Page 11 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

PREFACE

imagination and led him to become one of the highest-ranking African
Americans in the United States government. Lee’s determination to level
the playing field for others will inspire any leader hoping to build a win-
ning team.
Consider also one of Lee’s classmates—an underprivileged 24-year-old
cub reporter from Georgia named Tommy Johnson, who wanted nothing
more during his Fellowship year than to work alongside White House Press
Secretary Bill Moyers. To Johnson’s amazement, his request was granted.
His ensuing experience in leadership at the highest level of government
under the tutelage of a proficient mentor like Moyers provided Johnson
with a strong dose of the confidence and expertise he needed to launch his
career. When the president and first lady left Washington in 1969 and
returned to their Texas ranch, they took Tommy with them to help run
their family business, and to help the former president write his memoirs.
In the years that followed, Tommy Johnson continued his climb toward
the pinnacle of his profession, ultimately rising to the level of publisher
of the Los Angeles Times and later becoming president of CNN. But
Johnson’s professional triumphs were nearly overshadowed by a personal
life in shambles. His workaholic tendencies deprived his family of a loving
husband and father, and he began to suffer from severe bouts of depres-
sion. His candid assessment of how he overcame those challenges offers
invaluable guidance to anyone who wants to be a great leader without sac-
rificing his or her health, or more importantly, his or her family.
Next, picture an IBM executive, a young woman named Jane Cahill
Pfeiffer who, as a White House Fellow in 1966, was mentored by Robert
Weaver—the country’s first African American Cabinet secretary who was
chosen by Lyndon Johnson to lead the newly created U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development. At the end of her Fellowship year,
Pfeiffer was personally recruited by legendary IBM chief executive Tom
Watson Jr. to become his executive assistant. In 1978, Jane became the most
powerful female executive in America when the National Broadcasting
Company (NBC) picked her as its chairman of the board, and also as a
director of RCA, the network’s parent company before General Electric
bought it. Within weeks of her arrival at NBC, an internal scandal came
to light involving expense-account fraud and kickbacks among field man-
agers. She acted swiftly and aggressively, bringing in outside counsel and

viii