No Easy Decisions. American Presidential Leadership and Decision-making. John F. Kennedy & George W. Bush

"Presidential leadership is exceptional. Very few men have exercised it and have felt the enormous burden of the Office of President of the United States. Currently, there are five such men alive, one of whom is the current President. Four of these men have served earlier in the White House. Even though [the] paper analyzes the leadership and decision-making of just one of these men, the conclusions and the Brink Presidential Leadership Model might apply to most of them. For the purpose of this paper, two Presidents have been selected who faced tremendous international crises and challenges. However, all Presidents have had their share of crisis and a process which led them to their decisions. Therefore, many of the conclusions have direct or indirect relations to all other White House occupants. President Eisenhower told his successor President Kennedy, “no easy decisions will come to you as President.” This is still true today and means that Presidents have to have a good decision-making style in order to manage the diverse and challenging issues that come before them. The President, any President, is “alone–at the top–in the loneliest job in the world” where he, and he alone, bears the ultimate responsibility for decisions made. Based on numerous experiences, analyses, and theories, [the author has] developed the Brink Presidential Leadership Model. The model intends to serve as guide to determine effective leadership and a successful process of decision-making. The model contains four important components. The first is presidential power. This basically comes down to balancing what a President wants to do and what a President can do. Since Neustadt’s publication of Presidential Power, the dictum “presidential power is the power to persuade” has been the core premise for many scholars and for many politicians. Following Neustadt’s lead, [the author has] described presidential actions not through the lens of formal powers, but through personal action of the President himself. The second component is personal requirements. This reflects the qualities needed to exert presidential leadership and to rally political or public support. The third component is the art of decision-making. [The author has] mostly looked at decision-making during the hardest of times and involving the heaviest consequences. Both President Kennedy and President Bush were challenged during, respectively, the Cuban Missile Crisis and 9/11 and the War in Iraq. The way both Presidents have handled the process of decision-making during crises are entirely different. President Kennedy was a model of rational mastery of events, while President Bush snowballed into even more problems with the country’s national security at stake. The fourth component is White House organization. In order for all the other components to effectively take place, a solid and trusted system of support must be in place. It is important to hit the ground running as a presidency sets off and to surround the President with trusted aides who feel entirely free to voice dissent. Also here, the contrasts between President Kennedy and President Bush could not be bigger. President Bush isolated himself and created a decision-making process only based on those within the Administration who shared the President’s and Vice-president’s ideological narrowness. President Kennedy had chosen the exact opposite while organizing his White House. He chose trusted, well educated, and capable people from both parties to advise him on important matters. He wanted to include and analyze all possible options and get all the available facts on the table. However far from perfect, President Kennedy learned the lessons of voicing dissent early on in his presidency and quickly adapted to a more inclusive and thorough style. Being President is the loneliest job in the world. The burdens of freedom, prosperity, and happiness rest on the President’s shoulders while there are almost no people who share that enormous responsibility. Being President is neither easy nor relaxing. At a ferocious pace matters of decision are thrown upon the President for consideration under an ever growing public and political scrutiny. Given the different historical contexts, it is extremely difficult to compare the presidential leadership of Presidents Kennedy and Bush. Theirs were different circumstances, both at home and abroad. Moreover, while President Bush could have learned the lessons from many predecessors; President Kennedy had fewer to study (which he had done nevertheless). However, when I analyze the presidential leadership of both Presidents, I can come to no other conclusion that in terms of the effectiveness and the quality of their presidential leadership President Kennedy stands out more positively than President Bush. Notwithstanding the relatively short end of Bush’s tenure, it is safe to say that Kennedy’s public empathy and political rationality served him and the nation better than did Bush’s ideological single mindedness and overbearing leadership assertion to the 43rd President. [The author] believe[s] that in order to be more precise in this analysis and to further enhance [the] presidential leadership model, more research and analysis is needed. The lessons of presidential leadership are ever evolving. In the preface of the 1990 edition of Presidential Power, Richard Neustadt dryly mentions his ambivalence when current and former White House staffer tell him that his book was mandatory reading for all those working at the White House. On the one hand, it underscores the incredible importance of his study and the overall acknowledging that presidential staffers need relevant history lessons and a fundamental understanding of the presidency. On the other hand, the staffers who informed Neustadt about the importance of his work were Nixon aides and their names later popped up during the Watergate affair. The main point here is that Presidents, presidential staffers, and all those who cover, analyze, work with, or compete against the White House would do well to study presidential leadership and its four indispensable pillars of presidential power, personal requirements, the art of decision-making, and White House organization. Today’s challenges are met by President Barack H. Obama, who’s historic presidency may very well turn out to be one of both preparation and achievement. Two major foreign wars, an enormous economic crisis, and people’s lost faith in the strength and wisdom of Washington to solve their problems are on President Obama’s presidential plate. This extraordinary President does not lack rhetorical skills or sufficient policy ideas. Despite the aforementioned challenges, President’s Obama’s biggest challenge of all is to manage the presidency and exert presidential leadership in much the same way, or even better, than President Kennedy and President Bush have done. President Obama will soon find out, or already has, that for American Presidents there are not easy decisions. Every choice is the results of a careful process and of influence to other choices down the road. The enormous burden of responsibility and crucial decision-making during times of crisis are weighing on every President. Therefore, more often than not, the American President can meet the challenges with nothing but an effective leadership style, because “there are no easy matters that will come to you as President. If they are easy, they will be settled at a lower level.”" (D.J. Brink, "No Easy Decisions. American Presidential Leadership and Decision-making. John F. Kennedy & George W. Bush" (Groningen, 2009), 65-68.)