Eisenhower and the Art of Collaborative Leadership

Kenneth Weisbrode

Description

A study of the leadership style of Dwight Eisenhower.

Leaders are persons generally expected to excel at inspiration, persuasion and management. Few leaders, however, excel at all three equally. ‘Eisenhower and the Art of Collaborative Leadership’ examines one leader – Dwight Eisenhower – who was particularly adept at management. Rising through the ranks of the interwar US Army, Eisenhower became a valued staff officer who went on to lead the Allies to victory in Europe in the Second World War. From there, after becoming NATO’s first supreme allied commander, Europe, he served two terms as president of the United States.

Eisenhower’s leadership skills were sophisticated in their outward simplicity. He led not by force of personality alone but also by careful and deliberate mastery of team-building; by empathy for friends as well as foes; and by an uncommon respect for, and sometimes even deference to, the positions and interests of the members of his team. It was also remarkable that Eisenhower did all that less by the informal manipulation of relationships than through the formal structures of command and of government, which he crafted to produce the decisions and actions that he sought in the national interest.

‘Eisenhower and the Art of Collaborative Leadership’ examines Eisenhower’s unique art of collaborative leadership by tracing its roots in his family and education, and then by measuring it against the standards of some classic texts by scholars of leadership and the presidency. It is a concise portrait of one of America’s most important and talented leaders, and a case study in sound leadership.

Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Family; 3. Friends; 4. Educators; 5. Leaders; 6. Soldiers; 7. Statesmen; 8. Conclusion; Selected Bibliography; Index.

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 15 septembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783088409
• Langue: English

Extrait

Eisenhower and the Art of Collaborative Leadership
Eisenhower and the Art of Collaborative Leadership
Kenneth Weisbrode
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in UK and USA 2018
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

Copyright © Kenneth Weisbrode 2018

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-78308-838-6 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78308-838-9 (Hbk)

This title is also available as an e-book.
For C. Richard Nelson and W. Scott Thompson (†)
CONTENTS
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Family
3. Friends
4. Educators
5. Leaders
6. Soldiers
7. Statesmen
8. Conclusion
Selected Bibliography
Index
PREFACE
This is a short study of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s style of leadership. It traces two concepts—collaboration and friendship—over the course of his life with the aim of exploring a particular theory of leadership, as applied to Eisenhower’s career and practices. It traces them not by reconstructing events or great deeds—as many other historians and biographers have already done—but instead by a synthetic and comparative history of Eisenhower’s relationships, and the personality types and character roles that made those relationships, and collaboration, work.
A collaborative leader is a cross between a coach, cheerleader and administrator. For any single leader to play all three roles simultaneously would appear almost impossible. Various people, including Eisenhower himself, have tried to interpret the roles in combination. The most familiar of the interpretations is that of the hidden hand. But this hand was not hidden all the time. Nor was it a guiding or manipulating hand so much as a grip that inspired, persuaded and compelled others, especially friends, of their own accord, to collaborate on behalf of the greater good.
To isolate and reproduce the qualities behind Eisenhower’s effectiveness as a leader, we need not rely entirely on his self-image or fall back upon ineffability. The qualities were mysterious but not unknowable. They originated from his place in his own large family, his experiences in a small Midwestern town in the early twentieth century, in his military education and early military assignments and, finally, in his development of emotional intelligence during the war when his main, overriding mission, besides victory, was to keep the alliance fighting and winning together. All this made him well suited to be president during a time of perceived consensus. Yet even here Eisenhower did not take consensus or collaboration for granted. His presidency may have papered over a few deep social divisions—which, as some critics would later say, led to crises that blew up during the 1960s and 1970s. Had these crises blown up earlier, as some civil rights and labor disputes nearly did just after the war, today we might be talking about the tumultuous 1950s. But these divisions did not blow up then, for which there were important reasons. 1
Today we may overlook just how dangerous the decade of the 1950s was, especially its first half; this danger was not just at home but also, and even more so, abroad. Therefore this study begins with a bias, to which it gives full, initial disclosure here: that the American people were very fortunate to have had Dwight Eisenhower as their president when they did, and that they were even more fortunate to have allowed him, and themselves, to partake in a collaboration of the first order.
This study was commissioned by the Eisenhower Legacy Council in partnership with the Eisenhower Institute of Gettysburg College. I am grateful to the late Doug Price, a former Eisenhower aide and member of the institute’s board of directors, and to Jeffrey Blavatt, the council’s executive director, for making it possible. I also thank the manuscript’s two anonymous reviewers, as well as Tej Sood, Abi Pandey, Nisha Vetrivel, Leigh Westerfield, Berat Melih Kalender, Füsun Yurdakul, Semra Kesler and especially Heather Yeung.
K.W.
Ankara, November 2017

1 See David A. Nichols, A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007).
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Dwight D. Eisenhower was one of America’s greatest leaders. This is not disputed today. His military service brought about victory in World War II. His two presidential terms saw an end to the Korean War, the beginning of a modus vivendi with the Soviet Union, political consensus at home and rising prosperity for many Americans. Although some at the time saw Eisenhower as a detached, even passive, president, that view has diminished since the coming to light of evidence demonstrating that Eisenhower as president was every bit as hands-on and masterful as he had been as a general. This is now the consensus view among historians. 1
History’s verdict on Eisenhower as both general and president is that he was a superior commander. And perhaps command may be the most familiar type of leadership. But it is not the only kind. The study of leadership during the past few decades has grown to become a multifaceted field of scholarship in several disciplines. It now not only treats the psychology and education of leaders but also looks at followers and the many connections between them. Additionally, the study of leadership today also includes systems of leadership, which reminds us that to lead well involves much more than to be in command.
The army taught Eisenhower to lead. He knew how to discipline soldiers; to inspire them to do their utmost; to instill cohesion and loyalty. It is customary (albeit simplistic) to say there are two types of commanders—Marshalls and MacArthurs: the quiet, thoughtful, planner and the loud, brilliant, performer. Eisenhower had served under both men, but he fit neither stereotype. He was an interesting blend of command type. On the surface, he was more like George Marshall. He gained his reputation in the army as a staff officer rather than as a field commander. He was drawn to planning both intellectually and emotionally; he was even said to relish staff work. He also had the rare ability to be able to visualize multiple theaters at once, and to connect the overarching aims of each with likely costs and benefits overall. He was, in the strict sense, what we would call today a strategic thinker.
At the same time, Eisenhower was a shrewd operational commander and tactician. He was the rare card player who excelled both at bridge and at poker, combining strategic and tactical gifts. 2 He had a keen sense of timing, and could act quickly, decisively and creatively when the need arose. Most historians regard it as ironic that Eisenhower escaped commanding troops in combat during World War I, and would then go on to command the largest army in modern history, as well as the largest amphibious invasion, in World War II. It was telling, however, that Franklin Roosevelt insisted on having Eisenhower command the D-Day invasion, which meant passing over Marshall, because the president insisted that he needed Marshall in Washington. As Robert Ferrell has written, this turned out to be a wise decision, “for Marshall knew how to handle President Roosevelt, a formidable and dangerous figure. The president was especially dangerous when he was friendly, for it was then that his amateur urges became pronounced and he was likely to suggest some inappropriate solution to a problem. […] Marshall was just the man to contain the president’s amateur urges.” 3 That lesson would not have been lost on Eisenhower.
As in any strong commander, the traits noted above—discipline, patience, foresight, thoughtfulness, bearing, decisiveness, creativity—were interrelated. Yet the one quality that made Eisenhower so formidable a leader was not any one of these, nor was it the sum of them. Eisenhower’s formidability lay in his power of empathy and his talent for inspiring and promoting collaboration. He was, in other words, a first-rate manager.
Operation Overlord was far more than a monumental invasion. It was an even more monumental experiment in combined warfare. And it was in this theater and in this operation that Eisenhower’s managerial talents shone at their brightest. It did not simply exercise his gifts for command, planning and execution, but also in having to lead so diverse a combined force from several nations, including taking command of a few would-be MacArthurs—that is to say, prima donnas—Eisenhower’s diplomatic and political skills were tested. He once told James Forrestal, “organizing teams, personality is equally important with ability. […] I simply cannot over-stress this point.” 4 All commanders must contend with difficult and diverging terrains, adversaries and personalities. What made Eisenhower’s case especially noteworthy in World War II was the scale and the stakes it in