Genovese, Michael A. Memo to a New President: The Art and Science of Presidential Leadership

International Social Science Review, Spring-Summer, 2008 by Samuel B. Hoff

Genovese, Michael A. Memo to a New President: The Art and Science of Presidential Leadership. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 252 pages. Paper, $29.99.

Political scientist and presidential scholar Michael A. Genovese has written a book in the form of a memo to an incoming president. Divided into five parts and containing thirty-two chapters, the text taps classical philosophical works, the words of chief executives themselves, and studies of leadership, among other sources. The book covers most pertinent topics about which a new president would want advice.

Part I, "Introduction," contains five chapters that are more academically oriented than the remaining sections. For instance, Chapter 2 ("The World's Most Exclusive Club: The Modern Presidents") offers a table depicting six different views of the presidency since 1933. Genovese claims that no person serving in the office from Lyndon B. Johnson through George W. Bush "had been a truly successful president," but rather these presidents have "clearly and repeatedly disappointed us" (p. 30). Chapter 5 covers the topic of presidential greatness. It depicts the diversity in rankings of chief executives over time and by different constituencies.

Part II, "Self-Knowledge," encompasses eight chapters. It advances guidance on the importance of skills (political, personality, people, and managerial), character, emotions, vision, and the moral position of leaders. In Chapter 10, Genovese notes that the best way for a president to react to a mistake is "to admit it, and admit it fully and immediately" (p. 94). Here, he differentiates the responses of John E Kennedy and George W. Bush to the Bay of Pigs fiasco and Hurricane Katrina, respectively. In Chapter 12, Genovese counsels the incoming chief executive to "develop an integrated strategy that brings message, image, rhetoric, and vision together--you need the whole package" (p. 101).

Part III, "System Knowledge," encompasses the most chapters in the book (eleven). After noting the importance of the transition and honeymoon periods of a president's tenure, Genovese offers recommendations for interacting with the public, other branches of government, the news media, and the political parties, among other entities. He observes that, while the public is suspicious of strong leadership, "we also admire and sometimes even hunger for it" (p. 133). Factors that are related to success with Congress include crises, an electoral mandate, a high level of popularity, partisan support, skills, and a clearly prioritized agenda. Even with those advantages, presidents can only lead Congress "sometimes, yet not very often, and not for a long time" (p. 164). Warning the new president not to expect prolonged bipartisan support, Genovese contends that "slash-and-burn has replaced accommodation, and the politics of personal destruction has replaced compromise and bargaining" (p. 177).

Part IV, "World Knowledge," contains four chapters, including dealing with an interdependent world, crisis management, war, and going beyond the law in a dangerous world. In the first of these topics, the challenges of the post-Cold War era--such as terrorism, genocide, the spread of infectious diseases, global environmental concerns, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction--are discussed. In the chapter on crisis management, Genovese delineates the pressures associated with decision-making during an emergency. The chapter on war advises that, "[i]f you must send young American men and women into harm's way, you must be absolutely sure that the benefit is worth the high price to be paid" (p. 199).

Part V, "Conclusion," presents four chapters. The president is regarded as the "nation's primary change agent" (p. 217). The ongoing challenge for the chief executive is how to "bring Hamiltonian energy to the Madisonian system to achieve Jeffersonian ends" (p. 223).

Though Memo to a New President is unique in its book-length advice on all aspects of presidential helmsmanship, there have been previous philosophical and scholarly studies about how to govern effectively. Of course, Niccolb Machiavelli's The Prince and Discourses of Livy probably remain the most well-known how-to books about effective political leadership, though they were penned five centuries ago and did not contemplate a democratic form of government. There is a plethora of texts on the topic of leadership generally, including Warren Bennis's On Becoming a Leader (1989). Finally, while largely limited to the topic of presidential transitions, Richard Neustadt's collected memos (Preparing to be President: The Memos of Richard E. Neustadt (2000)), are structured in the same format as the present volume.

There are a number of positive features inherent in Genovese's text. First, the material is quite contemporary in that it includes recent examples from the current Bush administration. Second, the book's modest overall length and the content of most chapters make for easy reading. Finally, the book is extremely well-referenced, as evidenced by a fourteen-page bibliography.