weekend seminar, as many of the leadership-theory spokesmen
claim. I’ve come to think of that one as the micro wave theory:
pop in Mr. or Ms. Average and out pops McLeader in sixty
seconds.
Billions of dollars are spent annually by and on would-be
leaders. Many major corporations offer leadership develop-
ment courses. And corporate America has nevertheless lost its
lead in the world market. I would argue that more leaders have
been made by accident, circumstance, sheer grit, or will than
have been made by all the leadership courses put together.
Leadership courses can only teach skills. They can’t teach
character or vision—and indeed they don’t even try. Develop-
ing character and vision is the way leaders invent themselves.
The Great Depression was the crucible in which Franklin
D. Roosevelt was transformed from politician to leader. Harry
Truman became president when FDR died, but it was sheer
grit that made him a leader. Dwight Eisenhower, the nation’s
only five-star general, was underestimated by Republican party
bosses who saw only his winning smile. He turned out to be his
own man, and a leader. Pols like Chicago’s mayor Richard Da-
ley gave John Kennedy a boost into the White House, but he
shone there on his own. Like them or not, FDR, Truman, Ike,
and JFK were all true leaders.
Truman never saw himself as a leader and was probably as
surprised as anyone else when he became president. Eisen-
hower was a good soldier blessed with a constellation of better
soldiers who made both his military and political victories pos-
sible. Those charming rich boys Roosevelt and Kennedy were,
in the vernacular of the time, traitors to their class, but heroes
to the people. Each of these men was his own invention: Tru-
man and Eisenhower, the quintessential small-town boys rising
On Becoming a Leader