Leaders Book

265-Leaders-Richard Nixon-Biography-1983
Barack
2020/08/20

"Leaders", first published in the United States in 1983. Autobiographical books. It records the major foreign leaders Nixon has met and shares Nixon's insights and opinions on them.

Richard Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California, the USA in 1913 and died in 1994. He served as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. He served as the 37th President of the United States from 1969 to 1974. Representative works: "Six Crises", "RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon", "Leaders", etc.

Part of the catalog
1. THEY MADE A DIFFERENCE Leaders
Who Changed the World
2. WINSTON CHURCHILL
The Largest Human Being of Our Time
3. CHARLES de GAULLE
The Leadership Mystique
4. DOUGLAS MacARTHUR AND SHIGERU YOSHIDA
East Meets West
5. KONRAD ADENAUER
The West's Iron Curtain
6. NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV
The Brutal Will To Power
7. ZHOU ENLAI
The Mandarin Revolutionary
8. A NEW WORLD
New Leaders in a Time of Change
9. IN THE ARENA
Reflections on Leadership

During his 33-year political career, Nixon has visited about 80 countries. Apart from Stalin, he almost knew the major politicians in the world immediately after World War II. An author, if he has rich life experience, the readers are no longer paying attention to his writing, but wanting to experience the magnificent history and legends that he has no chance to feel through his eyes and description.

"What makes the role of these leaders so compellingly interesting is not just its drama, but its importance'its impact."

Most politicians have a limited political career. How do people evaluate a political mission? The key is what kind of influence he sees in his country and the world when he is in power? Is it positive or negative?

The specific environment and challenges faced by each politician are different. They can't adopt the same approach. Naturally, there are considerable random factors. But if we stretch the timeline to a relatively long span, look at the career of a politician in a span of 10, 20, or even 50 years. Then we should still be able to make a relatively objective evaluation of his performance.

"Having known both the peaks and the valleys of public life, I have learned that you cannot appreciate the heights unless you have also experienced the depths. Nor can you fully understand what drives a leader if you have only sat on the sidelines, watching."

If we have not experienced the frustration of the trough, we will not be able to fully appreciate the luck of the climax. If we always just sit outside and watch, we will never be able to experience the fun of participating in person.

"The surefire formula for placing a leader among the greats has three elements: a great man, a great country, and a great issue."

A politician has no way to decide which country he was born in, nor can he decide what specific things he will encounter. All he can grasp is to make himself a great man. Becoming a great man is only one of the necessary conditions remembered by history, not a sufficient condition.

"The small man leading a great nation in a great crisis fails the test of greatness. The large man in a small country may demonstrate all the qualities of greatness but never win the recognition. Others, though big men in big countries live in the shadow of giants: Zhou Enlai, for example, who discreetly let the limelight shine on Mao."

"There has long been a widespread belief in the United States that what the country needs is a top-flight businessman to run the government, someone who has proven that he can manage a large-scale enterprise efficiently and effectively. This misses the mark Management is one thing. Leadership is another. As Warren G. Bennis of the University of Southern California's business school puts it, "Managers have as their goal to do things right. Leaders have as their goal to do the right thing."

What is the difference between management ability and leadership ability? What are the evaluation criteria of a good manager? What are the evaluation criteria for a good leader? Is a good leader a good manager? Is a good manager necessarily a good leader?

"Leadership is more than technique, though techniques are necessary. In a sense, management is prose; leadership is poetry. The leader necessarily deals with a large extent in symbols, in images, and in the sort of galvanizing idea that becomes a force of history. People are persuaded by reason, but moved by emotion; he must both persuade them and move them. The manager thinks of today and tomorrow. The leader must think of the day after tomorrow. A manager represents a process. The leader represents the direction of history. Thus, a manager with nothing to manage becomes nothing, but even out of power a leader still commands followers."

I think management is a subset of leadership. The role of management is to maximize existing resources as much as possible. The role that the leader is trying to play is to use the existing resources beyond the normal circumstances, the results it can play.

The management process does not involve too many human emotions, but the leadership process must be closely related to human emotions. We may need to have positions assigned to us to manage others, but even if our position is equal to or even lower than others, it is still possible to lead others to a certain extent.

"THE STORY OF China during the past half-century is, to an extraordinary degree, the story of three men: Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Chiang Kai-shek."

"Zhou was also, quite simply, one of the most extraordinarily gifted people I have ever known, with an incandescent grasp of the realities of power. All three are dead, but Zhou's is the legacy that is increasingly ascendant in modern China."

"The interplay of all these qualities allowed Zhou to lead a career in the highest reaches of Communist leadership that lasted longer than that of Lenin, Stalin, or Mao."

Nixon's evaluation of Zhou can be said to be quite high. In his eyes, Zhou's greatness may even surpass Mao. Of course, this may be because Mao was a more distinctive and tougher personality than Zhou. Because of the differences in interests between China and the United States, Nixon's evaluation of Mao is likely to be biased.

But even so, we can see how Zhou has won the respect and trust of leaders of other countries on the international stage. Perhaps Zhou is a more willing object to negotiate with other leaders.

Nixon briefly introduced Zhou's life experience. This is similar to the biography about Zhou I once read. It can be seen that Nixon still has a relatively comprehensive understanding of Zhou.

Nixon talked about Zhou's misunderstanding of some foreign affairs. Similarly, Nixon must have some misunderstandings about certain things in China. Many times, even if we have personally visited a country, or even lived in this country for some time, we still have some prejudices due to cultural differences. So how can we expect that we can have a correct understanding of a country without ever visiting a country in person?

Though Nixon's description, we can see that Zhou is a person who has a good grasp of details. This is not easy to do. It is even more difficult if you want to be able to not be confused by the details and at the same time have a long-term perspective.

"An incident at the Geneva Conference on Vietnam in 1954 illustrated Zhou's sensitivity to slights of Chinese national honor. Zhou was representing China and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles the United States. Dulles had told a reporter that there was one condition under which the two would meet: "Only if our automobiles collide!" By chance, they encountered each other when both arrived early for a one-morning session. Zhou reached out to shake hands. Dulles shook his head and walked out of the room, thoroughly humiliating the Chinese Foreign Minister. Six years later Zhou still winced when he recounted the incident to his friend Edgar Snow."