the prize for organization and Reagan for vision. In Greenstein's view, "emotional intelligence"--which is his shorthand for maturity and levelheadedness--is the most important attribute: "In its absence, all else may turn to ashes." As negative examples, he points to the terms of LBJ and Nixon, whose impressive respective domestic and foreign achievements were all but destroyed by their stubborn paranoia and mercurial tempers. Unfortunately, the brevity of Greenstein's case leads to some rather cliched observations, evident in such hackneyed chapter titles as "The Paradox of Richard Nixon" and "The Highly Tactical Leadership of George Bush." But what Greenstein loses in depth, he gains in contrast, and his most illuminating lessons come when he weighs the advantages of one president's style against another's (such as Eisenhower's military-like staff organization vs. the freewheeling chaos of the Clinton White House). This book may not become the executive tutorial that Greenstein seems to hope, but it is nonetheless a concise, interesting analysis from one our most knowledgeable presidential scholars. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

American presidents are repeatedly evaluated, and this work by Princeton political scientist Greenstein (The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader) systematically assesses each modern president from FDR to Clinton. Greenstein bases his chronological evaluation of the Chief Executives on six factors: public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence. Psychologically healthiest, he concludes, were Eisenhower, Ford, and Bush. He finds LBJ, Nixon, Carter, and Clinton "emotionally handicapped" and notes that FDR, Truman, JFK, and Reagan all experienced "emotional undercurrents that did not significantly impair their leadership." The author's modest conceptual scheme serves as a balance between Richard E. Neustadt's Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (1960. o.p.) and James D. Barber's Presidential Character (Prentice Hall, 1992. 4th ed.), based upon a four-dimensional typology of personality that Greenstein finds too bold. For readers who find virtue in Eisenhower's presidential leadership, this book will appeal. For those who recognize that Eisenhower needed a specific mission to succeed (which explains why he was more successful in the military than in the White House), Greenstein's social science-lite treatment may be too mundane and subjective. Still, this book is quite readable. Recommended for presidential collections.DWilliam D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684827336
• ISBN 13: 9780684827339
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288