Page 64 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

LEADERS KNOW THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN WORK

The psychiatrist determined that Johnson displayed many of the com-
mon symptoms of chronic depression: He felt hopeless, worthless, adrift,
and hurt. He did not want to get out of bed in the morning, and preferred
to withdraw into a darkened room where he would be left alone. He
snapped angrily at his wife and experienced an almost total loss of libido.
The doctor prescribed a series of antidepressants—including lithium and
Prozac—that left Johnson feeling like a zombie. Nothing moved him. He
began having thoughts of suicide. “I had rationalized that Edwina and my
two children would be better off without an angry, verbally abusive failure
of a father—that my departure from their lives actually would be better
for them,” Johnson admitted. “But I did not kill myself because it would
have destroyed my eighty-year-old mother in Georgia. I was her only child
and the greatest pride of her life. She thought I was the finest son in the
whole world.”
Family, friends, and colleagues rushed to Johnson’s side to offer support
and encouragement. From across the country came a series of new job
opportunities that in normal circumstances would have made him spring
to action in a heartbeat. Don Graham, his mother Katharine Graham, and
New York Times publisher Punch Sulzberger offered Johnson a job as
publisher of the International Herald Tribune. Knight-Ridder Chairman
Alvah Chapman, President Jim Batten, and Vice Chairman Lee Hills also
offered him several jobs, including publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
His friend Joe Allbritton suggested that he take a senior leadership role in
his media and banking company. Although Johnson did not leap instantly
out of bed, he gradually began to notice all the goodness and love that sur-
rounded him. “What pulled me back from the brink was the belief—even
in the darkest days—that maybe, just maybe, I could escape from the grip
of depression and find my way out. The job offers reassured me that I was
still respected in my profession,” Johnson said. “Then Ted Turner offered
me the presidency of CNN in August 1990. The excitement of running a
global news organization, of returning to my home state of Georgia, and
of getting out of Times Mirror compelled me to accept Ted’s offer.”
With a renewed sense of hope, Johnson began seeing Dr. Charles
Nemeroff, chairman of psychiatry at the Emory University School of Med-
icine. Dr. Nemeroff prescribed the medication Effexor, which Johnson
described as a “miracle drug” that helped return him to his old self. “I still
have occasional bouts of depression, but they are not as deep or as lengthy

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