Page 14 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

PREFACE

research was rewarded with papers and tape recordings that proved what
I had long suspected—that Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson had more than
just a superficial interest in bringing young people into the highest levels
of the executive branch. Indeed, the Johnsons, along with LBJ’s Republi-
can friend John Gardner, were active partners in developing this nonpar-
tisan program, which has stood for more than four decades as a rare and
enduring bridge of trust, camaraderie and collaboration between America’s
opposing political parties.
The most time-consuming yet enjoyable portion of my research was
personally interviewing more than 200 former White House Fellows. With
their completed questionnaires in front of me, I encouraged them to
expand on their answers to my core questions. The result was over five
thousand pages of notes and transcripts filled with entertaining and insight-
ful stories from the administrations of every president from LBJ through
George W. Bush. The stories I collected were each distinctive, but they all
had one thing in common—they were inspiring. Some tales were light-
hearted—one that immediately springs to mind from a now distinguished
federal appellate judge involves a bowl of soup, four bird’s heads, and a din-
ner table full of talkative Vietnamese dignitaries; some were poignant, such
as a former Fellow’s recollection of watching President Johnson’s reaction
to Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination; and some were downright seri-
ous, as in the story of a computer programming whiz who was called upon
during the first week of his Fellowship to develop cyber security measures
for the country in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
My interview subjects also revealed lessons learned in their professional
and personal lives after the Fellowship. Since former Fellows work in so
many different fields—including business and finance, media, the military,
the faith community, government, law, the arts, education and the non-
profit sector—there was great variety in the stories they told. My sincerest
regret is that space constraints prevented me from including all of their
leadership lessons in this book. In fact, I was only able to use anecdotes
from half the sources I interviewed. To do my small part to strengthen this
leadership program, I am gifting all the royalties from sales of this book
to the White House Fellows Foundation, which provides financial support
each year to the Fellows education programs.
One point I want to emphasize is that no one becomes a world-class
golfer just by reading a book on golf—so too with leadership. Successful

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