Listen: Dallas lawyer brings research on presidential leadership to Fort Worth

In the latest installment of our occasional conversations with local newsmakers, Talmage Boston, author of How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons From Our Top Presidents, talks about this topic with business editor Bob Francis. Prior to the discussion, we talked about this book. Fort Worth Club.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. For the full version, listen to the audio file attached to this article.

Bob Francis: Please tell us about this book and how you came to write it.

Talmage Boston: The leadership lessons learned from these top presidents are immediately applicable to anyone who aspires to be a leader. In his eight presidents of choice—Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan—I wanted to identify an average of three key leadership traits for each president. So there are a total of 24 leadership traits listed in this book. Each chapter focuses on the characteristics of that president. And at the end of each chapter, there's what I call a mini-workbook, a series of questions about the characteristics of the chapter you just read. This allows the reader to ask themselves, how am I doing in building consensus and unifying the organization, or in persevering when needed and playing tough when appropriate? Masu. All these questions at the end of each chapter are intended to bring an interactive element to the reader in this book. That's what I call applied history. It's great to know history. It would be even better if you could actually apply it to your daily life. That's what this book is, and it's like a combination of a leadership book and a presidential history book.

If you go…

event: Dallas/Fort Worth World Affairs Council Introducing “The Greatest Achievement: Leadership Lessons from a President.” Special feature on presidential historian Talmage Boston

when: April 9th ​​11:30am – 1:15pm

where: of Fort Worth Club, 306 W. Seventh St.

Francis: Why are you interested in this?

Boston: I've been interested in presidential history since I was 7 years old and have remained interested throughout my life. My last book was on presidential history, published in 2016. So now we're very connected to the presidential history community, and every time someone publishes a new book or a big new biography about a president, we hear from Dallas. I've been on their book tours and I've interviewed them on stage at several programs.

For each of my chapters, I write to at least two major biographers of that president, asking them to review them and let me know if I've missed anything or written anything incorrectly. I got it. Therefore, the conclusions of this book have been thoroughly scrutinized by the organization. America's leading presidential historian, as evidenced by what's on the dust jacket.

I think it's important for readers to know that this is not some lawyer's conclusion about the president's leadership. In fact, I've been recognized by the nation's leading presidential historians for how I selected my top eight presidents. My selection primarily had to do with his C-SPAN Presidential Rankings poll. Every time a president leaves the White House and a new one takes office, C-SPAN polls historians for rankings. In other words, the last two polls were in 2017, when President Trump took office, and in 2021, when President Biden took office. C-SPAN brings together 150 of the nation's leading presidential historians to rank all presidents from best to worst and judge them in 10 presidential leadership categories.

And in the last few polls, that number hasn't changed. First place in the ranking is Abraham Lincoln, second place is George Washington. The third person was Franklin Roosevelt. Fourth, Theodore Roosevelt. 5th place, Dwight Eisenhower. 6th place, Harry Truman. 7, Thomas Jefferson; 8th place, John Kennedy. and nine, Ronald Reagan. The only adjustment I made to the C-SPAN rankings was to exclude Harry Truman, as I think he is overrated. And I think Reagan is underrated, so I promoted him. Far more people are interested in Reagan than they are in Truman. But perhaps most importantly, I'm trying to create a book that will be bought by both modern Democrats and Republicans, so the Democrats have a balance of FDR and JFK, and the Republicans have Eisenhower and Reagan. That's it. Everyone can see that we have great leaders in both parties, leaders whose characteristics are worthy of study and emulation. So I rounded the choices.

Francis: Have you looked into the important decisions they made or how did they make their choices?

Boston: I read major biographies of each of the eight presidents. It's hard work. And surprisingly, the conclusions drawn about what made each of them successful as presidents were nearly identical. There were actually no major conflicts.

After reading biography after biography, taking notes, and finding out exactly how each one became successful, (I thought) “What did each of them do to become a successful president?'' Is that so?” I asked. I reviewed all the memos of each president and looked at all their biographies. I will identify what were the most important characteristics that contributed to his success. This chapter explains their characteristics. Finally, after covering these traits, ask the reader, “What am I doing in terms of including those traits in my repertoire?”

Francis: But one of the most interesting decisions I read about was the Cuban Missile Crisis. Can you talk a little bit about how you judged his decision-making there?

Boston: Kennedy took office in January 1961. Then, three months later, Kennedy's international humiliation came in the Bay of Pigs debacle. And he took responsibility for it. But he learned a very valuable lesson. That means don't rely on advice from so-called experts. He relied on military experts and the CIA to advance his Bay of Pigs efforts to overthrow Castro. And it was poorly planned and poorly executed. Castro's forces annihilated it almost instantly. Although this was an international embarrassment, he learned an invaluable lesson. That means you can't just do what the experts say. You must exercise independent judgment. You have to have insight. All professional advice should be taken with a grain of salt.

So, thankfully, he learned that lesson. A year and a half later, in October 1962, when he learned that the Soviet Union was sending nuclear missiles to Cuba, he convened a team of advisors and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and together they decided what to do. Ta. And after more than 42 hours of conversations and deliberations about what to do during his famous 13 days, it became clear that both military leaders and other political advisers were giving him bad advice most of the time. became. He accepted some of it, but rejected much of it. They were getting more excited and panicked by the day.

He remained calm throughout the crisis from beginning to end. He decided to impose a blockade to prevent Soviet ships from adding more missiles to Cuba, which triggered negotiations with Nikita Khrushchev that ultimately ended without a single shot being fired. did. In terms of the deal that was made, Khrushchev agreed to remove missiles from Cuba if we agreed to remove missiles from Turkey, which is close to the Soviet Union.

The Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated the importance of remaining calm in a crisis. On the one hand, he was surrounded by top talent. But don't just swallow that advice wholeheartedly without doing an independent evaluation of how good it actually is. And I'm grateful that he did.

He succeeded in ending the missile crisis, which gave impetus to subsequent negotiations with Khrushchev, and strengthened his foreign policy before his presidential term was unfortunately clearly cut short by the assassination.

Francis: Having read all these biographies, are there any presidents that surprised you? Positive or negative?

Boston: I knew they were all great presidents. I didn't know the exact reason. But you can take them one at a time.

George Washington: I never knew he wasn't really a good public speaker. In fact, he had a breathy, soft voice due to a respiratory illness he suffered from as a child.

He also struggled with his teeth for the rest of his life, as he had extremely unwieldy dentures that made it difficult for him to speak. But he did so because of his incredible accomplishments as leader of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and as president presiding over the Constitutional Convention, for which he was elected almost unanimously.

He accomplished many things that made people want to follow in his footsteps, but he also had an incredible commanding presence. His height was 6 feet 3 inches, meaning he was always the tallest man in the room. He was in a ramrod straight position. He was perfectly dressed. He rode a shining white horse wherever he went. He was a great listener. He had sharp eye contact. And he liked people, and he was usually the last one to speak after engaging with people and listening to other people's opinions to consider what he thought was right.

He was a very good decision maker. He also had incredible self-awareness in that while he knew his strengths, he also knew his weaknesses.

For example, he wasn't a scholar on the history of world government, but if you're going to make a brand new start with the new American government, you need to be one.

There he brought in James Madison to prepare the backbone of the Virginia Plan. He was not an expert on finance or economic policy. So when he became president, we had all of our post-war debt. He didn't know what to do with him, but he brought in Alexander Hamilton, a financial genius.

And last, but certainly not least, he was incredibly honest. Every word that came out of his mouth had complete authenticity. You can take it to the bank. And all of these traits – incredibly heroic accomplishments, commanding presence, integrity – are what kept him unanimously elected to lead, and why he That's why he has always been considered one of our nation's top two presidents.

Francis: Since I am a business editor, I would like to ask this question. What characteristics can business leaders learn from this book?

Boston: I hope business leaders take note of the Dwight Eisenhower chapter. Because he put together his organizational masterpiece in the White House, just as he did as Supreme Allied Commander during World War II.

So he completely reorganized his cabinet. And they met every Friday morning. It was full collaboration, full brainstorming, full idea sharing. Eisenhower was ultimately the decision maker, but he involved everyone.

He put everything together and there were basically eight years of peace and prosperity during his presidency. That's why he ranks his fifth greatest president in our country. When Truman took office, he got us into the Korean War and had no idea how to end it. Eisenhower finished it within six months. McCarthyism was rampant. Tramun had no idea how to end it. Eisenhower devised an effective strategy to quell McCarthyism in 1954.

For business leaders wondering how to set up an organization and delegate work to talented people without micromanaging, this is a story from the Eisenhower era. That's why I think this book is especially useful for today's business leaders.

Bob Francis is the Fort Worth Report's business editor. Please contact bob.francis@fortworthreport.org. At The Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independent of board members and financial supporters.Read more about our editorial independence policy here.

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