By A. Scott Berg
Wilson, by Pulitzer Prize-Winning author, A. Scott Berg, is a personal and political overview of the twenty-eighth President of the United States. To say, "I enjoyed it" is an understatement. Berg's biography was instructional and inspirational for my life and leadership.
The author unveils a complicated, but stunning portrait of Thomas Woodrow Wilson.
Wilson was a man of firsts (the first president to visit the UK, meet with a Pope, shepherd the country through a World War, establish a debt ceiling, hold a press conference, and more). Wilson was a man of deep faith, clinging to an overwhelming confidence in God's providence. At the same time he was far from a paragon of perfection. Robert Lansing said, "The President is a wonderful hater" (read the book and you will agree). One Senator said, "Wilson had no friends, only slaves and enemies." Wilson was caring, diligent in fulfilling his promises, tireless in defense of his principles, and a champion of the common man, yet not all men. Wilson shared much of the racism and prejudice of his day; a point the author takes care to chronicle (see for example pages 155, 243, 346-7, 486)
Wilson was a terrific orator, wrote all his own speeches, and was indefatigable as a campaigner.
He could extemporize for an hour or longer without a pause or misplaced word. He thought in metaphors, spoke in perfect sentences, and composed entire paragraphs in his head, relying on his superior vocabulary. . . . Muckraker Ida Tarbell said, "I doubt if there is any man in America that can talk . . . with such precision and at the same time so like a human being." (p. 11)
Berg gives us all of this and more.
Wilson revered his father, Joseph Ruggles Wilson, the Scottish Presbyterian minister. The words exchanged between father and son -- but especially from father to son -- are exemplary. So this is how you raise a man! Wilson adored his wife, Ellen Lousie Axson, the mother of his three daughters. Their correspondence, hers in particular, is a picture of what seems a long-lost art of expression. When Ellen died, Wilson was distraught. He doubted his ability to continue his presidential duties. Recovering, he met and would marry the much younger Edith Bolling Galt, whom he would affectionately call, "little girl." Both women were wise, relational anchors for his soul, the love of his life (in their seasons in his life) and instrumental to his stability and political effectiveness.
Wilson shows us a man and a nation is transition from isolationism to leader on the world stage. Wilson, the man whose re-election banner proclaimed, "He kept us out of war," was slowly maneuvering to take the country to war.
Wilson shows us politics, a nefarious game and a powerful tool. Wilson turned the tables on the political machine that thought they could control him, leveraged his political capital for societal good, but in the end was upended by political adversaries (most notably Henry Cabot Lodge) who persistently worked to dash his hopes for America's entrance into the League of Nations.
Wilson shows us the power of vision, written and oral communication, audacity of method, and what can happen when one man takes his dream for the people to the people.
I learned a lot from reading, Wilson. Here are four of my key leadership takeaways followed by a few of my favorite quotes:
1. Team leadership: Berg provides insights as to how leaders and second leaders effectively function. He traces the sometimes steady, sometimes volatile relationship Wilson had with his inner circle (Hibbens, Tumulty, Colonel House, and Dr. Grayson). See pages 165 (Hibbens betrayal); 215, 232 (Tumulty and the importance of alignment); page 556 (House overstepping his boundaries and disloyalty); page 663 (Houston's comment about "being in the harness"); and watch Dr. Grayson's faithfulness to the very end.
2. Tenacity and self-sacrifice: Wilson devoted six months of his presidency in Europe to further his dream for the League of Nations, a feat that both bolstered the League in Europe, but doomed it in the United States. His campaign by train to "take the idea of the League to the people" in the face of his declining health is laudatory.
3. Self-Leadership: Wilson, at the urging of Dr. Grayson, took up golf as a means to combat the relentless pressures of his office. The President enjoyed the game with abandonment, playing some 1200 rounds during his presidency, more than any other. While some may feel this excessive, Wilson probably would have succumbed to the physiological impact of his stresses sooner than he did were it not for the care with which he took (generally) to invest time in replenishing activities.
4. Vision and communication: Wilson puts on a clinic when it comes these essential leadership responsibilities: Communication: shoot with a rifle, not a shotgun (p. 36); Communication preparation (p. 62); Funding vision (p. 140); The cost (p. 215); Philosophy of leadership communication (p. 242); Audacity of method (p. 461); Preparation rhythm (p. 624); Refining communication (p. 633).
A few quotes I appreciate:
1. On Harding's presidential victory: "How can he lead if he does not know where he is going?" (p. 693)
2. On his stoic response to being elected: "Governor, you don't seem a bit excited." "I can't effervesce in the face of responsibility." (p. 234)
3. Most likely in reference to the sometimes self-exalting Teddy Roosevelt: "There is no indispensable man." (p. 236)
4. On God's providence: "God ordained that I should be the next president of the United States. Neither you nor any other mortal could have prevented that." (p. 252)
5. In the face of frustrating times: "I believe in divine Providence. If I did not, I would go crazy." (p. 629. See also pp. 507, 535,733)
6. To his critic Abbort Lawrence Lowell, "I've come to heal a quarrel, not to make one." (p. 106)
7. On teaching: "There is one thing a schoolteacher learns that he never forgets, namely, that it is his business to learn all he can and then to communicate it to others." (p. 241)
8. On courage: "The rarest thing in public life is courage, and the man who has courage is marked for distinction; the man who has not is marked for extinction, and deserves submersion." (p. 272)
9. On valor: "Valor withholds itself from all small implications and entanglements and waits for the great opportunity when the sword will flash as if it carried the light of heaven upon its blade." (p. 393)
10. His father's admonition when a young Wilson was grappling with direction: "All beginnings are hard, whatever occupation is chosen: -- but surely a fair beginning must be made before the real character of the thing begun can be determined . . . . It is hardly like you, my brave boy, to show a white feather before the battle is well joined." (p. 85)
Delightfully, Berg provides us with three collections of photographs he scatters throughout his volume. In conclusion, I think it appropriate the author does not provide a subtitle for his work. How does one attach an all-encompassing phrase to an individual and an administration as expansive as that of Thomas Woodrow Wilson? Yes, Wilson will serve just fine.
This is a great read -- informative, insightful, and instructive.