What JFK learned -- and taught -- about leadership
Warren Bennis,
a pioneer in leadership studies, is the author of more than two dozen
books and has served as an adviser to four presidents. He is University
Professor and Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the
University of Southern California.I vividly recall those 13 days in the fall of 1962, watching President John F. Kennedy on our black and white television in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was a professor at MIT focusing on the emerging field of leadership studies, and the Cuban Missile Crisis was about leadership writ large for the world to witness.
Fifty years after the
Kennedy assassination, there is conversation everywhere about JFK's
unrealized potential. Amid the wave of sentimental reflection this year,
there has been much focus on the mythical elements of Camelot or too
many details about that tragic day in Dallas, and not enough on the
real-world challenges of the JFK presidency.
Warren Bennis
I believe Kennedy's
legacy as a leader during the immensely difficult times of the early
1960s has been underestimated -- today, his imprint on the world
political scene is powerful and far-reaching.
From the outset of his
presidency, Kennedy had a great deal to prove to the country and to his
hometown of Boston. There was a saying that the 617 area code, which
included Boston and Cambridge, was the most opinionated enclave in the
country, which I believe to be accurate. Many of my colleagues and
friends at MIT and Harvard were skeptical of Kennedy. There was a
sentiment that perhaps he did not have the gravitas to be president,
that he was too young, too inexperienced, too dependent upon his
powerful family.
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