What Makes a Successful President?

Political observers are constantly on the lookout as to what exactly makes a winning candidate. The quest to identify a coherent sense of what it takes to be a good president is what drives Fred I. Greenstein’s “The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from FDR to George W. Bush.” In other nations with a traditional focus on collective leadership, for example Great Britain, the individual impact that the executive leader has on governmental actions is modest at best. In such systems, personal effectiveness is not of primary concern. In the American system, however, the person at the peak of the political system is in a position to effect a difference. The American constitution grants independent powers to the President that allow him to effect any changes in the nation’s policies.

Up until the 1930s, the US Congress typically took the lead while the President merely presided over government. Post the 1930s era, the Presidents began to actively influence and take the lead on policy considerations. Owing to this change, the American chief executives embarked on a course that would see them exercise executive authority. America was coming into her own and was soon to emerge as a world and then a nuclear power. With this development, there was need to have only the most capable people at the helm of executive office subject to the increasing impact the federal government held over the nation and the world. The question this raises is on whether the public always know what is best for it. A related question is how, if at all, one can predict the success a leader will have at executing the office, and this is the primary consideration that moves Fred I. Greenstein’s “The Presidential Difference.”

Fred I. Greenstein’s book offers a different kind of analysis on what makes a President good, or even great. As opposed to focusing on the efficacy of candidacy, Greenstein offers a coherent set of criteria on which the success of leaders can be assessed. Dwelling on the modern era presidents, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush, he evaluate all the Presidents against six desirable qualities. The first is the proficiency of the President as a public communicator. Greenstein observes that the effectiveness as a public communicator has a strong bearing on the outer face of presidential leadership. The second is the organizational capacity which has profound impact on the inner workings of the presidency. Greenstein describes this as the President’s ability to rally colleagues and build their activities effectively. The third relates to the Presidents abilities as a skilled political operator.

The fourth metric that Greenstein applies focuses on the President’s ability to harness a definite vision of public policy while the fifth pertains to the cognitive abilities and style with which he handles advice and information that he receives. The sixth and final indicator, and one which Greenstein considers the most crucial, relates to Emotional Intelligence. To Greenstein, Emotional intelligence which is the degree to which the President is able to manage his emotions and apply them to productive purposes as opposed to being dominated by or allowing them  to  undermine  his executive performance and direction, is the fundamental indicator of success as President. Citing the emergence of what has commonly come to be known as the modern Presidency, a period that has seen increasing American influence in world affairs, Greenstein contends that a good emotional temperament is key to success in executive office.

The modern Presidency has heralded a period in which the chief executive became the principal source of programs and policy initiatives. While proposing much of the policies deliberated upon by Congress, the Presidents began making an increasing number of policy change considerations independent of influence from the legislature. For the first time since independence, the Presidents were utilizing their constitution driven mandates. The Executive Office was established to ensure a sufficient organizational support framework that would enable the President with support in carrying out the expanded obligations. While the power of the modern American chief executive exhibits itself in decisions of war and peace and international relations, the President still has important domestic functions. On the legislative front, the President has powers to veto any bills he is opposed to. The discretion over implementation of laws confers greater ability to command public attention and shape the national policy agenda.

Greenstein, a leading Presidential scholar, proffers a bold new evaluation on why some Presidents fail, and even more importantly, why others fail. On the basis of the six primary indicators – public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence – Greenstein argues for what it takes to ensure presidential success. He identifies the immense contributions that institutions play in the American Government while pointing to the profound effect that the occupant of the nation’s highest office can have on Government operations. While remarking on the importance of Emotional Intelligence, Greenstein further suggests that a President’s effectiveness is a not only a function of his skills as a political operator but also his mental health. He notes that “a president’s actions are a function not only of the intensity of his passions, but also of his capacity to channel them and prevent them from confounding his official responsibilities” (Greenstein 89).

One of the more surprising details of Greenstein’s assessment of Presidential assessment is the importance he places on emotional intelligence. Greenstein defines Emotional Intelligence as “the president’s ability to manage his emotions and turn them to constructive purposes, rather than being dominated by them and allowing them to diminish his leadership” (Greenstein 6). Greenstein looks at and comes to his main theme in “The Presidential Difference” through the exploration of how the ability to manage and control Emotional intelligence has affected each modern President’s performance. In proffering the relevant criteria for judging prospective Presidential performance, he cautions against the Presidential contender that lacks signs of Emotional Intelligence. Greenstein observes that where there is no emotional temperance, “all else may turn to ashes” (Greenstein 223). Of the thirteen Presidents he covers, he points out Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Carter and Clinton as examples of those without Emotional Intelligence advancing that these were “emotionally handicapped” (Greenstein 221).

Stopping just short of a similar admonition, Greenstein categorizes Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Reagan as being “marked by emotional undercurrents that did not significantly impair their leadership” (Greenstein 221). The remaining Presidents, Eisenhower, Ford, and Bush are noted to “standout as fundamentally free of distracting emotional perturbations” (Greenstein 221). Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton who Greenstein finds to be particularly lacking in the quality, had their Presidencies suffer as a result. To illustrate this Greenstein points to Lyndon Johnson being self-important and volatile, without an ability to check his emotional excesses. He offers Lyndon Johnson’s remarks that “They are all my helicopters” (Greenstein 9) as proof for Johnson’s ineptness. When talking of Nixon’s shortcomings, Greenstein cites the fact that he presided over the Watergate scandal. He also makes note of Nixon’s paranoia during his tenure as leader. On Clinton, Greenstein contends that he was too undisciplined and that “Clinton’s foibles made him an underachiever and national embarrassment” (Greenstein 223).

One of the more interesting aspects of the books arises from the perceptions that the public may have about the holders of the political office. The public usually holds a certain impression about the person and performance of the President, and this usually translates into how the public views the chief executive. While public perception is usually founded in fact, sometimes the nature of the Presidential office is such that it can lead to mistaken impressions on the nature of the occupant of the Oval office. John F. Kennedy was for example thought to have been very promiscuous. Declassified records however point to this being a gross exaggeration. While it was a fact the he had some relationships, it was not to the level that was ascribed to him. JFK was not alone in being subjected to public impression based on mistaken impressions. Perhaps the most famous case of such involved that of Dwight Eisenhower’s Presidency.

Eisenhower’s Presidency, or the hidden hand Presidency as it has since come to be known was remarkable for the way he managed to fool people into thinking that he had less than absolute control of his government. During his terms, it was widely thought that the real power behind the Presidency existed with some of his top aides. Eisenhower managed to hide his hand in most of the decisions he made, giving the impression that some of his top aides were responsible for the decisions. The result was that he was viewed as a lame duck President, despite coming out of the Second World War one of the top military strategists. Eisenhower was in charge of Allied operations in Europe, and the Allies win could be attributed in no small part to his strategic skill and organizational knowledge. The acts managed to fool many a voter, and even political commentators, an impression that was uncorrected until the declassification of records.

While his reserved leadership style may not be replicable in contemporary times, largely owing to the level of scrutiny that is present in Washington presently, his low-profile political methods complemented by his studied means of fulfilling his obligations are a study in statesmanship. Eisenhower managed to achieve immense public support, even into his second term. Much of his success can be pegged to the realization that the commander has the double burden of preserving optimism in his command as well as his person since any optimism or pessimism will be relayed down the chain to other parties. Eisenhower “determined that my mannerisms and speech in public would always reflect the cheerful certainty of victory” (Greenstein 62). Greenstein admits to the success of the strategy when he remarks that “Presidents who emphasize the ecumenical side of their job and play down their political machinations may well experience a payoff in the form of public respect and approval” (Greenstein 70).

Works Cited

Greenstein, Fred I. The Presidential Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. Print.