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Goethals explores the place of racial dynamics in American politics from President Lincoln to Donald Trump to explain the way the politics of racial justice and needs for positive social identity have led to different regions in the United States changing party affiliation

Introduction: Presidential leadership and the American dilemma : psychological dimensions -- George Washington -- Thomas Jefferson -- Abraham Lincoln -- Ulysses S. Grant -- Theodore Roosevelt -- Woodrow Wilson -- Harry S. Truman -- Lyndon B. Johnson -- Conclusion: The last half century.

Conceptions of Leadership gathers together the latest work by distinguished leadership scholars in social psychology and related disciplines to explore classic conceptions of leadership, such as interpersonal influence, charisma, personality, and power, as well as recent perspectives on those enduring concerns. It includes contemporary departures from traditional approaches to leadership in considering gender, trust, narratives, and the complex relationships between leaders and followers. Together the chapters provide a wide-ranging and coherent account of how human beings get along and the ways they engage and work together to accomplish their goals.

The Trump presidency may well be the first phase of a new American political alignment deeply rooted in identity politics. Now more than ever, it seems especially important to understand how leaders compete to engage different human motivations—how presidents, presidential candidates, and other political leaders appeal to potential followers' needs for economic well-being, safety, self-esteem, and a sense of significance. It is time to come to terms with the roles of race and region in US political history. In Realignment, Region, and Race, George R. Goethals addresses this challenge head-on, exploring the place of racial dynamics in American politics from Abraham Lincoln to Donald Trump. He integrates psychology and historical understandings of presidential leadership and politics to explain the way the politics of racial justice and needs for positive social identity have led to different regions in the United States changing party affiliation. He describes the realignment by region of the two major political parties in the United States, the Democrats and Republicans, between the Civil War and the present day, and he considers how for over a century and a half the two parties have offered different social identities, often related to race, that appeal to powerful motives for self-esteem and significance. Goethals's findings uncover deep contexts for understanding how current political leaders engage experiences and attitudes towards African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans in order to tell particular stories about American and regional identities. Realignment, Region, and Race is essential reading for students of politics, history, and psychology, and it is of keen interest to anyone concerned with the power that identity politics has taken on in recent American elections. ; https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1308/thumbnail.jpg

Presidential Leadership and African Americans examines the leadership styles of eight American presidents and shows how the decisions made by each affected the lives and opportunities of the nation's black citizens. Beginning with George Washington and concluding with the landmark election of Barack Obama, Goethals traces the evolving attitudes and morality that influenced the actions of each president on matters of race, and shows how their personal backgrounds as well as their individual historical, economic, and cultural contexts combined to shape their values, judgments, and decisions, and ultimately their leadership, regarding African Americans. ; https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1197/thumbnail.jpg

It is somewhat troubling that as we try to understand leaders and leadership we are confronted with the problem that our knowledge of central historical events is highly subject to the differing perspectives of various scholars. What can we know? How can we know it? This chapter considers these questions by examining the implications of a particular variation on the general problem of differing historical perspectives. That is, how do we weigh autobiographical accounts of events by the actors themselves? Is there something distinctive about these accounts, or are they best thought of as just one more rendering of history, to be compared on an equal footing with treatments by other writers? We will approach these questions by considering one of the most famous autobiographies in American history, the aforementioned Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. Its treatment of Lee's surrender at Appomattox is fascinating in its own right, but it also stands in interesting comparison to those of other biographers, of Lee as well as Grant, and of various Civil War historians. In considering these accounts the overall aim of the chapter is to address two sets of questions. First, what can we learn about what Grant thought, felt, and did on that historic day, and what can we learn more generally about Grant as a leader and about leadership itself? Second, in our efforts to learn these things, what challenges are posed by the existence of so many different accounts of what took place at Appomattox? We will proceed as follows. First, Grant's Memoirs will be described briefly. Second, we will compare several aspects of his account of meeting Lee at Appomattox with other accounts. Third, we will do our best to address the questions above about Grant and about the problems of learning about Grant. Finally we will discuss the implications of our efforts.

This chapter reviews psychological theories of leadership and selected literature on the American presidency to highlight key psychological principles of presidential leadership. Psychological theories, framed by the principles of leadership outlined by Freud (1921), include those of Burns (1978, 2003) on transformational leadership, Bass (1997) and House & Shamir (1993) on charismatic and transformational leadership, Gardner (1995) on stories of identity, Hogg (2001, 2003) on social identity, and Tyler & Lind (1992) on procedural justice. The discussion of presidential scholarship considers work by Barber (1992) on presidential character, Simonton (1986, 1987) on presidential personality and success, Skowronek (1997) on reconstructive politics, and Winter (1987) on presidential motive profiles. These studies suggest that followers have high expectations for presidents and that successful presidential leadership depends on opportunity, high levels of activity, intelligence, optimistic resilience, and flexibility.

A 1913 edition of the British magazine Puck features a two-page, full-color cartoon depicting Uncle Sam astride the Isthmus of Panama and the nearly completed Panama Canal. The cartoon also shows the pyramids of Egypt, the hanging gardens of Babylon, and other familiar human creations. Its caption reads, "The seven wonders of the world salute the eighth." Cradled in Uncle Sam's arm is a figure, a saluting, white-haired, white-suited mustachioed man with the name "Goethals" printed on his collar. This is my great-grandfather, chief engineer of the Panama Canal.

On April 14, 1789, George Washington cordially received a weary visitor who had traveled for seven days from New York City to deliver a message from Congress. Reading formally from a letter by Senator John Langdon, Charles Thomson, secretary to Congress, informed Washington (most probably in his private study) that he had been unanimously elected the first President of the United States. Washington accepted the position with a prepared statement of his own. This crucial moment in American history ignited a series of changes to the United States' new republican system of government – changes that still affect the American political system more than 200 years later. This case details the creation of the executive office by our country's most influential political leader while discussing how today's leaders can follow his example and achieve real, positive change. ; https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1240/thumbnail.jpg