Introduction
Are leaders born or made. I’m talking about larger than life leaders, the Churchills, Pattons and Elons of the world. What of the Richard “Cœur de Lion”1 or Ike? What sets them apart? Were they born to be what they were, or made to be?
Surely there are people with innate characteristics that we’d all agree are leadership qualities.
There are some people who graduate from institutions, which claim to produce leaders, who go on to become leaders. But those institutions are funnels for people they insist will lead one day. Do they? Do they all go on to lead in a grand way?
Without the use of a scientific study, I’d bet the number of military academy grads, Yale grads and graduates from your high school, go on to outpace their peers as leaders in about the same number. All military grads will be “leaders” be virtue of position. It’s a requirement. But most, if they make it to retirement, will not rise above a staff job. Not all Ivy League alums will be CEOs and will likely serve as functionaries in their organizations. But they all have the resources if they know how to use them; if they have the personality needed to use them properly.
Then there is the guy who is just more dogged than the next guy. He blows past all the above and all his peers and demographic group to change the world.
Whichever is the case, it is a world changer we will be talking about here. By all means, take what you learn here and apply it to your life. Change the world yourself, or at least your corner of it. I will be talking about one particular world changer in this series. He was not a genius. He was not a member of the well-heeled classes. Our subject was not classically educated.
It can be said he was “self-made”. But without the help of certain powerful people he’d have ended his life a tall, lonely, middling, Westmorland planter with bad teeth. To be certain, his mother, often harsh and demanding, almost shrewish, was a motivator. Spoiler: his relationship with her was one of loyalty, if not warmth.
So far, in my reading, one person in particular makes an over-the-top fuss about our man being a born or natural leader. And that story is likely one of the myths associated with Washington.
This episode is the first in a series, the introduction, wherein we take a deep dive into George Washington. I am going to explore, as objectively as I can, the qualities that made him the central figure in the birth of our nation and a leader.
I will take him down entirely from the marble pedestal he has occupied as a legend since 1775 and before. I will try to do a better job of statue killing than David O. Stewart who did OKAY, but quoted at least two really outlandish stories of a Washington with a big S on his chest and wearing a cape…so to speak. He did so without comment, implying the tales were true.2 3
My intention isn’t to tear down a better man then me so we can all feel better about ourselves. I haven’t taken this project on out of disrespect. On the contrary, I hope to come away with a study from which we can all learn valuable lessons. What qualities were truly held by GW and how can we truly learn from them? Will they even translate into out age? What about the man can we pass on to our children and grandchildren truly worthy of the life Washington lived? The “cherry tree” Washington and the utterly selfless Washington are stories for 7-year-olds. I believe there are more valuable and inspiring lessons to be learned from a GW that looks more like a classy, articulate version of Rocky Balboa than the silent poser of Hollywood fame.
We will see his flaws and strengths. We will witness his evolution and compare those attributes to the view of leadership as expressed by several modern authors.
I have chosen authors who have written what seem to be sound principles of leadership, though some tend to be a bit simplistic. Maxwell would be the most blatant example of this. His The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership reads much like a Chicken Soup for the Soul - The Leadership Edition. But his points are valid and it is an easy read. This is very important for the busy exec or barnstorming politician…or his speech writer.4
In fairness, I suppose it is difficult to write a book, teaching the reader how to assume the qualities of leadership, without sounding like a modern self-help huckster. Even more detailed works like Kouzes and Posner’s Leadership Challenge have this quality. So, I am happy to say that if you wish to sharpen you leadership skills to become a better CEO, coach, minister, parent, politician and so on, by all means grab a copy of any of the references I cite here and carry on smartly. There won’t be too many works for you to track. They will all be in the footnotes or a bib at the end.
In the course of researching this project, I have discovered two things SO FAR. First, GW is more interesting and multifaceted as an imperfect human being than as the inflated, but two dimensional myth created around him. Second, I like him more as a flawed human than as the myth.
In the course of this series I will draw from Washington’s biographers along with the writings of his contemporaries. You’ll hear from writers like Stephen R. Covey, John C. Maxwell, Barry Z. Posner and James M. Kouzes to establish what leadership is. We’ll hear from David O. Stewart, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Paul K. Longmore and others to clock GW, “the leader”.
We’ll see George the teen - not very well to do in those years - and the tempestuous, perhaps insufferable young man. But not heartless. He was mindful of his mother, but not overly so. He worshiped his older brother and would have followed him through a sewer if that was where his brother was headed.
We’ll meet the George who formed life-long friendships, even through war, at opposite sides of the conflict. And a man who would alienate men who were among his staunchest supporters. (Spoiler: He learned gratitude when he was closer to 40 than to 20 years old.)
And Washington appears to have had health problems as a boy. (It seems some of our best-loved presidents were sick kids. Coolidge, FDR, TR, JFK, Madison, Jackson and Wilson.5 Weird.)
Did you know GW was quite the land speculator? Not always a good one - but very aggressive and greedy, and too impetuous at times, but visionary in this regard nonetheless.
We’ll see many of the foundations for the qualities this book is meant to address, as well as many of the things he had to overcome. How studious was he, how athletic, how persistent, how ambitious?
Was George a player, skirt chaser? So far my reading leaves me uncertain if his biographers are just being kind by only dropping the occasional randy hints. Or are they constricted by a lack of contemporaneous knowledge imparted by his peers? One of his land survey companions referred to him as “often lusty”. Hmmm. What would have his older brother, or his friend George William Fairfax have said in a frank moment about George the Lothario. Was he even a real Lothario? And if he was, how did that shape or effect George the leader?
For all I know, that previous paragraph may be just me, unintentionally selling the sizzle. I’m not kidding.6 You are going to be learning most of what I know about of GW, and ALL the leadership comparatives, within about two weeks of me learning it, based on the system I am using to create the work. More on the system later.
Washington was a gambler. That it didn’t destroy him says he probably wasn’t an addict. In fact the record is pretty clear it didn’t remain an important part of his later life. And yet, he kept a strict accounting for his wins and losses in his ledgers. How masochistic is that if you’re on a bad run?
We all know Washington had slaves. As a boy and young man, he seems to have seen slaves as not much more important than an inventory item; plows, shovels, slaves, pikes, livestock, etc. As a general, fighting for freedom, he developed some serious misgivings about holding slaves but waited until his death to free them. That is a prime example of eating your cake and having it too. 7
What, of Washington’s life achievements, were all George? What was he credited with but might not be all his doing? When was he being a true leader? When - meh - not so much? What were his most formative experiences? How did each event shape the next, and prepare him for it?
How did young George handle insult, confrontation, disappointment? How did GW, the politician, approach governance? Was he open-handed, charitable?
And how does all this shape the man who would lead the military end of a world changing revolution? Would George Washington fit the profile of a leader in the modern sense of the word?
I will attempt to answer all these questions and more as we learn about the man together. I am no expert regarding GW or the Revolutionary War. I can be said, at best, to be well-read on the subjects. But considering the material available to me and the goals of this series, I think we will all have a real grasp of whether George Washington was the true “leader of our nation” or a man upon whom myth has been draped like so much tinsel.
The work is called Prig to President: The Character and Leadership of George Washington
I am debating using a template list of qualities to explore, and back-filling them like a paint by numbers kit. I like a simple direct approach to my work. But just letting the piece unroll like a free-flowing narrative might be more fun. The decision about method will be established in chapter 1, when it is released.
I know, the suspense is killing you, right?
The Man
In The First American,8 Joseph Ellis sums up Washington rather neatly when he says that GW presented “the greatest difficulty of anyone I’ve tried to write about.” My early research for episodes 1 and 2 would support that conclusion. Among the complications would be untangling myth from reality. There is so much apparent mythology, one must apply Occam’s Razor and a degree of reasonable skepticism to any number of stories about GW. This takes time.
Now, what do I mean by that?
The only way to TRY to separate myth’s about GW from reality is to consider the sum knowledge you have about him based on his experiences. Then you look at the simplest and most likely interpretation of events or what is said. Abigail Adams said upon meeting GW every line in his face radiated humility. We know she was much more enamored with Washington than her husband was.
One admirer, meeting Washington on his way to take command said [paraphrasing] every virtue rested within him.
Were these extreme reactions real? Or were they expanded and delivered much later when GW was victorious, to make him and the Revolution even grander than they were. Of these myths I’ve mentioned I’ll give you two examples from David Stewart.
In one, Washington, who was said to be around 40 years old at the time of the story, happens across two young men who are throwing a heavy pike (picture a 15 pound iron spear) to see who can throw it the furthest. After watching for a bit he is invited to participate in the contest. He removes his jacket and heaves the bar much further than either of the other two men. He smiles and tells them to let him know if anyone beats his throw.
This, to me, rings like a slightly less crazy story than the one of Kim Jung-il taking up golf for the first time in 1970. He shot 30-something under par with multiple aces and double birdies. He did so well he never played again because, of course, he would never top that game. I mean, who could?!
There is another myth which I think is part of a pattern we see throughout Washington’s life. I alluded to it just a second ago. The after-the-fact myth or offhand comment blown up and reported much later, to support GW as the great general or the first U.S. President. This example also comes from Stewart and I will quote it extensively because I want you to capture the flavor of the story. I don’t know the name of the “speaker”, supposedly an Indian warrior present at the battle of Monongahela.
I called to my young men and said, mark yon tall and daring warrior? He is not of the red-coat tribe - he hath an Indian’s wisdom, and his warriors fight as we do - he is alone exposed…. Our rifles were leveled, rifles which, but for him, knew not how to miss - ‘twas all in vain, a power mightier than we, shielded him from harm. He cannot die in battle…. The Great Spirit protects that man, and guides his destinies - he will become the chief of nations, and a people yet unborn, will hail him as the founder of a mighty empire.
OH, PLEASE!
There is so much wrong here. First it is stated in the formal tones we always seem to credit Native Americans with. Hollywood is notorious for this type of benign racism. Although they may enjoy telling significant tales in flowery prose, they are perfectly capable of common speech patterns. At best, if these sentiments ever reached the ears of one Dr. Craik, the man credited with relating the story later - much later - they were at best along the lines of, I yelled to my younger guys - did you see the tall one? He’s got guts, that one. Fights like we do. Lucky too. If he lives long enough, he’s going places!
The long version is a “prophecy” invented or exaggerated years, perhaps decades after the real events happened, in this case to support “the cause9” and perhaps magnify the marble statue GW.
Adding to the challenge of analyzing Wahington, there is so much REAL information available about the man, and his personal growth, that it is daunting to know where to begin. He was a complex man. Was GW often quiet because there was nothing he felt he could contribute? Was he intimidated by men of higher learning? Or did he parse out words of greater value at the critical moment? It seems he could hold his own among men like Adams and Jefferson, but he wasn’t formally educated.
He studied every aspect of agriculture he could lay his hands on, yet he was not terribly successful as a farmer. Did he experiment to often to see long-term results of his efforts. We’ll see that he hated tobacco as a crop. Yet he went on for years trying to make it work before finally quitting the the leaf for other crops.
As was the ca se with Jefferson, debt dogged GW for most of his adult life. It wasn’t beneath the “Father of our Nation” to beg for loans or put off paying the ones he had. He might have had a greater income, but he lived and worked too far from the lands he scooped up in the west to be a good landlord.
He spent real energy hoping to be named leader of Virginia forces in 1775 or perhaps even a higher military office, yet on his way to Cambridge to assume command of the Continental army, he could think of a thousand places he’d rather be. The gambler in Washington understood odds and risk, even if reality emerged in his mind a bit late in that particular game.
And yet he plowed into his duties with a cool head. And although Georges Jacques Danton would not speak his famous maxim for another 17 years, Washington knew audacity would be his only strategic asset.10 For those educated men he left behind in Congress, such could not be said, at least not outside a meeting room.
The System
I have been looking forward to this project of a couple of months now. Without boring you with the details I am using an analog Zettelkasten or “Antinet” in my reading and research.11 This will be a test of my use of note boxes, my ability to process and produce information, and Scotty Scheper’s “Antinet” ideas.12
Of Scotty’s description of the system, I have the first two going pretty well, the reading and researching. As for the writing, I will leave that for you to decide. I have given myself 4 weeks per episode to gather and digest enough on an aspect of GW’s life, or his strengths or weaknesses. Then we can discuss it. Please make prodigious use of comments as we learn together.
For veterans of the P4B, this will seem a continuation of my AWOL. It’s not, really. This will be the new approach. While I have a series like this one in production, that will take up almost all my time. If I can get a really cool interview, we will run those regardless of the publication schedule. And between big projects, I’ll still be my adorable, right-wing, reactionary self. I will allow that things might happen during any given month that will cause my head to explode if I don’t talk about them. For those occasions, I may drop brilliant, unscheduled quick hits.
Stay with us. Like, follow, subscribe, share and support the P4B…and maintain good dental hygiene.
Footnotes below links
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Lion Heart
Do not take from my views on Stewart, as an example of hero worship of Washington, that I have a problem with this book. I don’t. His is one of my favorite works about GW. It’s a very enjoyable read.
George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father. By David O. Stewart. Penguin Random House, LLC. 2021
Speech writers, pay attention. Take notes. Then give your subject (politician, general, executive) a reputation to live up to.
I would list Wilson as my least loved. But Lefties adore him.
You will see most of this series as it unfolds before me. As of this post, Chapter 1 is not written yet, or even fully outlined.
Let me save you some effort before you react to the idiom. The modern way of expressing it is to have your cake and eat it to. But in THAT order, you can HAVE your cake and then eat it. But you cannot devour your cake and still THEN have it. The correct proverb is you can’t eat your cake then have it, too.
Gingrich Productons and Peace River Company, The First American On Fox Nation.
“The Cause” was dramatic shorthand for the Revolution, according to Paul K. Longmore in The Invention of George Washington. The University Press of Virginia, 1999. I would imagine there might have been some rhetorical hedging with this term. Some might not have wanted to say the “R” word out loud. What if they lost. They could plead some other term later in an attempt to avoid the hangman.
“De l’audace, de l’audace, toujours de l’audace!” It was Danton, not Frederick the Great, as we hear in the movie Patton.
I named mine Diesel.
Antinet Zettelkasten: A knowledge system that will turn you into a prolific reader, researcher and writer. by Scott Scheper, Greenlamp, LLC, 2022
