Sign-In
Cart
The Risk-Takers: American Leaders in Desperate Times
Paperback
General Military HistoryGeneral United States HistoryGeneral World History
ISBN13: 9781648011986
Publisher: Newman Springs Pub Inc
Published: Sep 30 2020
Pages: 186
Weight: 0.56
Height: 0.40 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Scholars have concluded that leadership is among the most studied of phenomena yet the least understood. This inability to precisely define leadership recalls Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's struggles to define pornography: I shall not...attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that... But I know it when I see it. Similarly, when it comes to leadership, we know it when we see it.
This book explores the leadership performance of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Robert E. Lee, Katharine Graham, and Franklin D. Roosevelt at desperate moments in American history. A study of their leadership styles over a period of two centuries suggests that today's leaders might have something to gain from a back-looking perspective on this critical subject. Although this book is ostensibly about the five leaders, ultimately their performance provides a lens for the whole of the topic of leadership past and, especially, present.
While leaders seem to have the liberty to behave as they like, their freedom is bound by organizational objectives, organizational cultures that may be difficult to change, and the diverse natures of their workforce. Leadership behavior, shaped by the spirit of the times, evolves; it is about the inextricable relationships-the inseparability-among leaders, followers, and situations within organizations and societies as they respond to the inevitable urgencies for change.
The leaders in this book operated in environments over which they often had little control; a store of contextual factors substantially influence and restrain a leader's freedom of action. Our school-days history classes often paint leaders as two-dimensional cardboard cutouts. This book explores the crucial impact of context and just how effectively the leaders in this book led at severe, intense, transformative-desperate-moments in our history; it attempts to put weight and texture on the cardboard cutouts. To do so, this book humbly puts forward a leadership context framework to define the contextual factors that determine a leader's prerogatives. It is about leading snowflakes. Because no two organizations and their contexts, like snowflakes, are ever alike, leaders must consistently adapt to new and constantly evolving internal and external circumstances.
This book suggests that there is a holistic unity to leadership and that the four leadership qualities of status, esteem, technical competence, and organizational leadership skills, always present in some measure, help leaders motivate followers. The proper mix of these four qualities may depend on the nature of the followers and the situations faced. The newly elected Lincoln arrived in the nation's capital with low status and esteem; but his savvy technical competence and strong organizational leadership skills brought success. Robert E. Lee possessed high esteem, status, and technical competence; at Gettysburg, his inability to exercise sound organizational leadership skills led to his organization's failure.
Also in
General World History
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
Titanic: The Ship Magnificent - Volume Two: Interior Design and Fitting Out
Beveridge, Bruce
Braunschweiger, Art
Hall, Steve
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960
Van Slyck, Abigail A.
Hardcover
Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book
Bittman, Mark
Hardcover
The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485-1534
Everett, Michael
Paperback
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
Loewen, James W.
Paperback
The Allies: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II
Groom, Winston
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
McNeill, J. R.
Paperback
Dangerous Games: Faces, Incidents, and Casualties of the Cold War
Wise, James E.
Baron, Scott
Hardcover
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
Green, John
Hardcover
The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail
Dolin, Eric Jay
Hardcover
1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World
Ahamed, Liaquat
Hardcover
Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution
Kiernan, Denise
Hardcover
The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy
Ross, Steven J.
Hardcover
American Pope: Leo XIV's Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City
Burke, Daniel
Detrow, Scott
Hardcover
100 Bible Verses That Made America: Defining Moments That Shaped Our Enduring Foundation of Faith
Morgan, Robert J.
Paperback
How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words
Galer, Sophia Smith
Hardcover
The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Mutiny, Love, and Adventure at the Bottom of the World
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Hardcover
The Housewives Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery
Tiffany, Kaitlyn
Hardcover
1,000 Days in America: An Illustrated History of the Moments That Defined a Nation
National Geographic
Hardcover
True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color--From Azure to Zinc Pink
Stamper, Kory
Hardcover
Two Ships: Jamestown 1619, Plymouth 1620, and the Struggle for the Soul of America
Reynolds, David S.
Hardcover
How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy's Guide to Silencing Women
Venditozzi, Zoe
Mitchell, Claire
Paperback
Freedom's Daughters: How a Generation of Black Women Resisted Oppression Through Literacy and Education
Headlee, Celeste
Hardcover
Lightning Beneath the Sea: The Race to Wire the World and the Dawn of the Information Age
Tabor, James M.
Hardcover
The Phantom: The Untold Story of the American Marine the Nazis Could Not Kill
Clavin, Tom
Drury, Bob
Hardcover
The East Wing: Power, Intrigue, and the Untold Story of America's First Ladies
Moaveni, Azadeh
Hardcover
Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women's Movement and the Future of American Politics
McElya, Micki
Hardcover
The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women's Magic
Stewart, Lindsey
Hardcover
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
Sides, Hampton
Paperback
The Elections That Changed the World: Fifteen Pivotal Moments That Shaped How We Live
Bash, Dana
Hardcover
The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
Kara, Siddharth
Hardcover
The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions That Shook the World
Pancevski, Bojan
Hardcover
A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders: Surprising Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps
Elledge, Jonn
Paperback
Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America
Loeffler, James
Hardcover
Socialism: The Real History from Plato to the Present: How the Deep State Capitalizes on Crises to Consolidate Control [With Paperback Book]
Federer, William J.
Paperback
No One's Coming: The Rogue Heroes Our Government Turns to When There's Nowhere Else to Turn
Hazzard, Kevin
Hardcover
The Summer of Death: The Great Heat Wave of 1936 and the Making of Modern-Day America
Williams, Geoff
Hardcover
The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within Us Slave Culture
Woodard, Vincent
Paperback
Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City
Brown, Kate
Hardcover
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Paperback
When America Roared: How the 1980s Saved, Then Broke, the Country--And Led Us to Today
Kaufman, Jonathan
Hardcover
On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World
Hazrat, Florence
Hardcover
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
McGilchrist, Iain
Paperback
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
Egan, Timothy
Paperback
America in 25 Revolutions: The Story of Our Imperfect Nation's 250-Year Quest to Become a More Perfect Union
Graff, Garrett M.
Hardcover
Captain's Dinner: A Shipwreck, an Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial That Changed Legal History
Cohen, Adam
Hardcover
The Nuremberg Women: The Untold Story of the Eight Women Who Brought the Nazis to Justice
Livingstone, Natalie
Hardcover