Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way: Timeless Strategies from the First Lady of Courage by Robin Gerber

From Barnes & Noble

First lady, author, and ambassador, Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) earned her leadership stripes during one of the most contentious periods of American history. Believing that Roosevelt's leadership experiences can benefit us all, Robin Gerber, J.D., a senior fellow at the University of Maryland's Academy of Leadership, has distilled instructive stories from the first lady's long and busy life.

From the Publisher

Eleanor Roosevelt's remarkable ability to confront and overcome hurdles-be they political, personal, or social-made her one of the greatest leaders of the last century, if not all time. In Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way, author and scholar Robin Gerber examines the values, tactics, and beliefs that enabled Eleanor Roosevelt to bring about tremendous change-in herself and in the world. Examining the former first lady's rise from a difficult childhood to her enormously productive and politically involved years in the White House, as a U.N. delegate and an honorary ambassador, an author, and beyond, Gerber offers women an inspiring road map to heroic living and an unparalleled model for personal achievement.

Publishers Weekly

Gerber, a senior fellow at the University of Maryland's Academy of Leadership, idolizes Roosevelt as someone who overcame numerous hardships in her personal life. Using biographical details from different periods of the first lady's colorful history, from childhood to the last few months of her life, Gerber shows how Roosevelt's actions are still relevant and can provide inspiration for women today. Although it feels forced at times, this approach works. For example, in the chapter on finding your "leadership passion," Gerber says, "Your values have taken time to develop. They're based on your family background, religion, relationships and experiences and they are a part of you. But unless your values have been tested they may not be apparent to you." She then goes on to explain how Roosevelt didn't recognize her own values after spending many years listening to her grandmother and her husband. But when she began speaking out against political injustices, she grew more comfortable with her own beliefs. Each chapter ends with key principles ("Eleanor's Way"); some of these points are useful, but others are tired (e.g., "Follow your authentic instincts" or "Be bold and principled in implementing your vision"). Despite these flaws, Gerber's work provides a thought-provoking look at a first lady with a unique style. (Oct. 11) Forecast: Warner is publishing David B. Roosevelt's Grandm re: A Personal History of Eleanor Roosevelt in October, which probably will help Gerber's sales. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Gerber, a labor lawyer, teacher, and senior fellow at the Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland, here offers a self-help book for young women seeking to develop leadership skills. Noting the absence of leadership education materials that cite women as role models, Gerber has chosen to frame her advice around Eleanor Roosevelt and the difficult challenges she faced and overcame. Gerber's personal experience and vignettes from other successful women also illustrate the various lessons incorporated in each chapter, e.g., "Learn from Your Past," "Find Mentors and Advisers," "Learn from Adversity," and "Never Stop Learning." The chapter titled "Find Your Leadership Passion" describes ER's initiation in and reformist commitment to New York State politics and ends with a list of specific pointers under the heading of "Eleanor's Way," which in this instance includes the counsel to take the words I can't and should out of one's vocabulary. This book has a foreword by distinguished scholar James MacGregor Burns, and the publisher plans a major publicity campaign, but its audience is hard to define. For libraries with a large "self-help" clientele.-Cynthia Harrison, George Washington Univ., Washington, DC Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Gerber, a senior scholar at the University of Maryland's Academy of Leadership, examines the former first lady's leadership development from her earliest years through her careers as a United Nations delegate, honorary ambassador, and author. In Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way, Gerber shows readers how they can discover and develop their leadership skills while she offers poignant advice about balancing love and ambition, struggling with fear of failure, and achieving personal goals. Copyright © 2003 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

“Character building begins in our infancy, and continues until death.”

             In late 1933, at the end of her first year as FirsT Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt called her publisher to ask how her first book, It’s Up to the Women, was doing? The book had only come out a few months earlier, but Eleanor was anxious and relieved to hear it was selling “very steadily.”

             Eleanor had written the book as a combination of home-making advice and political manifesto.  In a chapter titled, “The Problems of the Young Married,” she counseled couples to show “an immense amount of tolerance and of unselfishness” toward each other. But women should also feel free to marry and have careers she argued in a later chapter. “Women’s lives must be adjusted and arranged for in just the same way that men’s lives are” Eleanor wrote.

             Eleanor had written her first book in the middle of a year when she also determinedly rewrote the role of first lady. She held the first-ever press conference by a president’s wife and, to counter the all-male White House press corps, she admitted only women. She put together a team of women to work on getting women appointed to government jobs, an effort that resulted in Frances Perkins’ appointment as FDR’s secretary of labor, making her the first-ever woman cabinet member.

             By August of 1933, Eleanor’s leadership had begun to attract notice. Suffragist and political strategist Carrie Chapman Catt had pictures of statesmen hanging on her wall, “but under the new administration,” she wrote to Eleanor, “I have been obliged to start a new collection and that is one of stateswomen…and you are the very center of it all.”

             It’s Up to the Women was part of a larger agenda. According to biographer Blanch Wiesen Cook, Eleanor wanted to create a grassroots movement, led and informed by women,” to carry out the social reforms of the New Deal. Her book stood like a banner in that effort. The small volume held a message that rested on foundations forged in Eleanor’s childhood, especially the idea of personal responsibility and duty. She had taken these first leadership lessons, as many leaders do, from early experience.  Just as It’s Up to the Women called on women to make change, it had been up to Eleanor as a child, to triumph over more misfortune than any child should have to face. But triumph she did, with the firm belief that if she could, anyone could.

             Reflecting on her early life, Eleanor concluded that “one can, even without any particular gifts, overcome obstacles that seem insurmountable if one is willing to face the fact that they must be overcome; that, in spite of timidity and fear, in spite of lack of special talents, one can find a way to live widely and fully.”

             She held to a simple understanding drawn from her childhood—you don’t have to be special to lead a special life. That belief cemented her many and varied relationships. Eleanor had drawn a key lesson from her history and gained faith not only in her own ability but also in the ability of other people. Publishing It’s Up to the Women was only one act of many that Eleanor took to inspire women by speaking to them as fellow travelers on the road to a better world.