All-powerful leaders In the footsteps of great leaders, we hear the rumbling thunder of history. Over the centuries—from the ancient Greeks, through Shakespeare, to the present day—few themes have fascinated playwrights and historians as consistently and powerfully as the personalities of great leaders.How to distinguish them?How to account for the peculiar and inarticulate interrelationship that exists between the leader and the led? It's not just the drama of these leaders, but their importance—their impact—that causes so much interest in their role.When the final act of the play is over, the audience files out of the theater and returns home to resume their normal lives.However, when the curtain falls on a leading figure's political career, this normal life for the audience changes, and perhaps the course of history is profoundly altered.

During that mundane period of history, I have had the rare opportunity to study world leaders directly during the last thirty-five years.Among the important leaders after World War II, I know all except Stalin.I have visited more than eighty countries and have not only met these leaders but seen them lead.I have seen some leaders succeed and others fail.I had the opportunity to analyze the reasons for their success and failure from the perspective of my own experience.Having experienced the ups and downs of my official career, I know that unless you have experienced failure yourself, it is difficult for you to truly experience the joy of success.It’s also impossible to fully understand what drives a leader if you just sit on the sidelines and watch.

During my years in public office, a question that was often asked of me was, "Who was the greatest leader you have ever known?" To which it is impossible to give a simple answer.Every leader is in the conditions of his particular time, place, and occasion, and leaders and their countries are not interchangeable.Winston Churchill was a great man, but it is hard to imagine him playing a role as successfully as Adenauer in postwar Germany.Conversely, Adenauer could not revive Britain at the most critical moment like Churchill did. The sure formula for placing a leader among the greats consists of three elements: a great man, a great country, and a great event.Once, Winston Churchill commented on Lord Rosebery, the nineteenth-century prime minister of England, that unfortunately he lived in a "period of great men but no great events." Normally, we value leaders in wartime more than leaders in peacetime, Partly because of the drama that war entails, partly because the histories of nations have written about war at length, and partly because when a leader is confronted with challenges that demand the best of his abilities, we are fully measure how great the leader is.When the Medal of Honor is awarded, I often think about how many recipients of the Medal must appear to be very ordinary people until they rise to the challenge with the utmost valor.They cannot be heroes without a challenge.The challenges of wartime make it easy to measure the character displayed by a leader.Peacetime challenges may also be great, but a leader's surmounting them is neither dramatic nor noticeable.

It is clear that a small man leading a great country cannot prove his greatness in a major crisis.Conversely, a great man who leads a small country can never be recognized, although he has all the qualities of a great man.There are also some leaders, although they are big figures in a big country, they are under the giants. Zhou Silai is such a figure, and he carefully focuses the spotlight on Mao Zedong. There is a line that must be drawn: those who are widely praised as "great" leaders are not necessarily good people.Peter the Great of Russia was a cruel tyrant. Julius Caesar Alexander I and Napoleon were known not as statesmen but as conquerors.When we speak of the great leaders of history, we speak less of those who governed on a high moral level, and more of men who wield power very effectively on a grand scale and thereby greatly Changed the course of history in this country and the world.Churchill and Stalin were great leaders in different senses.Without Churchill, Western Europe might have been enslaved.

Without Stalin, Eastern Europe might be free. In writing about leaders, it is tempting to include some of the outstanding leaders with whom I am familiar outside the sphere of government.I have seen leaders of major corporations and labor unions fight as hard as any politician to climb to the top and then wield power with diplomatic skill that rivals that of foreign ministers.The intrigues played by academics and factions are not inferior to those of Byzantium.Take for example Henry Luce, a leader in the world of journalism that I am familiar with. He has more influence in the world than the leaders of many countries.

But this book is dedicated to the leadership issues that I know best and that are critical to me.It is not just a question of power that this position entails for the leaders of those countries, but also a question of responsibility. Each of the people discussed in this book has purpose, vision, and a sense of purpose that are important to them.Some people's names must remain in people's memory for a long time.Some people are not well remembered by foreigners.But each leader has something important to tell us about the nature of leadership and the conflicts that have gripped the world over the course of decades.

I would have liked to include many of the leaders I have known, but have not done so, for example, outstanding Latin American leaders, Adolfo Ross Cortinis in Mexico, Aldoro in Argentina Frandisi, Colombia's Alberto Reiras Camargo, and Brazil's visionary President Yuscelino Kobeček, who developed his country's interior.There are also Lester Pearson and John Diefenbaker of Canada, who are very different in character and political orientation, but they have a high sense of responsibility for Canada's destiny and a clear understanding of the world.Ghulam Mohammad, Governor-General of Pakistan, and Mohammad Ayub Khan, President of Pakistan.Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia.Francisco Franco of Spain, he made a very different impression in public than in private.Pope Pius XII and Paul VI, each in his own way, played an extremely important role not only spiritually but also on the world political stage.Pioneering leaders in postwar international organizations such as Paul-Henri Spaak in Belgium, Menlio Brosio in Italy, Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet in France.There are many others who should have been included in this book, and one need only look at the few mentioned above to see how varied and diverse leadership has been in the world in recent decades.

In the various chapters I have chosen the above-mentioned leaders, some because of their extraordinary talents, or because of their great influence on the course of history; Turbulent periods of history serve as examples of the forces that move the world forward.I have not included American leaders in this book, except for Douglas MacArthur, whose monumental contribution was his role in the formation of modern Japan. History is often a narrative of past events, with only incidental references to the people who played a role.This book is about leaders and the part they played in shaping events, about how these leaders mattered and how they were different, about some of the qualities that leaders can exert their influence on and how they exercise it. affected.

Great leadership is a unique art form that requires both extraordinary boldness and extraordinary imagination.There has long been a widespread belief in the United States that the country needs a businessman of really first class to run the government, a man who has proven himself capable and effective in running a large business.Actually, this point misses the point.Management is one thing, leadership is another.As Warren Bennis of the University of California Business School said: "The goal of a manager is to get things right, and the goal of a leader is to do the right thing." Although technology is necessary, leadership is not just a technical issue.In a sense, business management is a piece of prose and leadership is a piece of poetry.Leaders should pay great attention to their own representation, their own image, and the ideas that inspire people. This is a force that promotes history.The people follow reason, but are also driven by emotion; as a leader, one must both persuade people with reason and move people with clarity.Managers think about today and tomorrow, leaders must think about the day after tomorrow.Managers represent a process, leaders represent the direction of history.

So a manager who has nothing to manage is not a manager, but even a leader who steps down still has his followers. Great leadership requires a great vision that inspires the leader and makes it possible for him to inspire the nation.People either love or hate great leaders; they are seldom indifferent to leaders. It is not enough for a leader to know what is right; he must also be able to do what is right.People who want to be leaders who lack the judgment or insight to make good decisions often fail because of their lack of vision.People who know what is the right thing to do but cannot do it often fail because they are weak and incompetent.Great leaders combine vision with the ability to do the right thing.He can hire managers to help him accomplish these tasks, but only he can set the direction and provide the impetus.

The great cause that fascinates a leader may be an innovative one or an old-fashioned one—and capable leaders on opposite sides of a conflict often have conflicting goals to fight for.A strong leader who fights for a cause with a weaker vitality can overcome a weak leader with a vital cause, or an evil cause over a good cause .There is no simple, unchangeable set of criteria by which history can be predicted, nor by which it can be judged.Businesses, like leaders, often look back very differently from what they were.Sometimes history is judged by who wins.The tendency of historians is to be kinder to the victors than to the losers, both to leaders and to causes. Of the truly savvy leaders I've known, they're smart, well-trained, hard-working, and have a lot of self-confidence, and they're all driven by an ideal that drives others at the same time.All eyes are big. Some people see better than others. Compared with any similar period in world history, the post-World War II era was a time of rapid change.We see a clash of giants as superpowers rise and confront each other; we see a series of social and political upheavals as ancient empires give way to a host of emerging states; Even beyond science fiction, which has changed people's imaginations, we see a period of increasing danger.Times make heroes.Turbulent times produce both the best and the worst leaders.Khrushchev was an iron-fisted leader, but he was also a dangerous force, Mao Zedong toppled several mountains, but millions of people died in doing so. The future will demand leadership of the highest caliber.It is said that those who are not good at studying history will definitely repeat the mistakes of history. On the contrary, if the leaders of an era can see the future farther than their predecessors, it is because they are more forward-looking than their predecessors.This book is about the leaders of the past, but it is also for the leaders of the future.Every leader in this book has studied the past and learned from it.Instead, how fast and how well our world moves forward in the years to come will depend largely on how much we learn from them.