Page 63 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

THE LESSONS

cost of doing business. I reject that. I try to help students gain an inner
calm. It begins with some simple concepts, good diet, rest, and exercise.
I am a firm believer in the healing powers of touch. In my introductory
journalism writing and reporting class, one class meeting per week takes
place at the gym. We spend two hours in meditation, bodywork, and
guided imagery.”
If Drummond’s class had been available when Tom Johnson (WHF
65–66) was studying journalism back in the 1960s, he might have taken
the curriculum to heart and spared himself and his family a considerable
amount of suffering later on. Beginning with his first job at a daily news-
paper when he was only a teen, Johnson held incredibly stressful positions
throughout his career and put tremendous pressure on himself not just to
succeed but to excel. From the Macon Telegraph, to Harvard Business
School, to the White House, to the LBJ family business, and then to the
publisher’s desk at the Dallas Times Herald, for decades Johnson pushed
onward, driven by an ambition that totally consumed him. Although he
adored his wife, Edwina, and his children, Wyatt and Christa, he made
work his top priority until at last he reached a pinnacle: In 1980 he was
named publisher of the prestigious L.A. Times. As was his pattern, Johnson
threw himself totally into that job too, much to the frustration of Christa,
who at the wise old age of nine scolded him for missing yet another of her
soccer games, saying, “Don’t forget you’re a daddy, too!”
Johnson realized that his workaholic nature had caused him to lose his
compass, but he didn’t know how to go about getting his sense of direc-
tion back. He had invested all of his self-worth in his career journey and
job title. Then, one day in 1989, that investment turned sour. Despite the
posting of the highest earnings, circulation, and revenues that year in the
paper’s entire history, the family that owned the Times Mirror Company
wanted a less liberal paper, and Johnson was ordered to fire the editor of
the editorial pages, Tony Day. Johnson refused and was fired summarily.
It was the first time he ever had “failed” at a job, and he was devastated.
“Stripped of my position as publisher, I convinced myself that I was a
failure, and my self-worth crashed. I plunged into very deep depression. It
was like a trapdoor suddenly opened beneath me. I fell so swiftly down,
down, down into a dark, deep blackness—almost a very deep well with no
light visible above me,” Johnson explained. “My wife, Edwina, was the first
to try to rescue me, taking me to UCLA Medical to see a psychiatrist.”

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