The Leadership Virtue We Need but No Longer Reward

I’ve been enjoying David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry Truman recently, especially for the way it gives us such a vivid portrait of the man—his decency, stubbornness, loyalty, and down-to-earth nature.But there’s a moment in Truman’s presidency that shows what happens when the hidden burden a leader carries erupts into an uncharacteristic lack of composure and self-control.Truman’s Scathing LetterIt was late 1950. American troops were retreating in Korea, pushed ba