"What kind of leader makes for a great President?"

For the past several years, I've been reading at least one biography (occasionally more than just one) of all the U.S. Presidents in order, starting with George Washington.  It all started with a book club that I joined at the Cincinnati Mercantile Library.  The book club kept on pace with a six biographies every year, but unfortunately now that I am living in Chicago, I haven't been keeping to that same schedule.  I am currently on our 33rd President, Harry S. Truman (though technically, I read David McCullough's excellent biography of Truman several years ago).  I am hoping to finish up in the next year or two.

I've learned a lot of history while reading biographies of the 45 men (unfortunately, no woman has ever served as our nation's chief executive) who have served as U.S. President.  More relevant to this blog, I've learned a lot about leadership in general.  With that in mind, I read an interesting article ("What kind of leader makes for a great President?") in the Wall Street Journal the other day by Colleen Shogan.  Shogan served as the 11th Archivist of the United States from 2023 to 2025, and she currently serves as the CEO of In Pursuit, a new initiative from More Perfect, to look back upon our first 250 years and "distill its most timeless lessons to inspire and inform our future."  

Shogan asked historians, journalists, military leaders, and civic leaders (including former U.S. Presidents and First Ladies) to identify one lesson from our nation's Presidents and First Ladies and write an essay about it.  She found that "the most consequential American leadership has rarely been loud or ideological.  Instead, it has relied on character, restraint, discerning judgement and a capacity to distinguish between compromise and moral surrender."  Shogan felt that four leadership qualities stood out among all of the other lessons:

1. "The importance of character"

Shogan writes, "Character shapes decisions most clearly when stakes are high and outcomes are uncertain.  Character can serve as a mitigating factor in the face of disaster, while the absence of character often has the opposite effect."

2. "The importance of soft power"

We all know U.S. Presidents who have tried to be effective by exercising what is known as hard power, which is best defined as the ability to coerce others to do what you want through threats, force, or financial leverage.  In contrast, soft power is the ability to persuade and attract others to voluntarily align with your goals through shared culture, values, and policies.  The most successful Presidents and First Ladies didn't have to rely upon hard power.

3. "Compromise with principles"

Shogan writes, "The role of compromise is critical in a democracy, but with an important caveat: Compromise untethered from principled leadership corrodes democratic legitimacy rather than preserving it...The lesson isn't that leaders should refuse compromise.  Rather, they must know what is morally nonnegotiable and understand why.  When compromise becomes an end in itself, it weakens both leadership and legitimacy."

4. "Learning from failure"

Failure is an opportunity to learn, and Shogan suggests that "leadership is often honed by failure...Failure clarifies what success obscures.  It exposes weak assumptions, tests cherished institutions, and forces citizens to confront uncomfortable truths."

I've just found my new favorite podcast!  There is a lesson for every President and many of the First Ladies (see the website here).  There is an essay, audio, and video for every single lesson on leadership.