Leadership in Turbulent Times: Key Takeaways Essay

Challenging events in the history of humanity have always required bold actions and instant and thought-through decisions made by effective leaders. The ability to cope with stress and build resilience in themselves and their followers, as well as the use of efficient management skills, help outstanding leaders overcome obstacles during turbulent times and achieve goals. In her book Leadership in Turbulent Times, Goodwin thoroughly analyzes the leadership styles of four American presidents who led the country during a severe event in history and succeeded. The author provides several key lessons for emerging leaders on the importance of resilience, the effectiveness of transformational leadership, flexibility, and long-term thinking.¹ This paper is designed to discuss the key takeaways from the book and justify their usefulness in a military career, professional advancement, and future tasks.

One of the most important insights from the book is the understanding that good leaders are not born but made through deliberate effort, learning, and reflection. To develop strong leadership traits and skills, one should analyze their leadership style compared to best practices and the most effective approaches used by prominent leaders. In particular, throughout the book, Goodwin provides multiple pieces of evidence justifying the essential role of resilience in good leadership. The author situates “resilience, the ability to sustain ambition in the face of frustration, at the heart of potential leadership growth,” making it one of the most important characteristics of an effective leader.² In my military career, resilience will help me endure challenges of conducting difficulty working with personnel and completing difficult missions without losing the motivation and engaging the followers. As for professional development, resilience might be useful for overcoming failures and renewing attempts to achieve performance excellence. In addition, a resilient outlook will allow me to succeed in completing future assignments due to one’s psychological and emotional strength.

Another important leadership takeaway from the book is the role of transformational leadership as one of the most effective styles in turbulent times. Indeed, leaders who use this approach “inspire followers to identify with something larger than themselves—the organization, the community, the region, the country.”³ In the military career, one might effectively integrate the principles of transformational leadership by building a trusting and supporting culture in teams and encouraging devotion and loyalty of followers to a bigger community. Moreover, in terms of professional development, transformational leadership will be a helpful framework for attaining higher goals for the organization’s benefit and personal growth. When completing future tasks, this insight will be a motivational factor for encouraging one’s ability to contribute to a bigger purpose.

The flexibility of a leader’s decision-making and long-term thinking constitute another valuable insight from the book. Indeed, as Goodwin illustrates with Lincoln’s and Roosevelt’s examples, it is important to “be open to experiment” and “design flexible agencies to deal with new problems.”⁴ These characteristics are essential in military practice since they reinforce analytical thinking and risk assessment. Similarly, for professional advancement, flexibility and long-term thinking allow for managing efforts and time efficiently to maximize improvement benefits. Finally, flexible and long-term thinking attitudes will allow for finding alternative solutions when completing challenging assignments.

In conclusion, Leadership on Turbulent Times is a valuable source of information for emerging leaders. It provides multiple advice on handling challenging situations in the leadership position and ensuring mission completion by reasonable means. In particular, the insights on transformational leadership, resilience, flexibility, and long-term thinking will be practically and theoretically useful in one’s military career, professional development, and future task completion.

Bibliography

Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Leadership in Turbulent Times. New York: Simon & Shuster, 2018.

Goodwin, Doris Kearns, Leadership in Turbulent Times (New York: Simon & Shuster, 2018), 7.

Footnotes

1. Goodwin, Doris Kearns, Leadership in Turbulent Times (New York: Simon & Shuster, 2018), 8-12.
2. Goodwin, 123.
3. Goodwin, 271.
4. Goodwin, 335.