When the Buck Stops with You: Harry S. Truman on Leadership

by Alan Axelrod

Harry Truman had been vice president for less than a year when he inherited the White House in 1945. With little preparation, he masterfully guided the nation through the last days of World War II,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591840287
• ISBN13: 9781591840282
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Portfolio
• Length: 317 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

The Buck Stops Here....And He Meant It.

Having read Alan Axelrod's illustration of FDR, I had to pick up this book. Again, an amazing representation of the American spirit and perseverance. I don't know that Truman would ever have sought out the presidency had FDR not recruited him for VP. I have actually used a few of the lessons taught in this book in my own job, having been thrown ultimatums at inopportune times. Having the knowledge attained from this book helped me deal with the issues in a way I had never quite tried. What really impresses me about Truman is his absolute decisiveness and resolution. And as history has come to show, the true legacy of a president is usually not evident immediately, rather many years down the road. I feel Truman's lessons will resound for centuries to come.

A Good Read!

Author Alan Axelrod's 156 concise lessons on leadership from the life and writings of Harry S. Truman are vivid but, alas, often repetitive. The bigger paradox of this book is that many of the virtues it espouses - diligence, balance, thoroughness, patience and a thirst for learning - are thwarted by its very structure. Truman, a voracious reader, would likely have found these one or two page chapters frustratingly short. Any leader really seeking to model himself or herself on Truman should use this as an appetizer and move immediately onward to a meaty full-length biography or memoir. With that in mind, we recommend this book to executives and political leaders who haven't yet met Truman - or to those who only want a brief visit, a leadership pep talk and a few pithy quotes.

Lessons on Doing Your Damndest

Those who have read Patton on Leadership and/or Elizabeth I, CEO are already aware of Axelrod's unique talent for rigorously examining an abundance of historical and (especially) biographical information to derive especially important lessons in leadership. In this volume, his subject is Harry S Truman. (How much I would enjoy being included during a "fantasy dinner" with Patton, Elizabeth I, and Truman!) Within a dozen chapters, Axelrod identifies and then briefly but insightfully discusses 156 "lessons" to be learned from the life and career of the 33rd President of the United States. Axelrod also provides a "Truman Timeline" and "The Sources of Truman on Leadership" (suggested readings) in an Appendix. Most experts on the American Presidency rank Truman among the greatest, a fact which would have astonished those old enough to remember when Franklin Delano Roosevelt died and Truman was sworn in as his successor. There was little in the background of "The Man from Missouri" to suggest that he was equal to the task during one of the most dangerous periods of his nation's history. World War Two was still in progress, what became the Cold War was developing, West Berlin would soon be isolated by the U.S.S.R.'s blockade, the Korean War lay ahead, and the quite legitimate threat of thermonuclear weapons created an unprecedented sense of menace throughout the civilized world. Truman did indeed rise to the task and as Axelrod correctly indicates in this volume, there are many important lessons to be learned from his leadership from 1945 until 1952.

Timeless Lessons From The Thirty-Third President

When Harry S. Truman left the presidency in January 1953, his approval rating stood at an historic low. But his reputation has been on a steady rise ever since. His blunt, plainspoken honesty has touched a responsive chord among Americans who feel their current leaders, whatever the party, offer them little but lies and double-talk.Therefore, Truman seems a natural choice for the latest manual on leadership from Alan Axelrod. The author draws extensively from Truman's own public statements and private diaries to extract a series of 156 lessons on leadership, divided into a series of chapters with themes like "Hell: Giving and Getting" and "Do The Right Thing."Although primarily aimed at the business person, these lessons have value for anyone in a leadership role, including, of course, the poltical realm.Truman's decisiveness, his high moral standards, his unwillingness to accept anything less than the best from himself or his colleagues all shine through in this work. A timeline helps place Truman's life in context, and the bibliography offers a number of potential sources for anyone with an intertest in further exploring the life and philosophy of our thirty-third president.--William C. Hall