This is Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast. More what you
hear weekday afternoon is on the Drive. His name is Talmuch Boston and he
is a well known figure among historians as an author, speaker, on stage
interviewer, also author of cross Examining History, Raising the Bar, Baseball and
the Baby Boomer, and nineteen thirty nine Baseball's Tipping Point. But his new
creation is not about baseball. It's called How the Best Did It? Leadership
Lessons from our Top Presidents. Talmach Boston, Welcome, I'd be on your
show, lady. Let's start at the beginning. We've learned as a nation
that generals usually make pretty good presidents. I think it's because to be a
good general, you gotta be a good manager. And that is what George
Washington was. Well. He was a good manager of all, he was
a good leader, and he, I guess inherently knew what it took to
be a good leader. As a general. He stayed in close touch with
his men. He wasn't one of these I'm better than you, you never
get to see me or speak with me. He stayed in constant connection with
his troops, and that endeared him to them. He also always looked the
part of being the leader, riding a white horse, perfect posture, perfect
uniform, piercing eye contact, the tallest guy in the room wherever he was.
So he had all these characteristics, but above all he had integrity,
which gave him credibility, which everything he said people could take to the bank.
And so it was that combination of traits. He was not a particularly
good public speaker, but because he was so accomplished, and because he had
those other traits, he emerged as a leader who everybody wanted to follow,
whether in the military or in politics. Tal much Boston, how the best
did it? Speaking of not being good speaks, we hear and read so
much about Abraham Lincoln's high pitched whiskey voice, which is hard to imagine when
you see pictures of him, because since then he's been so marbleized. But
he also is an enigmatic president in his uncanny ability to seemingly look at himself
from outside himself. Well, Lincoln stands at the top of the mountain.
The most recent speace Span polls among the one hundred and fifty leading historians in
the country always rank him number one. The great thing about Abraham Lincoln is
that he's like reading the Bible. The more you study him, the deeper
you get, the more fascinating he becomes. But he had all the traits
to be a great president. He was emotionally intelligent, he was magnanimous,
he was calm in a crisis. He was eloquent. He was a quick
study with a brilliant mind, and remembered everything he ever read. So you
put all those traits together, and you've got a great president in any era.
But in his of course, dealing with the Civil War, dealing with
the disconnected United States, he needed all those talents to finally bring it to
an end. And unfortunately, shortly after the war's end he was killed,
so we didn't get to see what he would have done to surely bring about
a better result in reconstruction. How the best did it? Leadership lessons from
our top presidents, Talmach Boston is with us. I love talking about this
kind of history, Talmage, because history, to me is not just a
story, it is what really happened. So now I would like to go
from the hyper intelligence of Lincoln to what many could describe by modern terms as
adhd of Teddy Roosevelt. Well, Roosevelt was always on the move. He
was beyond energetic. He was also totally brilliant, read more books than any
president. He wrote more books than any president. He's probably the highest ic
of any president we've ever had. And it all worked well for him through
his presidency. That's why in the c SPAN poll he's rated as a fourth
president. It was after his presidency when he really twisted off, and when
all that energy which couldn't be used to fulfill a huge task like president the
United States. The last decade of his life was not a happy story,
and he died at age sixty. But while he was president, with this
forceful personality, with this brilliance, he proved he was an incredible mediator,
bringing an end to the Great Coal Strike of nineteen oh two, bringing an
end to the Russo Japanese War in nineteen oh five that won him the Nobel
Peace Prize, bringing an end to the crisis in the Morocco as well as
the Hate Convention conflict. The people don't realize how effective he was at taking
parties at war and bringing and finding common ground and bringing them together. And
certainly that's a trait that a leader in any arena needs to have is how
to end disputes quickly and allow people to go on down the road and do
what they're supposed to do. How the best did it? Leadership lessons from
our top presidents. Top Talmage Boston is with us as I move along through
the history of our presidents. It seems to me that Woodrow Wilson was our
first president that showed how to lead even when you are infirmed. Well,
of course, once he became infirmed, he didn't lead. His wife look
over the presidency and it was a downhill slide, and that's why we have
the twenty fifth Amendment to cover situations like this. Wilson is not one of
my eight top presidents. Mine are Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelt's,
Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan, and I regard them as the eighth
greatest president Wilson. With each passing decade we realized more and more what a
horrible racist he was, and his standing among the presidential scholars keeps going down
for that reason. But my target audience for the book is anybody who is
or aspires to be a leader in any arena, a company, a law
firm, a hospital, and nonprofit, and these top leadership trade my Greatest
President can be deadly applied by anybody fully understands them and decides to implement them.
So that's why this book is what I call a work of applied history.
It's one thing to know history, it's something else to be able to
apply it to your daily living. And that's what the book seeks to do.
How the best did it. The book is the Leadership Lessons from our
Top President's Talmage Boston. Is there one or two distinguishing characteristics among all of
these men that you found in doing your research for this book. The one
common trait among these, say presidents, but I think is true of any
successful leader, is they were all great persuaders. That because they were great
persuaders, people wanted to do what they wanted to happen. They succeeded in
that result. Although each of my presidents persuaded in his own unique way,
some of them were eloquent Lincoln, Franklin, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan.
Some of them were persuasive in small groups Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt come
to mind, but they were all great at Ultimately imposing their will and getting
the crowd to go their way. And that's really what makes a leader is
you got to have followers who want to follow you and who want to do
what you want to do. And so that's the common trade. Amund the
eight How the Best Did It? Leadership lessons from our top presidents, tal
Much Boston as the historian and author. The book is available everywhere and I
can't wait to read it because I'm a fan of history and fan of what
we can learn from history. So thank you for joining us. Lead you
with My pleasure is George being on your show. Thanks for listening to Later
with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The
Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation.