August 21, 1998
Contact: Ann Marie Deer Owens, (615) 322-NEWS
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Values are key to presidential leadership, says Vanderbilt professor
One of the skills that our greatest presidents have shared is an ability to appeal to the voters' ideals and aspirations within the context of their own lives, according to Erwin Hargrove, the author of a new book on presidential leadership.
In "The President as Leader: Appealing to the Better Angels of Our Nature," Hargrove focuses on the politics of ideals, which he believes are a president's strongest political resource. The phrase "better angels of our nature" in the book's title is derived from Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address, in which he asked the North and the South to have respect for the rich traditions of American constitutional life and nationality.
"Our most effective presidents have mastered the transactional skills of bargaining and maneuvering while also practicing moral or transforming leadership," said Hargrove, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University.
Hargrove has developed a model for the analysis and evaluation of political leaders based on four primary skills: discernment, character, cultural leadership and the ability to "teach reality" to the electorate.
In Hargrove's opinion, discernment is the master skill because it may tell a president what is politically possible within a given historical context.
Hargrove views character as a skill "in the sense that it is contagious and has the capacity to inspire others." He cited Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan as prime examples of presidents who used character as a political resource. In contrast, Lyndon Johnson was a consensus leader who suffered from tremendous emotional insecurity, and who lost support when he became rigid and defensive about America's commitment in Vietnam.
Hargrove also believes that if a politician has fundamental character flaws, they will become apparent soon enough in public life, so it is not necessary to put his or her personal life under a microscope.
Cultural leadership, according to Hargrove, requires an understanding of what is possible in American politics given the nation's values and beliefs. "While we very much want our presidents to be moral leaders, they also inevitably are limited by the character of American culture, which has a high degree of individualism," he said. "Our culture is based on equality of opportunity, not equality of condition."
Another quality Hargrove uses to judge presidents is their ability to "teach reality" to the people. "This means to preach in the sense that you point out a fundamental moral reality from the national tradition, such as social justice," Hargrove said. "In American politics there is this unquenchable need for us to define and fulfill our national purpose. That is what I mean by teaching reality."
In the book he uses the model to assess the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. "Roosevelt ranks very high because he exhibited high idealism combined with discernment and prudence," Hargrove said. "Johnson was primarily a transactional leader - a creator of bargains who never liked to upset anybody or have anyone upset with him. However, he displayed moral leadership in areas such as civil rights and the general welfare of ordinary people."
In Hargrove's opinion, Reagan was a moral leader in his rhetoric, but he failed to scrutinize the actual realism of his own policies.
"He had an appealing, buoyant personality, and he was known as the Great Communicator," Hargrove said. "However, his appeals were, for the most part, strictly rhetoric. They were not based on any kind of knowledge about whether they were doable or not."
Hargrove cautions against too quickly assessing a politician's capability for leadership. "You never know how a political leader will act until you see him or her in the fullest expression of those potentialities, and you only see that for presidents after they are in the role," he said. "Roosevelt and Reagan were completely underestimated. Lincoln would not have been known as a great president if he had not presided over a national civil war."
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