The President and His Inner Circle: Leadership Style and the Advisory Process in Foreign Policy Making

By Thomas Preston

Few would argue that presidential policies and performance would have been the same whether John F. Kennedy or Richard Nixon became president in 1960, or if Jimmy Carter instead of Ronald Reagan had won the White House in 1980. Indeed, in recent elections, the character, prior policy experience, or personalities of candidates have played an increasing role in our assessments of their "fit" for the Oval Office. Further, these same characteristics are often used to explain an administration's success or failure in policy making. Obviously, who the president is—and what he is like—matters.

This book, a new approach to the study of the personal presidency, links the characteristics of six modern American presidentstheir personalities and their prior policy-making experienceto their leadership styles, advisory arrangements, and decision making in the White House. Thomas Preston uses M. G. Hermann's Personality Assessment-at-a-Distance (PAD) profiling technique, as well as exhaustive archival research and interviews with former advisors, to develop a leadership style typology. He then compares his model's expectations against the actual policy record of six past presidents, using foreign policy episodes: Korea (1950) for Truman, Dien Bien Phu (1954) for Eisenhower, Cuba (1962) for Kennedy, Vietnam (1967-68) for Johnson, the Gulf War (1990-91) for Bush, and North Korea/Haiti/Bosnia (1994-95) for Clinton.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Release date: Apr 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9780231506106

Book preview

The President and His Inner Circle

POWER, CONFLICT, AND DEMOCRACY

Power, Conflict, and Democracy: American Politics Into the Twenty-first Century

ROBERT Y. SHAPIRO, EDITOR

This series focuses on how the will of the people and the public interest are promoted, encouraged, or thwarted. It aims to question not only the direction American politics will take as it enters the twenty-first century but also the direction American politics has already taken.

The series addresses the role of interest groups and social and political movements; openness in American politics; important developments in institutions such as the executive, legislative, and judicial branches at all levels of government as well as the bureaucracies thus created; the changing behavior of politicians and political parties; the role of public opinion; and the functioning of mass media. Because problems drive politics, the series also examines important policy issues in both domestic and foreign affairs.

The series welcomes all theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and types of evidence that answer important questions about trends in American politics.

The President and His Inner Circle

LEADERSHIP STYLE AND THE ADVISORY PROCESS IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Thomas Preston

Columbia University Press New York

Columbia University Press

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Copyright © 2001 Columbia University Press

All rights reserved

E-ISBN 978-0-231-50610-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Preston, Thomas, 1963–

The President and his inner circle: leadership style and the

advisory process in foreign affairs / Thomas Preston.

p. cm. – (Power, conflict, and democracy)

Includes bibliographical reference and index.

ISBN 0–231–11620–9 (cloth)

ISBN 0–231–11621–7 (pbk.)

1. United States–Foreign relations–1945–1989–Case studies.

2. United States–Foreign relations–1989–Case studies.

3. Presidents–United States–History–20th century.

4. Presidents–United States–Staff–History–20th century.

5. United States–Foreign relations–20th century–Decision making–Case studies.

6. Political leadership–United States–Case studies.

7. Advisory opinions–United States–Case studies.

I. Title. II. Series.

E840.P74 2001

327.73′009′045–dc21                       00–059654

A Columbia University Press E-book.

CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at [e-mail].

To Frances

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Understanding the Mosaic of Presidential Personality and Leadership Styles

1.  Presidential Personality and Leadership Style

2.  Harry S. Truman and the Korean War

3.  Dwight D. Eisenhower and Dien Bien Phu

4.  John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis

5.  Lyndon B. Johnson and the Partial Bombing Halt in Vietnam, 1967–1968

6.  George Bush and the Gulf War

7.  A Bridge to the Twenty-first Century: The Leadership Style of Bill Clinton

8.  Presidential Personality and the Grand Mosaic of Leadership

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

As with all research endeavors of this size, I am deeply indebted to a great many people whose sage advice, support, reactions to earlier drafts, and patient tolerance made my project possible. Foremost among these are Paul ‘t Hart and Margaret G. Hermann, who have long provided not only valuable feedback and support, but who have served as valued role models and friends. I would also like to express my deep thanks to Charles Hermann, Stephen Walker, Alexander George, Robert Y. Shapiro, Yaacov Vertzberger, Michael Young, Eric Stern, Bengt Sundelius, Robert Billings, John Kessel, Martha Kumar, and Philip Tetlock—all of whom generously gave of their time to provide advice, support, and thoughtful reactions to earlier drafts of this research.

In addition, I would like to express my appreciation to a number of former presidential advisers who allowed interviews or access to their papers for this project—David Bell, McGeorge Bundy, George Christian, Clark Clifford, George Elsey, Tom Johnson, Harry McPherson, Richard Neustadt, Paul Nitze, Walt Rostow, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and Paul Warnke. In particular, I would like to express my deep thanks to George Elsey for both his great generosity with his time and his helpfulness on numerous other occasions during my research.

I would also like to thank several archivists for making my research at their presidential libraries both enjoyable and productive: Dennis Bilger and Elizabeth Safly at the Harry S. Truman Library; David Haight at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library; and Regina Greenwell at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library. Further, the Harry S. Truman Library Institute, the Eisenhower World Affairs Institute, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, and the Mershon Center Research Training Group on the Role of Cognition in Collective Political Decision Making at the Ohio State University (National Science Foundation Grant DIR-9113599) all provided grants to support this research. Finally, my most heartfelt acknowledgment is reserved solely for my wife, Frances, to whom this book is dedicated. Without her tireless support and loving encouragement throughout the past ten years, this book could not have been written.

Introduction: Understanding the Mosaic of Presidential Personality and Leadership Styles

PIECES TO A PUZZLE

With the approach of the year 2000 presidential election, once again we find ourselves pondering the personalities of the candidates and wondering what kind of president each might become. We observe how they handle themselves during the rigors of campaigning and interviews with the press–how they interact with their staffs and the public, what kind of managerial styles they demonstrate. We sift through their backgrounds and experience for clues to their character and competence. Are they intelligent and thoughtful regarding the needs of the nation and experienced in policy making? Will they be strong foreign or domestic policy presidents? Lacking direct personal knowledge of or access to these candidates, we "assess them at a distance" to arrive at our judgments. In the end, we reach our own subjective conclusions and vote for the candidate we believe will make the best president. Implicit in this process is our belief that who the president is and what he is [they are] like matters!

Like the public, scholars also engage in assessment at a distance of candidates and later, the new president. Before the end of a president’s first year in office, bookshelves are usually already overflowing with impressionistic accounts of his personality, style, and confident predictions regarding the likelihood of a successful presidency. Though some assessments are more objective than others, the overall portrayal of each president soon resembles a vast, literary tug of war–a competition between the glowing portraits painted by presidential supporters and the dark, ominous descriptions presented by detractors.

Few would argue that presidential policies and performance would have been the same regardless of whether John F. Kennedy or Richard Nixon became president in 1960, or if Jimmy Carter instead of Ronald Reagan had won the White House in 1980. Clearly, Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman were vastly different presidents in both temperament and style than Bill Clinton and George Bush. Though modern presidents are constrained (to varying degrees) by the institutions around them–whether they be Congress, the courts, or the presidency itself–the personal characteristics of presidents (their personalities, style, experience) play a critical role in shaping their policies and their presidencies. Thus, whether Al Gore, George W. Bush, or someone else succeeds Bill Clinton as president, it is likely that differences in their personalities and general policy experience, regardless of ideology, will lead to substantial variation between themselves and their predecessor in terms of how White House advisory structures are organized, the kinds of advisers who will be selected, the president’s areas of policy strength and weakness, and the nature of the decision process within the president’s inner circle.

My fascination with presidential personality began with an initial exposure to Alexander and Juliette George’s (1964) classic study of Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House. This text sparked a deep curiosity about how political decisions were made and how differences in the personal characteristics of leaders affected both decision processes and policy outcomes. Pursuing these topics through the study of political psychology, I gravitated toward research exploring the relationship between presidential leadership style and personality. Continued research fostered a growing frustration with perceived methodological gaps in the existing literature that posed problems for theory-building. Although many fine studies of individual presidents existed, these were generally highly descriptive in nature, with limited identification or operationalization of variables to allow either testing of their assertions or comparison across other leaders.¹ Even among works explicitly seeking to compare across presidents clear operationalization or measurement of variables were often absent.² Although providing a useful starting point for identifying hypotheses linking personal traits to behavior, the personal presidency literature seemed to lack the methodological requirements necessary for the cumulation of knowledge, the active testing of hypotheses, the measurement of key variables, and the structured, systematic comparison of findings across presidents. What was needed to advance research on the personal presidency were empirically rigorous techniques to accurately assess our leaders from a distance.

Thus, the challenge for the next generation of presidential scholarship is to build on impressionistic accounts with more scientific approaches providing clear and consistent means for measuring and comparing presidential personality and style. Only in this way will we move beyond unique case studies of individual presidents and rich description toward the building of theory capable of helping us to better understand the personal, rather than institutional, side of the modern presidency. However, accomplishing this task requires us to address several key questions: Is it possible to develop objective, scientific techniques for assessing presidential personality and leadership style at a distance? Can subjective, impressionistic accounts of presidential personality and style be replaced by approaches allowing for clear and consistent measurement and comparison across presidents? Can we build theoretical models that allow us to predict the general parameters of a future president’s style and decision-making behavior based upon measures of their personal characteristics?

This book takes an initial step toward addressing these questions through a theoretical framework of presidential leadership style explicitly linking personal characteristics to specific styles of leadership, decision making, and use of advisory structures. Based upon ten years of empirical work, the typology presented in chapter 1 was developed through careful measurement of presidential personality and experience variables, extensive testing of hypotheses through exhaustive archival and interview research, and through active comparison of these findings across multiple presidents.³ A brief discussion of the presidential and psychological literatures providing the basis for the framework’s assumptions is discussed, as well as an overview of the research approach employed by my study.

The next four chapters apply this typology to four modern U.S. presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson) by laying out the model’s style expectations for each and comparing these to the actual archival record. My interviews conducted with former advisers to these presidents augment the archival case studies exploring these presidents’ general leadership styles and behavior during actual cases of foreign policy decision making during their administrations (Korea 1950 for Truman, Dien Bien Phu 1954 for Eisenhower, Cuba 1962 for Kennedy, and Vietnam 1967/68 for Johnson). The next two chapters apply the typology to contemporary presidents (Bush in chapter 6 and Clinton in chapter 7) and represent preliminary surveys based on currently available, nonarchival sources. The final chapter seeks to provide conclusions and lessons to be drawn from the application of the typology to all six of these modern presidents, and discusses where we might go from here in future research.

1.  Presidential Personality and Leadership Style

FOLLOW THE LEADER

The Enabler of Presidential Power

Richard Neustadt observed that due to the inherent limitations on their institutional powers, presidents are forced to rely upon their interpersonal skills and arts of persuasion to carry out their policies. Although this description of presidential power appears to place individual presidents squarely into an institutional context that constrains most of their freedom of action, Neustadt’s depiction of presidential power emphasizes the fundamental importance of the personal presidency as well. Neustadt views the personal characteristics (or qualities) of presidents as critical to successful presidential leadership—and to the ability of presidents to obtain the kind of personal influence of an effective sort on governmental action, which he defines as presidential power.¹ However, before they can persuade, presidents must formulate and develop their policies, gather and analyze immense amounts of information, adapt their strategies and policies to a rapidly changing political environment, and surround themselves with advisers and advisory systems capable of dealing with all of these difficult tasks effectively. Across all of these areas, the individual characteristics of presidents play a critical role.

For Neustadt, the personal qualities necessary for successful presidents were those traits found in experienced politicians of extraordinary temperament—ones possessing political expertise, unpretentious self-confidence in their abilities, and who are at ease with their roles and enjoy the job.² Noting that the presidency is not a place for amateurs, Neustadt points to the importance of prior policy experience or expertise.³ Further, Neustadt emphasized the need for presidents to be active information-gatherers and to seek out multiple sources and differing perspectives on policy problems. This involves leaders cultivating enhanced sensitivity to the policy environment through both sensitivity to processes (who does what and how in the political environment) and sensitivity to substance (the details and specifics of policy).⁴ The clear message from Neustadt’s work is that the personal qualities of leaders play a significant role in successful (or unsuccessful) presidential leadership—and that presidents who fail to effectively utilize their advisory systems, or who lack appropriate sensitivity to the policy context, are unlikely to develop the foundations of power necessary to persuade anyone.

This chapter presents a new typology of presidential leadership style that builds upon Neustadt’s emphasis upon the importance of the personal qualities (or temperament) of presidents to policy making, an area he left largely unexplored. First, the relevant existing literature on leadership and personality is briefly reviewed. Next, a brief discussion of the research approach taken here is offered, followed by a presentation of the presidential leadership style framework itself. Finally, the application of this framework (linking the personal characteristics of presidents to their subsequent leadership styles in office) is illustrated in subsequent chapters through examination of the foreign policy decision making and leadership styles of a number of modern American presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Bush, and Clinton). Using a combination of archival, interview, and secondary source materials, these case studies clearly demonstrate the value of the theoretical framework and, more importantly, the utility of improving our understanding of the personal qualities of presidents.

Although there has been much debate over the merits of president-centered vs. presidency-centered research, I do not seek to fit into either camp directly, but to bridge the gap between them.⁵ I take a contingency-based approach that accepts both president- and presidency-centered explanations (as Neustadt does implicitly in his definition of presidential power) and seek to establish criteria for determining when one type of explanation would be more appropriate than another. As Hargrove observes, the issue for presidential scholars should not be whether individuals make a difference, but under what conditions they make a difference.⁶ In this sense, the framework presented here depicts the personality characteristics and styles of presidents as critical enablers of presidential power in the Neustadt-sense—that serve either to add or detract from the ability of presidents to perceive their policy environments and to navigate the treacherous shoals of the policy process.

The Political Psychology of Presidents, Leadership Style, and Individual Differences

Presidential Leadership

Research on the impact of presidential personality or leadership style upon advisory arrangements and decision making in the White House has taken on many forms. Some scholars have focused upon aspects of the individual personalities of presidents to understand their behavior in the White House.⁷ Such treatments of the presidential personality range from early psychoanalytic studies exploring the character or psychological development of individual leaders⁸ to more recent, nonpsychoanalytic techniques of content analysis that measure specific traits or characteristics of leaders derived from modern social psychological research to explain their behavior.⁹ Others studies have developed portraits of presidential style through the use of archival evidence and interviews that combine the personal qualities and backgrounds of leaders into distinctive styles in office.¹⁰ Still other research, focusing more upon the differing organizational preferences of presidents, has analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of different kinds of organizational arrangements.¹¹ A common thread connecting these works, however, is the notion that what individual presidents are like matters and that their personal qualities can significantly affect decision making and policy.

Individual Differences and Leadership

A wealth of research also exists regarding the individual characteristics (or traits) of leaders and how these shape (both within and outside of groups) their styles of decision making, interpersonal interaction, information processing, and management in office.¹² For example, among the psychological studies of the characteristics of leaders are ones examining personal needs for power,¹³ personal needs for affiliation,¹⁴ conceptual complexity,¹⁵ locus of control,¹⁶ achievement or task/interpersonal emphasis,¹⁷ and self-confidence.¹⁸ My recent archival research found that three individual characteristics in particular—need for power, complexity, and prior policy experience—played a critical role in the shaping presidential leadership style.¹⁹ The framework presented in this chapter builds upon these findings.

Power

The need for power (or dominance) is a personality characteristic which has been extensively studied and linked to specific types of behavior and interactional styles with others.²⁰ Specifically, one would expect leaders with progressively higher psychological needs for power to be increasingly dominant and assertive in their leadership styles in office and to assert greater control over subordinates and policy decisions. For example, Fodor and Smith found that leaders high in need for power were more associated with the suppression of open decision making and discussion within groups than were low power leaders.²¹ Similarly, a number of studies have found high power leaders requiring a far greater degree of personal control than do low power leaders over the policy process and the actions of subordinates.²² In terms of interpersonal relationships, studies have also found that leaders high in the need for power exhibit more controlling, domineering behavior toward subordinates than do low power leaders.²³

Further, a study examining the characteristics and leadership styles of past U.S. presidents in cases of foreign policy decision making found that leaders high in the need for power preferred formal, hierarchical advisory system structures designed to enhance their own personal control over the policy process.²⁴ These leaders tended to centralize decision making within tight inner circles of trusted advisers and to insist upon direct personal involvement and control over policy formulation and decisions. Their policy preferences tended to dominate both the policy deliberations within advisory groups and the nature of the final policy decisions. In contrast, low power leaders preferred less hierarchical advisory system structures and required less personal control over the policy process. Their policy preferences tended not to dominate advisory group deliberations or final decisions. As a result, the input of subordinates played a far greater role in policy making. Unlike these low power leaders, high power leaders were found to possess assertive interpersonal styles in which they would actively challenge or seek to influence the positions taken by their advisers; further, these leaders were also more likely to override or ignore the conflicting or opposing policy views of subordinates.

Complexity

The psychological literature has long argued that the cognitive complexity of decision makers is another individual characteristic which has a significant impact upon the nature of decision making, style of leadership, assessment of risk, and character of general information processing within decision groups.²⁵ For example, Vertzberger, among others, has noted that as the cognitive complexity of individual decision makers increases, they become more capable of dealing with complex decision environments and information that demand new or subtle distinctions.²⁶ When making decisions, complex individuals tend to have greater cognitive need for information, are more attentive to incoming information, prefer systematic over heuristic processing, and deal with any overload of information better than their less complex counterparts.²⁷ In terms of interactions with advisers and the acceptance of critical feedback, several studies have shown that complex individuals are far more interested in receiving negative feedback from others—and are more likely to incorporate it into their own decision making—than are those who are less complex.²⁸

Complexity has also been linked by scholars to how attentive or sensitive leaders are to information from (or nuances within) their surrounding political or policy environments.²⁹ Hermann notes that the more sensitive the individual is to information from the decision environment, the more receptive the leader is to information regarding the views of colleagues or constituents, the views of outside actors, and the value of alternative viewpoints and discrepant information.³⁰ In contrast, leaders with a low sensitivity to contextual information will be less receptive to information from the outside environment, will operate from a previously established and strongly held set of beliefs, will selectively perceive and process incoming information in order to support or bolster this prior framework, and will be unreceptive or close-minded towards alternative viewpoints and discrepant information. Vertzberger and Glad have noted that low complexity individuals tend to show symptoms of dogmatism, view and judge issues in black-and-white terms, ignore information threatening their existing closed belief systems, and have limited ability to adjust their beliefs to new information.³¹

One study found that highly complex leaders preferred more open advisory and information processing systems than did leaders lower in complexity—no doubt reflecting different needs for both information and differentiation in the policy environment.³² High complexity leaders were far more sensitive than others to the external policy context, as well as to the existence of multiple policy dimensions or perspectives on issues. During policy deliberations, they also engaged in broad information search routines that emphasized the presentation of alternative viewpoints, discrepant information, and multiple policy options by their advisers. Such leaders focused substantial discussion within their advisory groups upon future policy contingencies and the likely views or reactions of other policy actors in the environment. In addition, they were less likely to employ simplistic analogies, black-and-white problem representations, or stereotypical images of their opponents during policy deliberations. However, complex leaders had less decisive and more deliberative decision-making styles in office—a finding consistent with the heavy emphasis placed by such leaders upon extensive policy debate and information search within their advisory groups.

Less complex leaders—with their lower cognitive need for extensive information search and examination of multiple policy perspectives—tended to be far less sensitive to both information and the external policy environment. This reduced sensitivity to information and to context manifested itself in limited information search and in limited emphasis upon the presentation by advisers of alternative viewpoints, discrepant information, and multiple policy options. Such leaders were more likely to rely upon simplistic analogies, black-and-white problem representations, or stereotypical images of their opponents during their policy deliberations. Further, given their limited interest in extensive policy debate or broad information search, low complexity leaders were also found to have, according to the archival evidence, very decisive and less deliberative decision-making styles. It is important to emphasize, however, that complexity does not relate to either general intelligence or overall level of political sophistication. Complexity should not be seen as pejorative, since there are both advantages and disadvantages associated with leaders being either high or low in complexity. For example, there are many policy contexts, such as policy crises characterized by limited time for decision making, in which the decisiveness of low complexity leaders would provide strong leadership and a sense of policy direction. Complexity refers simply to individuals’ general, cognitive need for information and the degree to which they differentiate their surrounding policy environment.

However, complexity not only has the potential to affect how leaders process information, but also their sensitivity to the interpersonal environment. Self-monitoring theory suggests that there are two characteristic interpersonal orientations: high self-monitors who are more sensitive and attuned to the nuances of the interpersonal environment than less sensitive, low self-monitors.³³ In terms of leadership styles, high self-monitors are more sensitive to the political situation (i.e., the views of constituents, political allies, opponents, the political climate, etc.); they actively seek information on the political situation from advisers; and they are chameleon-like in modifying their own behavior and policy decisions to conform to the existing environment. In contrast, low self-monitors place much less emphasis upon the political situation with regard to their own behavior or policy positions; they passively receive information on the political situation from advisers and are driven more by their own views and beliefs regarding policy than by a desire to conform to the existing political environment.³⁴

Prior Policy Experience/Expertise

Finally, the prior policy experience or expertise of leaders has a significant impact upon presidential style, the nature of advisory group interactions, and how forcefully leaders assert their own positions on policy issues.³⁵ Past experience provides leaders with a sense of what actions will be effective or ineffective in specific policy situations, as well as which cues from the environment should be attended to and which are irrelevant.³⁶ It influences how much learning must be accomplished on the job, the inventory of behaviors (standard operating procedures) possessed, and how confident the leader will be in interactions with experts. Leaders with a high degree of prior policy experience are more likely to insist upon personal involvement or control over policy making than are those low in prior policy experience, who will tend to be more dependent upon the views of expert advisers.³⁷ Indeed, experienced leaders who have expertise in a policy area are far less likely to rely upon the views of advisers or utilize simplistic stereotypes or analogies to understand policy situations. Such leaders are more interested in gathering detailed information from the policy environment, and they employ a more deliberate decision process than their less experienced counterparts. Similarly, leaders lacking experience or expertise find themselves far more dependent upon expert advisers and more likely to utilize simplistic stereotypes and analogies when making decisions.³⁸ Knowing whether a leader is approaching foreign or domestic policy as a relative expert or novice provides insight into predicting how damaging such reliance upon analogy might be to a particular leader’s information-management and information-processing styles.

The Research Approach

The research underpinning the typology of presidential leadership style in this chapter has been heavily influenced by recent scholarship emphasizing the need to study the presidency using only systematically collected data and explicit methodologies to test theoretical propositions.³⁹ Here, I briefly summarize how the characteristics of presidents in this typology were measured and upon what empirical evidence I base my assumptions regarding the impact of leader characteristics on decision-making behavior.

Measuring Leaders’ Characteristics

The individual characteristics of presidents have been measured using Margaret Hermann’s (1983) Personality Assessment-at-a-Distance (PAD) approach. This method utilizes content analysis of the spontaneous interview responses by political leaders across differing time periods, audiences, and substantive topic areas to construct detailed personality profiles of individuals according to eight different traits: the need for power, need for affiliation, ethnocentrism, locus of control, complexity, self-confidence, distrust of others, and task/interpersonal emphasis.⁴⁰ This approach has previously been used to construct detailed profiles of more than one hundred political leaders in more than forty different countries.⁴¹ These data for a sizable number of leaders not only allow us to set out the range of each characteristic, thereby demonstrating what constitutes high and low scores for leaders, but they also provide the means to compare empirically and interpret the scores for American presidents across these traits.⁴² In gauging leaders’ policy experience or expertise, an additional measure was developed to reflect factors such as the nature of each leader’s previous policy positions, the degree to which leaders focused upon specific policy areas, and the extent to which they possessed other relevant policy experience.⁴³ Thus, in the typology of presidential leadership style presented below (see tables 1.1 and 1.2), presidents are placed into specific style categories based upon the PAD scores for their individual characteristics.

Linking Leader Characteristics to Behavior in the Archival Record

The typology involves claims regarding the likely leadership styles and behavior of presidents with specific combinations of individual characteristics. The individual characteristics of four modern American presidents—Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson—were previously measured systematically and compared utilizing the PAD technique (Preston 1996).⁴⁴ Hypotheses (based upon existing psychological and presidential research) regarding the behavioral implications of these characteristics for leadership style, decision making, and advisory system preferences were tested against the archival record and presidents’ actual foreign policy decision making.⁴⁵ Since the focus was upon personal characteristics and their impact upon leadership behavior, what was required were presidents who varied from one another in theoretically significant ways in their personal characteristics, and for whom the relevant archival data were available.⁴⁶ Further, to have sufficient cases for comparison, a conscious decision was made to break down foreign policy cases into discreet units, called Occasions for Interaction (OCI). The OCIs were slices of time throughout each policy case—during which presidents and their advisers met (both formally and informally) and had the opportunity to formulate and debate policy, as well as make decisions.⁴⁷ As a result, the testing of the theoretical hypotheses involved assessing how well the individual characteristics of presidents (measured by PAD) predicted behavior (in terms of leadership style, decision making, interpersonal interactions, and advisory preferences) in all the occasions for interaction across policy cases and presidents.⁴⁸

Thus, my research (and the typology presented in this book) does not seek to predict policy outcomes themselves, but only the kinds of advisory structures and processes that will result from the personal characteristics and styles of presidents. Predicting the outcomes of policy decisions is far beyond the scope of this book, and involves moving beyond the purely personal presidency to consider factors explored by the institutional presidency literature as well. In the final chapter, I will return to this point and discuss the potential value of linking these two approaches—the personal and the institutional—to improve our overall understanding of presidential policy making

Toward a Typology of Presidential Leadership Style

Although many factors have been identified as related to leadership style,⁴⁹ archival research has suggested two dimensions of critical importance: 1) the leader’s need for control and involvement in the policy process; and 2) the leader’s need for information and general sensitivity to context.⁵⁰ In tables 1.1 and 1.2, these dimensions (need for control and sensitivity to context) combine to form the building blocks for a typology of presidential leadership style which takes into account the contingent nature of the relationships between leaders’ individual characteristics, their leadership styles, and their attentiveness to the external policy environment.⁵¹ The typology emphasizes the critical interaction between static leader characteristics (such as cognitive complexity and the need for power) and nonstatic, changeable leader characteristics (such as policy experience or expertise) in shaping presidential style. This distinction reflects the widely held view that basic personality traits in leaders, like power and complexity, remain stable over time.⁵² In contrast, nonpersonality-based characteristics, such as the degree of policy experience or expertise possessed by leaders in particular issue areas, are by their very nature variable, not stable over time.⁵³ The interplay between these static and nonstatic attributes fundamentally shape not only the two critical dimensions of presidential leadership style, but also the degree to which the president will be attentive to (or influenced by) the external policy environment—whether in the form of outside institutional actors, advice, or information.

Leader Control and Involvement

The first dimension of leadership style is the leader’s desire to personally control or be involved in, the policy process in a given policy area. As the psychological literature on the need for power suggests, individuals differ greatly in their desire for control over their environments, with some insisting upon a more active role than others. According to table 1.1, leaders’ needs for power interact with their prior policy experience or expertise to suggest an overall style regarding their need for control and involvement in the policy process.

THE DIRECTOR. Leaders with both extensive policy experience and a high need for power tend to have the activist presidential style of the Director. Because of their high need for personal control over the policy process, these leaders tend to centralize decision making into a tight inner circle of advisers. Directors prefer direct personal involvement throughout the policy process (agenda-setting, formulation, deliberation, decision, and implementation), and generally insist upon hierarchical advisory structures to enhance their personal control over policy. Although informal channels of advice and access will exist, formal channels will likely dominate the central site of decision. Given their high degree of experience and policy expertise, Directors tend to frame issues, set policy guidelines, and advocate strongly their own policy views within their advisory groups. They have the confidence to rely more upon their own policy judgments than upon those of expert advisers. For Directors, the operative decision rule within their inner circle is that their own preferences dominate the policy process—with advisory group recommendations and final policy decisions usually reflecting these preferences. Presidents expected to exhibit Director leadership styles, based upon their high PAD scores on power and their extensive degree of prior experience in a given policy area, include Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman in domestic policy, and John Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower in foreign policy.⁵⁴ This classification is also consistent with the views of historians and former presidential associates regarding both Johnson and Truman’s mastery of domestic politics and their insistence upon maintaining personal control over this policy process.⁵⁵ It is also consistent with both Eisenhower’s and Kennedy’s acknowledged expertise in the field of foreign affairs and their insistence upon personal control over the foreign policy process.⁵⁶

THE ADMINISTRATOR. Leaders with low need for power but extensive policy experience tend to fit the activist presidential style of the Administrator. Unlike Directors, Administrators have less need for personal control over the policy process. As a result, decision making tends to be less centralized and more collegial, with the leader requiring less direct personal control over the process and the actions of subordinates. Administrators generally prefer informal, less hierarchical advisory structures designed specifically to enhance policy participation by subordinates. Like Directors, however, Administrators—with their high degree of personal policy expertise—tend to advocate strongly their own policy views, frame issues, and set specific policy guidelines within their advisory groups. They are also confident policy makers who rely more upon their own policy judgments than upon those of expert advisers. For Administrators, the general decision rule within their inner circle is that their own policy preferences shape the general policy approach, but they are willing to compromise on specifics to gain consensus among their advisers. This tends to be reflected in a president’s preference for a majority consensus within the inner circle before a decision is finalized. Presidents expected to exhibit behavior consistent with the Administrator style—based upon their low PAD scores on power and high prior experience in a given policy area—include Bill Clinton in domestic policy and George Bush in foreign policy.⁵⁷ This is consistent with scholars’ views regarding Clinton’s mastery of domestic politics and his insistence upon maintaining personal control over the domestic policy process.⁵⁸ It is also consistent with Bush’s acknowledged expertise in the field of foreign affairs and his insistence upon maintaining personal control over the foreign policy process.⁵⁹

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TABLE 1.1  Presidential Need for Control and Involvement in the Policy Process

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Prior Policy Experience/Expertise in Substantive Area (General Interest Level or Desire for Involvement in Policy)

THE MAGISTRATE. Leaders who have high need for power but have limited personal policy experience tend to exhibit the more relegative, less activist presidential style of the Magistrate. Similar to Directors, Magistrates have high need for personal control over the policy process and, as a result, tend to centralize decision making into tight inner circles of advisers. Although Magistrates have a preference for direct personal control over final policy decisions, their lack of policy experience leads them to have limited need for personal involvement in the other stages of the policy process. As a result, although they will set general policy guidelines for advisers, they tend to delegate policy formulation and implementation tasks to their subordinates. Further, their lack of policy expertise results in a tendency for Magistrates to rely heavily upon the views of expert advisers rather than their own policy views in decision making. For Magistrates, the decision rule within their inner circle is that their preferences dominate the policy process—but that these views are also heavily influenced by other experts’ advice. Essentially, like all good judges, Magistrates adjudicate between the competing policy options and views presented by their advisers before making final decisions. Presidents expected to exhibit behavior consistent with the Magistrate leadership style—based upon their high PAD power scores but low prior experience in a given policy area—include John Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower in domestic policy, and Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman in foreign policy.⁶⁰ This classification is consistent with the views of historians and former presidential associates regarding both Johnson’s and Truman’s inexperience in foreign policy and dependence upon expert advice in foreign policy decision making.⁶¹ It is also consistent with both Eisenhower’s and Kennedy’s acknowledged inexperience in the field of domestic policy and their dependence upon expert advice in domestic policy making.⁶²

THE DELEGATOR. Finally, leaders with both low need for power and limited policy experience tend to show the relegating, less activist style of the Delegator. Given their low need for power and their limited expertise, Delegators are generally uninterested in policy making and require little or no direct involvement or control over the policy process. Delegators prefer less centralized, more informal advisory structures designed to enhance participation by subordinates. In addition, their lack of policy expertise results in their tendency to delegate policy formulation and implementation tasks to subordinates. Instead of relying upon their own policy judgments when making final decisions, such leaders rely extensively upon (and