Group Book Review: The President as Leader, Appealing to the Better Angles of Our Nature

Molly Sharp, Sarah Rubenstein

The President as Leader is written by Erwin C. Hargrove in 1998. The book is 240 pages long and is very informative. Although there is a lot of interesting information, we found it to be a bit repetitive and monotonous. We understand Hargrove’s ideal of the best president. He feels that a president should combine their intellectual strength with their morals and common sense. With these factors combined, he feels that the President should take insight on what the people want. Rather than be a blind and controlling leader the President should use rhetoric, like FDR, to relate to people. However he should not base his policies on ideas like Ronald Reagan, instead a leader must verify the facts before making an informed decision.

Hargrove often looks back to the political ideas of Machiavelli and Aristotle. He shows that presidents can and should lead morally and intelligently without leaving behind reality. Hargrove wisely integrates many scholars’ opinions to form the view of an ideal president. He greatly analyses the presidency’s of FDR, LBJ, and Ronald Reagan. While he likes many of their techniques, he also disagrees with many. He likes how FDR seems to care about the people, but did not like how he misled the country into war. Hargrove feels that LBJ should never have been president, and never would have been elected if he ran. He was only president because JFK died, and LBJ was clearly unprepared to take on the position of president. He was not a great leader, and was much better as an assistant leader; he simply tried to carryout the plans that JFK started. Reagan’s greatest flaw, according to Hargrove was his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair. Hargrove feels that Reagan would have been a much better leader if he was initially honest about his involvement. Reagan is an example of how it is bad for a president to mislead the people.

Hargrove feels that “the presidency is a seat of power and an engine for policy making, but it is also a moral agent for the articulation of the ideals of American democracy” (178). We completely agree. Along with making policies to better the country, a president needs to uphold morals. We feel that Hargrove should have organized the book in a different manner so it did not sound so repetitive. He beings the book describing the characteristics of various leaders, then does specifics. He could have synthesized the information in a more effective manner. We feel that the chapters about the Presidents were not efficiently chronologically organized. He kept describing a quality and then jumping around the years to explain it. Chapter 1, we found, was very difficult to read because it was extremely boring. Although the book was informative, we would not recommend anyone to read it. The characteristics he described about a president were basically common sense. The other half of the book described certain presidencies, which you can just learn about in a history book. The book included more history than we expected, which was probably why it was so boring to us.

Chapter 7: Leadership of the Polity

In this chapter, Hargrove reviews all the previous chapters. He describes the ideal characteristics of a leader, while recognizes FDR, LBJ, and RR’s most prominent qualities. Hargrove compares their political abilities, skill, persuasion ability, character, cultural leadership, and ability to teach reality. He describes how FDR relied on persuasion and inspiration. He had the ability to make things seem better than they actually were, and had the ability to swindle the public. He didn’t tell them straight lies, he just bended the truth to make it sound more appealing. FDR was known to do things for popularity, like Clinton, and give people a false hope. He told people misleading information to ease them into World War 2. Hargrove’s best comment about FDR is that, “His leadership enhanced citizenship” (165). Hargrove describes that LBJ is basically the opposite of FDR. While FDR used persuasion, LBJ used control. LBJ’s method did not seem to work as well as Roosevelt, because it did not please the people as much. LBJ did not physically appease the public; he gave dull speeches and didn’t look to good on TV. While LBJ did try to inspire people, he did it with a bullying matter, which we believe was a mistake. We think that it would have been much better for him if he tried to relate to people rather than force them to think the way he does. Hargrove notes that Johnson would never have been President if he ran; he only got the job because JFK was assassinated. Hargrove believes, as do we, that FDR made a better impact on the country than LBJ. Reagan, like FDR, used rhetoric to relate to people. He made them feel important and like they actually made a difference and mattered. Hargrove describes Reagan as someone who used the tactic of control. Reagan’s greatest flaw was his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair. Hargrove writes how, “He forfeited his greatest asset, his credibility, because the public did not believe that he was telling the truth” (169). Reagan denied knowing anything about the affair, which outraged the public because the affair involved his closest officials. We feel that it was a big mistake for Reagan to make, and that he should have just been honest. He shouldn’t have focused that much on popularity.

Hargrove feels that “the presidency is a seat of power and an engine for policy making, but it is also a moral agent for the articulation of the ideals of American democracy” (178). We completely agree. Along with making policies to better the country, a president needs to uphold morals.

Chapter 6: Ronald Reagan: summarizes and analyzes the leadership of Ronald Reagan (RR).

RR can be described as a whole as a person who lives through fantasies. He grew up in an idyllic small mid-west town with an alcoholic father and a mother who encouraged RR’s optimism. This optimism that continued throughout his life prevented him from ever peaking about his own feelings and made him deny the badness in the world. He strongly believed that Americans can do anything and are, as a whole, good and innocent. Although politically and dramatically involved throughout high school and college, RR worked toward entertainment, beginning as a sports announcer. His greatest public-speaking teacher was the president at the time, FDR. He had a short-lived acting career which ended after WWII did. From acting, his optimism began to include exaggerated stories that he looked up to. As Hargrove puts it on page 135, “Literal truth mattered less to Reagan than symbolic meaning.” This proved to be his greatest mistake throughout his leadership.
He later perfected he public speaking skills working as a spokesman for GE plants, a job that required him to speak to groups of average American citizens; this experience drove him to understand the American people throughout the rest of his life. During the years that Eisenhower accepted the New Deal, RR transitioned from being a liberal Democrat to conservative Republican, landing him the job of spokesman for the conservative movement. His speech for a Republican presidential candidate made the American people prefer him over the candidate and pushed him toward his next job as governor of California.
While running for governor, Reagan began the habit of working closely with a team of consultants due to his lack of knowledge of issues; this also continued throughout his presidency. He won the position through promises to Californians, and was governor for two terms during which he spoke of very conservative policies but actually had only moderately conservative policies. During this, he learned that he could work with a Democratic legislature, could win the support of people through his ideas, and that he was skilled at interpreting politics into a way that the American public could relate to. This pushed him to run for presidency; he was able to persuade voters of his ability due to various other issues occurring at the time such as high inflation and the public eventually giving up on Jimmy Carter.
When he became president, RR’s leadership techniques were concrete and consistent; he lived through and depended on his ideas, disregarded facts, knew little about political issues, and depended on consultants and was okay with being managed by others, but Americans liked him. RR promised America ‘restoration, renewal, and optimism’. His term began with optimism, which raised his support, and decisions that contradicted Carter’s early mistakes. His first year was set for putting economic and defense programs into action with the help of his experienced White House staff that he chose and the members of Congress that he took time to get to know. His economic program began with him insisting on the new theory of supply-side economics and, refusing to turn his back on his promises to the American public, ignored warnings of future deficits. Economic recovery was slow so the Federal Reserve Board tightened the economy from fear of inflation; the economy recessed in 1981 and 1982. As RR’s ratings dipped, he blamed economic problems on Democratic policies and continued his stubbornness to stick to his plan until he agreed to raise taxes in 1982; he excused this action saying that they were really tax reforms. The economy began to recover but the debt continued to rise and the president and Congress still could not agree what to do. These deficits prevented the Democrats from winning the 1984 election; when the Democratic nominee promised to raise taxes to reduce deficits and lost terrible, the Democrats stopped trying that solution to the national debt. RR was reelected despite his false promises made before and the first major economic decision during his second term was the tax reform of 1996. This succeeded but the deficit continued rising and the economy that RR left America with in 1989 was surging but had deeply-rooted problems.
RR’s fantastic ideas did not end with economic problems; to end the Cold War, his solution was to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether, disregarding that the reality of that happening was impossible. After people pushed him to rethink this, including his wife, he implemented the SDI foreign policy which scared the Soviet leaders into considering arms control. RR began the SDI without an analysis, something he always had done. Eventually, he resorted to insisting a meeting with Gorbachev where after refusing to end the SDI, they made an arms agreement.
RR faced even more difficulties with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. After putting others in charge of the situation, things got worse and RR found himself making that same mistakes made in Vietnam. He then tried to cover this up by making the entire operation top secret and the full details are still unknown, but his biggest mistake was lying about what happened. He violated American laws, did not inform the Congress, and in return, he is remembered for his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair.
Throughout RR’s entire political career, he also continued to be an actor; living in his ideas was all he knew. This was his biggest flaw: he could not face reality or turn back on decisions. The one thing that carried his career was his ability to appeal to the common American; Hargrove even says on page 153 that “He was too much one of us.” Either way, the use of television as a way to communicate to the people was crucial to RR’s success. Another flaw of his was that he communicated his ideas to the public, believing in those ideas, but not analyzing the logistics of those ideas. We agree with Hargrove that repeating things that he had not fully examined “in the end distorted the truth…[and] blocked realistic solutions,” (155). He also relied much to heavily on personal experiences which were often simply stories to him; he would use these stories during times when he did not entirely understand what he was speaking about and should have instead actually learned political issues and policies. He also continually failed to take responsibility for faults, a trend that presidents continue to follow. As Hargrove sums it up, “He practiced a leadership of ‘words that succeed and policies that fail’” (159).

Chapter 5: LBJ

This chapter describes the leadership of Lyndon B. Johnson.

Hargrove begins the chapter with a broad description of a typical leader which applied to F.D.R. but says that, "Lyndon Johnson was different" (109). Roosevelt's childhood was pleasant whereas LBJ grew up with an overbearing mother and a rough politician as a father, who LBJ was expected to live up to. He began with politics simply to please his mother; he showed political skills while attending college and despite his lack of popularity, he got the position of assistant to the president of the school. LBJ continued to blossom his political skills after college through various positions such as a congressional aide and director of the National Youth Administration. He was also a member of the House of Representatives for 11 years where he became known as a man willing to work until his own staff dropped. Richard Russel, Senator of Georgia, later helped LBJ become the minority, and later majority, Democratic leader of the Senate. In the Senate, LBJ wanted to lead everyone and became excellent at "knowing the personalities and goals of every senator" (111) which led to him being obsessed with gaining consensus and avoiding confrontation. This obsession continued throughout his life.
Johnson, wanting to lead even more people, accepted President Kennedy's offer to be the vice-presidential nominee. After Kennedy was shot, LBJ became president and assumed that his new job was to continue the plans that Kennedy had started. In his first address to Congress as president, the theme was, "let us continue" (113). He continued to work toward passing the main items of the Kennedy program and was largely successful, partly due to his legislative skill and partly due to a new sense of national unity since Kennedy's death. LBJ always strived toward consensus among votes, which was especially difficult while trying to pass the civil-rights bill. He won the election of 1964 fairly easily and still continued carrying out Kennedy's plans while attempting to gain consensus. He even tried to do so during his speech after passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Toward the end of his presidency, however, things began to fall apart: George Wallace led a white populist revolt, riots by blacks in 1966 and 1967, and economic problems that resulted from him counting on an economic growth and needing to change financial policies and make up for necessary funds. He went against the advice of the Congress, refusing to increase taxes. He grew more and more unpopular and issues in Vietnam grew; he needed to decide if the U.S. should continue a non-violent role which, if it failed, would result in more problems. Continuing the role they had did not succeed, nor did stepping in later as a fighting force. Eventually, the American troops left.
We agree with Hargrove that LBJ's biggest failure as a leader was his focus on consensus; he could only control and not deliberate. To us, he was afraid of failing so always tried to please everyone. In the end, he did.

Chapter 4 Summary: "FDR"
This chapter describes the leadership qualities and presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

According to Hargrove, FDR was an excellent leader who listened to people, and tried to please them. FDR had a lot of political experience before he became president, which helped him have some background in leadership. He was the Assistant Secretary of the navy to Wilson and had many high up friends; like congressmen, labor leaders, and naval officers. Despite FDR getting polio, he was still mentally strong. Hargrove believes that one of the most important characteristics of a leader is that he is a good, moral person. Frances Perkins describes FDR as, “His emotions, his intuitive understanding, his imagination, his moral and traditional bias, his sense of right and wrong- all entered into his mind” (p. 79). One of the best qualities that FDR possessed is the willingness to listen to people. He made many radio appearances and talked to many people, because he actually wanted to know the true public opinion. FDR was known to promote teaching “the spirit of the constitution” (p84). He used the constitution as a tool to get people to like him; saying that he was doing it in accordance to the Constitution, got many more people to side with him. FDR used very motivational and dramatized speaking to get a point across. His most memorable saying was that “the only thing to fear was fear it self (p85)”. Hargrove describes how FDR got the country out of the depression using his New Deal plans. The most prominent technique that FDR used to speak to people was rhetoric. FDR was very much in touch with the public, which according to Hargrove, is a great characteristic as a leader. People did get upset with Roosevelt when he introduced his Court-packing plan. They were upset because they felt that he breached the policy of separation of powers, and was trying to gain too much power. Roosevelt was then in a tough situation, as World War 2 was about to break out. Americans did not want to go to war, but it was inevitable. We started going into the war by aiding our allies, we eventually broke the neutrality act and entered the war. FDR tried to sugarcoat a lot of things and make them seem not as bad. He basically manipulated the country into agreeing to go to war by waiting for an excuse (Pearl Harbor). We think that FDR was an excellent leader who really cared about the people. We think that it is amazing how he got polio, and still managed to be so mentally strong. Although he at times seemed weak he was overall a pretty good leader.

Chapter 3 Summary: "Cultural Leadership"
In this chapter Hargrove describes how a president must be in tune with his constituents and be able to relate to them on a personal level. If he is too different from the people he represents then he cannot effectively lead them because he wont be able to truly relate to what they are going through. A leaders understanding of his people motivates him to act in their best interests. Hargrove quotes Dixon Wecter on the fact that a presidents greatest resource is the support of his people. We agree with Hargrove and Wector: the basis of a political leader's power is the support of his people. We find it pointless for a leader to impose policies on people if the people do not agree with their leader; he is supposed to represent their opinions. A notable quote in the chapter is on p73 and is directed to the people, "they must first experience the consequences of a social or an economic problem, and then will respond to alternative solutions proposed by political leaders." People can only respond to their leaders actions if they have knowledge and experience from the economic or social situation.

Ch. 2 Summary- "The Concept of Leadership"
In chapter 2, Hargrove describes the ideal and desired characteristics of a leader. He compares various political leaders to his ideal concept of a leader. The concepts he describes that a leader should possess are: discernment, cultural leadership, skill in context, character, and the ability to teach reality and relate to people. On page 47, Hargrove creates a visual model/map of an ideal political leader. He discusses Richard Neustadt's book, The Presidential Power, which is about the ways that modern presidents are criticized. We feel that the most notable quote of the chapter is, "ask the politician and the observer to try to understand the culture of the polity well enough to make reasoned judgments about what is or was possible in a given context" (p41). First you have to understand the people you are leading and only then can you make reasonable judgments about what you should do.

Click Here for a biography of Erwin C. Hargrove

Our review of him: Hargrove is a political science professor at Vanderbilt University from 1976-2000. He is an accomplished author who has written many political books. Before he worked at Vanderbilt, he worked at Brown University and was a "senior fellow at the Urban Institute". Hargrove has done so well in school that he achieved a doctoral and bachelor's degree at Yale University. Here are some of the books he has written: Presidential Leadership, Personality and Political Style; The Power of the Modern Presidency; and Lions and Foxes, Event-Making and Eventful Presidents from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush, and of course, The President as Leader.

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Ch.1 Post

Thesis- The author is saying that there is more to leadership than just leading people. A leader needs to have good character and have morals. "This book argues that truth telling, empowerment, and altruism in politcis are not only desirable, but practical and achievable in history (p21)."

The author looks to Aristotle for his beliefs on leaders. He feels that leaders need a deep understanding of everything and should base their policies on practice. Hargrove also includes information on other political figures that arent presidents; he talks about political figures in Shakespeare's plays. Hargove writes about Machievelli's beliefs on republics.

We agree with many of the authors points; especially that a leader needs to have morals and needs to bring practice into policies rather than just making up policies that may not work. We also agree that, "a good man is not necessarily a good polician...must combine elements of craft and moral purpose in his character as well as his work" (2).

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