Leadership

Leadership

Lessons from the Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson for Turbulent Times

Summary

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Leadership written and read by Doris Kearns Goodwin, with additional narration from Beau Bridges, David Morse, Jay O. Sanders and Richard Thomas.

Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader?

In Leadership Goodwin draws upon four of the presidents she has studied - Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson - to show how they first recognized leadership qualities within themselves, and were recognized as leaders by others. By looking back to their first entry into public life, when their paths were filled with confusion, hope, and fear, we can share their struggles and follow their development into leaders.

Leadership tells the story of how they all collided with dramatic reversals that disrupted their lives and threatened to forever shatter their ambitions. Nonetheless, they all emerged fitted to confront the contours and dilemmas of their times.

No common pattern describes the trajectory of leadership. Although set apart in background, abilities and temperament, they shared a fierce ambition, a hunger to succeed beyond expectations. All four, at their best, were guided by a sense of moral purpose that led them at moments of great challenge to summon their talents to enlarge the opportunities and lives of others.

This seminal work provides a roadmap for aspiring and established leaders. In today's polarized world, these stories of authentic leadership in times of fracture and fear take on a singular urgency.


'Well-researched and well-written ... Superb' Professor Andrew Roberts, author, Churchill: Walking with Destiny

'A marvelous banquet with four great presidents who provide lessons for all. Pull up a chair' Warren Buffett

Reviews

  • A masterwork on how good leaders become great leaders. A culminating work of a true intellectual artist
    Jim Collins, author Good to Great, co-author Built to Last

About the author

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin is the author of the runaway bestseller Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. She won the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II and is also the author of the bestsellers Wait Till Next Year, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more