Eisenhower and the Art of Collaborative Leadership

By Kenneth Weisbrode

Leaders are persons generally expected to excel at inspiration, persuasion and management. Few leaders, however, excel at all three equally. ‘Eisenhower and the Art of Collaborative Leadership’ examines one leader – Dwight Eisenhower – who was particularly adept at management. Rising through the ranks of the interwar US Army, Eisenhower became a valued staff officer who went on to lead the Allies to victory in Europe in the Second World War. From there, after becoming NATO’s first supreme allied commander, Europe, he served two terms as president of the United States.

Eisenhower’s leadership skills were sophisticated in their outward simplicity. He led not by force of personality alone but also by careful and deliberate mastery of team-building; by empathy for friends as well as foes; and by an uncommon respect for, and sometimes even deference to, the positions and interests of the members of his team. It was also remarkable that Eisenhower did all that less by the informal manipulation of relationships than through the formal structures of command and of government, which he crafted to produce the decisions and actions that he sought in the national interest.

‘Eisenhower and the Art of Collaborative Leadership’ examines Eisenhower’s unique art of collaborative leadership by tracing its roots in his family and education, and then by measuring it against the standards of some classic texts by scholars of leadership and the presidency. It is a concise portrait of one of America’s most important and talented leaders, and a case study in sound leadership.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthem Press
• Release date: Sep 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781783088409

Book preview

Eisenhower and the Art of Collaborative Leadership

Eisenhower and the Art of Collaborative Leadership

Kenneth Weisbrode

Anthem Press

An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company

www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in UK and USA 2018

by ANTHEM PRESS

75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK

or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK

and

244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

Copyright © Kenneth Weisbrode 2018

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-78308-838-6 (Hbk)

ISBN-10: 1-78308-838-9 (Hbk)

This title is also available as an e-book.

For C. Richard Nelson and W. Scott Thompson (†)

CONTENTS

Preface

1.Introduction

2.Family

3.Friends

4.Educators

5.Leaders

6.Soldiers

7.Statesmen

8.Conclusion

Selected Bibliography

Index

PREFACE

This is a short study of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s style of leadership. It traces two concepts—collaboration and friendship—over the course of his life with the aim of exploring a particular theory of leadership, as applied to Eisenhower’s career and practices. It traces them not by reconstructing events or great deeds—as many other historians and biographers have already done—but instead by a synthetic and comparative history of Eisenhower’s relationships, and the personality types and character roles that made those relationships, and collaboration, work.

A collaborative leader is a cross between a coach, cheerleader and administrator. For any single leader to play all three roles simultaneously would appear almost impossible. Various people, including Eisenhower himself, have tried to interpret the roles in combination. The most familiar of the interpretations is that of the hidden hand. But this hand was not hidden all the time. Nor was it a guiding or manipulating hand so much as a grip that inspired, persuaded and compelled others, especially friends, of their own accord, to collaborate on behalf of the greater good.

To isolate and reproduce the qualities behind Eisenhower’s effectiveness as a leader, we need not rely entirely on his self-image or fall back upon ineffability. The qualities were mysterious but not unknowable. They originated from his place in his own large family, his experiences in a small Midwestern town in the early twentieth century, in his military education and early military assignments and, finally, in his development of emotional intelligence during the war when his main, overriding mission, besides victory, was to keep the alliance fighting and winning together. All this made him well suited to be president during a time of perceived consensus. Yet even here Eisenhower did not take consensus or collaboration for granted. His presidency may have papered over a few deep social divisions—which, as some critics would later say, led to crises that blew up during the 1960s and 1970s. Had these crises blown up earlier, as some civil rights and labor disputes nearly did just after the war, today we might be talking about the tumultuous 1950s. But these divisions did not blow up then, for which there were important reasons.¹

Today we may overlook just how dangerous the decade of the 1950s was, especially its first half; this danger was not just at home but also, and even more so, abroad. Therefore this study begins with a bias, to which it gives full, initial disclosure here: that the American people were very fortunate to have had Dwight Eisenhower as their president when they did, and that they were even more fortunate to have allowed him, and themselves, to partake in a collaboration of the first order.

This study was commissioned by the Eisenhower Legacy Council in partnership with the Eisenhower Institute of Gettysburg College. I am grateful to the late Doug Price, a former Eisenhower aide and member of the institute’s board of directors, and to Jeffrey Blavatt, the council’s executive director, for making it possible. I also thank the manuscript’s two anonymous reviewers, as well as Tej Sood, Abi Pandey, Nisha Vetrivel, Leigh Westerfield, Berat Melih Kalender, Füsun Yurdakul, Semra Kesler and especially Heather Yeung.

K.W.

Ankara, November 2017

1 See David A. Nichols, A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007).

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Dwight D. Eisenhower was one of America’s greatest leaders. This is not disputed today. His military service brought about victory in World War II. His two presidential terms saw an end to the Korean War, the beginning of a modus vivendi with the Soviet Union, political consensus at home and rising prosperity for many Americans. Although some at the time saw Eisenhower as a detached, even passive, president, that view has diminished since the coming to light of evidence demonstrating that Eisenhower as president was every bit as hands-on and masterful as he had been as a general. This is now the consensus view among historians.¹

History’s verdict on Eisenhower as both general and president is that he was a superior commander. And perhaps command may be the most familiar type of leadership. But it is not the only kind. The study of leadership during the past few decades has grown to become a multifaceted field of scholarship in several disciplines. It now not only treats the psychology and education of leaders but also looks at followers and the many connections between them. Additionally, the study of leadership today also includes systems of leadership, which reminds us that to lead well involves much more than to be in command.

The army taught Eisenhower to lead. He knew how to discipline soldiers; to inspire them to do their utmost; to instill cohesion and loyalty. It is customary (albeit simplistic) to say there are two types of commanders—Marshalls and MacArthurs: the quiet, thoughtful, planner and the loud, brilliant, performer. Eisenhower had served under both men, but he fit neither stereotype. He was an interesting blend of command type. On the surface, he was more like George Marshall. He gained his reputation in the army as a staff officer rather than as a field commander. He was drawn to planning both intellectually and emotionally; he was even said to relish staff work. He also had the rare ability to be able to visualize multiple theaters at once, and to connect the overarching aims of each with likely costs and benefits overall. He was, in the strict sense, what we would call today a strategic thinker.

At the same time, Eisenhower was a shrewd operational commander and tactician. He was the rare card player who excelled both at bridge and at poker, combining strategic and tactical gifts.² He had a keen sense of timing, and could act quickly, decisively and creatively when the need arose. Most historians regard it as ironic that Eisenhower escaped commanding troops in combat during World War I, and would then go on to command the largest army in modern history, as well as the largest amphibious invasion, in World War II. It was telling, however, that Franklin Roosevelt insisted on having Eisenhower command the D-Day invasion, which meant passing over Marshall, because the president insisted that he needed Marshall in Washington. As Robert Ferrell has written, this turned out to be a wise decision, for Marshall knew how to handle President Roosevelt, a formidable and dangerous figure. The president was especially dangerous when he was friendly, for it was then that his amateur urges became pronounced and he was likely to suggest some inappropriate solution to a problem. […] Marshall was just the man to contain the president’s amateur urges.³ That lesson would not have been lost on Eisenhower.

As in any strong commander, the traits noted above—discipline, patience, foresight, thoughtfulness, bearing, decisiveness, creativity—were interrelated. Yet the one quality that made Eisenhower so formidable a leader was not any one of these, nor was it the sum of them. Eisenhower’s formidability lay in his power of empathy and his talent for inspiring and promoting collaboration. He was, in other words, a first-rate manager.

Operation Overlord was far more than a monumental invasion. It was an even more monumental experiment in combined warfare. And it was in this theater and in this operation that Eisenhower’s managerial talents shone at their brightest. It did not simply exercise his gifts for command, planning and execution, but also in having to lead so diverse a combined force from several nations, including taking command of a few would-be MacArthurs—that is to say, prima donnas—Eisenhower’s diplomatic and political skills were tested. He once told James Forrestal, organizing teams, personality is equally important with ability. […] I simply cannot over-stress this point.⁴ All commanders must contend with difficult and diverging terrains, adversaries and personalities. What made Eisenhower’s case especially noteworthy in World War II was the scale and the stakes it involved.

Eisenhower’s performance during the Cold War was no less noteworthy. Again, the stakes were global, and Eisenhower was leading the most powerful member of the Western alliance. He not only designed and launched the military component of the alliance—NATO—but was also elected president of the United States at the moment at which the Cold War entered a period of intense rivalry—on land, sea, air and space, and in the minds of millions around the world. Faced with these challenges he was not amiss when he said the strongest weapon is unity.⁵

Eisenhower had a gift for, as he put it, standing in the other man’s shoes. He used the phrase to describe his engagement with an adversary, especially during the Cold War, and often with reference to the Soviet Union. There is nothing especially remarkable about the phrase; it is standard fare in military education—know thine enemy. Yet, Eisenhower not only applied the concept to his or his nation’s enemies; he also applied it to his friends and allies, at times evidently less by choice than by necessity. A navy officer […] is trying to act as ‘United States Secretary on Collaboration,’ he noted in his diary on January 27, 1942. My God, how I hate to work by any method that forces me to depend on someone else.⁶

The intersection between alliance and friendship is a broad topic. Both require constant tending; neither is self-perpetuating or even self-justifying.⁷ Friendship—or, to use the more formal, related term, amity—has long been at the root of international order. Treaties need not include amity among their clauses but, when they do, they may be understood as being more beneficial and possibly more lasting. Between individuals, friendships are often broken and sometimes repaired. This is also true among nations. Yet, friendship between states, and between their peoples, is more normative than the majority of personal friendships. Friendship between states, conducted on an international stage, carries with it the notions of order and progress. Hostile relations and noncommunication are the primitive norm in what we still call an anarchical society. Peace, communication and friendship are steps forward, and with each step comes a hard-earned bit of progress.

This earning, this progress, is achieved through statecraft, and to foster statecraft, statesmen must know empathy. They must somehow be able to see the interests of the other side or sides, and be able to translate these interests for their own side, and their own side’s interests into something appreciable by the other side, and then to find some mutual accommodation that serves both sides. Eisenhower had this talent. No other Cold War president paid more attention to, and had a better feel for, allied relationships than Eisenhower. No other Cold War president, with the possible exception of Ronald Reagan, had a greater capacity to persuade America’s allies that he spoke best for, and appealed most to, Middle America than Eisenhower. Thus, his talent was not simply to stand in the other guy’s shoes but also, and just as importantly, to persuade the other guy that he had this talent, to cause him to respect this and to communicate that this was a talent