Presidents with great leadership skills learn to control their negative emotions, Doris Kearns Goodwin told an Arts & Letters Live audience in Dallas earlier this year. Kearns is the author of Leadership: In Turbulent Times.
For example, Abraham Lincoln wrote many angry letters—and then never mailed them. And, when Franklin Roosevelt was preparing for his Fireside Chats, he would make negative comments about the congressmen he didn’t like—but only in the first draft.
