Watch Doris Kearns Goodwin with Frank Buckley

Doris Kearns Goodwin

in conversation with Frank Buckley

Doris Kearns Goodwin with Frank Buckley

discussing her book, “Leadership: In Turbulent Times”

#FLASHBACKVIDEO
From October 4, 2018 at Aratani Theatre

Doris Kearns Goodwin

in conversation with Frank Buckley

discussing her book,
Leadership: In Turbulent Times

In this culmination of five decades of acclaimed studies in presidential history, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin offers an illuminating exploration of the early development, growth, and exercise of leadership.

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s interest in leadership began more than half a century ago as a professor at Harvard. Her experiences working for LBJ in the White House and later assisting him on his memoirs led to her bestselling Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. She followed up with the Pulitzer Prize–winning No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. She earned the Lincoln Prize for the runaway bestseller Team of Rivals, the basis for Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award-winning film Lincoln, and the Carnegie Medal for The Bully Pulpit, the New York Times bestselling chronicle of the friendship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Follow her on Twitter @DorisKGoodwin.

Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader?

In Leadership, Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights)—to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. By looking back to their first entries into public life, we encounter them at a time when their paths were filled with confusion, fear, and hope.

Leadership tells the story of how they all collided with dramatic reversals that disrupted their lives and threatened to shatter forever their ambitions. Nonetheless, they all emerged fitted to confront the contours and dilemmas of their times.

No common pattern describes the trajectory of leadership. Although set apart in background, abilities, and temperament, these men shared a fierce ambition and a deep-seated resilience that enabled them to surmount uncommon hardships. At their best, all four were guided by a sense of moral purpose. At moments of great challenge, they were able to summon their talents to enlarge the opportunities and lives of others.

This seminal work provides an accessible and essential road map for aspiring and established leaders in every field. In today’s polarized world, these stories of authentic leadership in times of apprehension and fracture take on a singular urgency.

“Four towering individuals . . . in a masterwork on how good leaders become great leaders, how burning personal ambition can be elevated into driving ambition for a cause greater than self. Riveting, uplifting, and incisive, Leadership is a culminating work of a true intellectual artist.” — Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great,” co-author “Built to Last”

“Business students invariably ask me: ‘With what historical figure would you like to have lunch?’ Doris Kearns Goodwin has prepared a marvelous banquet with four leaders whose lives provide lessons for all of us. Pull up a chair.” — Warren Buffett

Frank Buckley is an anchor of KTLA Morning News. Frank joined KTLA in June 2005 from CNN where he had been a national correspondent. Frank is also host of the “Frank Buckley Interviews” podcast.

Frank’s reporting experiences have taken him around the world and have included assignments covering the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, politics for CNN, frequent reporting from the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency, natural disasters in Japan, the Los Angeles riots, the Hong Kong handover, the OJ Simpson trial and countless other stories in Southern California and across the U.S.

Prior to KTLA and CNN, Frank reported for Los Angeles station KCAL-TV, WXII-TV in Winston-Salem, N.C., and at KESQ-TV in Palm Springs. He has also written for the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit News.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

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