36 / 48
36
I
Nonprofit
Performance
Magazine
SCOTT S. SMiTH
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
Legacy of Leadership
FDR
Everyone knows him just by his
initials as the president who led
the nation out of the Great Depression and to
victory in World War II. Few leaders in world
history have faced such huge challenges and
overcome them, both personally and in the
need to bring about massive social changes.
He remains one of the greatest role models for
inspirational leadership in any organization.
Born into a wealthy real estate family, FDR
was taught by his father to sail at age six, and
he eventually collected 200 model ships and
10,000 books on naval history. Gregarious, but
considered superficial, he was only a mediocre
student at Harvard and dropped out of Columbia
Law School in 1907. By then, he had married
his distant cousin, Eleanor, whose early life was
rough, making her tough and compassionate.
In 1911, FDR was elected as a New York state
assemblyman and two years later he was named
assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy. With a boss
who was often absent and not much of a leader,
FDR often acted beyond his authority as World
War I got underway, sending relief supplies
before the U.S. officially entered on the side of
the Allies in 1917.
FDR was ambitious, but his plans were crippled
by polio,which he contracted in 1921, paralyzing
his legs for the rest of his life. Everyone expected
him to give up on an active life, but he began
the first of dozens of visits to a resort in Warm
Springs, Georgia, to strengthen his muscles
by swimming. Gradually, he learned to walk a
short way with leg braces and a cane, through
force of will, despite great pain. He refused to
be photographed in a wheelchair and gave the
impression he was gradually recovering from the
effects of polio.
Lesson:
It doesn’t matter how often you are
knocked down if you get up again and move
forward.
The Paralyzed President Raises the Nation’s
Morale
In 1928, Roosevelt won the first of his two-year
terms as governor of New York before becoming
president in 1933 in the depths of the Great
Depression.
“The conventional wisdom is that FDR became
president in spite of polio,” wrote James Tobin
in
The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio
to Win the Presidency
. “The evidence suggests he
became president because of polio. He had been
hampered by his image as an aristocrat born to
wealth and power. But polio made him more
compassionate and better acquainted with the
realities of life for people from a much broader
range of society than he had previously known.
He came back from his illness and exhibited the
habits of mind and action that he would deploy
as a leader: perseverance in the face of enormous
trouble, improvisation, and experimentation.”