Pivotal Leadership Lessons from the Past Inform Today’s Corporate Leaders

We are all living through history. While we’re products of the past, we’re also the makers of the future. Whether through responsibility, vision, sacrifice, or other traits, we must hone the leadership qualities that will shape the businesses — and the society — we need today and into the future.

What qualities do our celebrated leaders of industry embody that make them successful — and how much of their success comes from the circumstances surrounding their times? When we recognize pioneering CEOs, do we celebrate them for their ability to increase a company’s value? Inspire their internal and external stakeholders through a shared passion? Adhere to values that benefit not only their organizations, but lead to a more sustainable society?

Learning the fundamentals of exceptional leadership doesn’t involve formulas or abstractions. It can, however, be informed through examining tangible illustrations of leadership from history. How notable leaders operated within, or pushed against, the constraints of their time illustrate characteristics of responsibility, vision, sacrifice, and more. Importantly, learning from former leaders isn’t just about analyzing success stories — we can learn just as much, if not more, from failure.

Actions of standout leaders through history who have had to make decisions in the direst circumstances, impose a radical new vision, or stand against the momentum of misguided policy, continue to echo as archetypes of leadership.

The following two sketches illustrate pivotal decisions past US presidents made that had a propitious and a catastrophic repercussion.

Transmitting confidence: FDR and the Great Depression  

History shows us how, when there is peace and economic prosperity, leaders’ main role is one of management — making sure things stay stable. When the Great Depression hit, President Herbert Hoover, while not personally responsible for the Wall Street crash, attempted to maintain a management role but failed to address or even take into full account the suffering of the American people. Hoover came off as callous and detached. He was widely admired and popular when he entered the White House in 1929, but his loss to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 was the biggest landslide in American electoral history.

A striking feature of Roosevelt’s political success was that he became an admired champion of the poorest Americans. Roosevelt’s New Deal — the policies that aimed to bring an end to the Depression through large public investment and by putting Americans to work — didn’t necessarily achieve its goals in purely “economic” terms (the US economy remained “depressed” throughout the 1930s), but it accomplished something more important: it gave people hope, restored their morale and self-respect, and showed them a kind of leadership that put the public interest first. Roosevelt gave the impression that he intended to match his words with actions. But he also conveyed the sense that he felt a personal responsibility, as president and leader, for how people were faring.

What we can learn from Roosevelt about successful leadership is how to match lofty rhetoric with meeting the real needs of struggling people in a time of crisis. He did so in a way that made clear that the stakes, for him, were not merely political but also personal.

An impossible mission: LBJ’s adherence to an anticommunist agenda

In August 1964, the American naval destroyer USS Maddox, sailing off Vietnam, reported being hit with North Vietnamese torpedoes. This reported attack served as pretext for a military response. President Johnson went to Congress and demanded to be given authority to “take all necessary measures” to protect American forces. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed easily, giving Johnson open-ended authority for escalating the Vietnam conflict.

Two Senators dissented. One, Wayne Morse, Democrat from Oregon, stated, “I believe this resolution to be a historic mistake.” The other, Ernest Gruening, Democrat from Alaska, stated that the resolution would mean “sending our boys into combat in a war in which we have no business, which is not our war, into which we have been misguidedly drawn, which is steadily being escalated.” These lonely voices of two congressmen who failed to change anything nonetheless deserve credit for withstanding the hawkish political pressure and disavowing the desire for war.

Incidentally, the torpedo attack that spurred the resolution and led to the horrific decade of devastation, disaster, and disillusionment turned out to not have happened. The naval officers heard something, and convinced themselves it was a torpedo.

Johnson was a Cold War hawk. His Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, as well, was in favor of escalation. An advisor and Democratic insider, Clark Clifford, attempted to persuade Johnson to consider the ramifications through an historical perspective. While McNamara insisted that the president look at “data,” Clark’s approach recommended that the president view issues holistically, understand their causes, and reflect on the limitations. McNamara’ approach allowed the president to hide behind statistics and numbers while avoiding nagging doubts. Not surprisingly, many leaders prefer such an approach when making decisions.

In the end, Johnson’s personal mission to not lose Vietnam to “the communists” took precedence over all else. Johnson made the Vietnam War about himself and did enormous damage.

The American war in Vietnam came to its ignominious end in 1973. The death toll was staggering — 58,00 US troops and upwards of 3 million Vietnamese were killed. It was a humiliating defeat for the US.

The salient lessons from these historical examples resonate with our times. Let them serve as moral chronicles for today’s corporate leaders whose principled guidance is sorely needed. While both industries and society grabble with decisions that can either lead us to a sustainable future or back us into a catastrophic corner, we look to our leaders to help us find our way through this critical test of civilization.

Written by Moshik Temkin.
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