American History

Teddy Roosevelt in his book Rough Riders articulates and, to some extant, attempts to defend a multi-faceted approach to leadership that remains a part of the American character even today.  Roosevelts leadership model is multi-faceted because he envisions a leadership vision for the United States of America during an era of fierce colonial competition and a series of commentaries and observations about leadership qualities among individual men that he served with and either admired as exemplary leaders or disdained as flawed leaders.  It is therefore impossible to talk about leadership with reference to Teddy Roosevelt without examining his leadership views as they pertain both to the United States of America as a country and as they pertain to individual men seeking to advance and defend a new type of American leadership role in the world at the end of the nineteenth century.  In order to demonstrate how Roosevelt viewed American and individual leadership, as he sets these views forth in Rough Riders in particular, this essay will examine and discuss his vision regarding American leadership in the world, his opinion as to what qualities made good individual leaders, and his apparently firm conviction that effective leaders should be unwavering in their patriotism while simultaneously serving as models for the men under their command and supervision.

As an initial matter, it is first necessary to understand Roosevelts perceptions regarding American leadership and its precise place in the world if one is to then understand how he viewed individual leadership.  This is because his belief that America was destined to assume a place in the world as a great colonial and imperial power necessarily affected his characterizations of effective leadership at the individual level.  His vision of America as an emerging great world power, in effect, functions as the larger context within which individual leadership qualities and failures must be analyzed.  In the preface to Rough Riders, for example, a leading Roosevelt scholar notes that Roosevelt and his compatriots in the Spanish-American War symbolized national attitudes at the turn of the twentieth century -- optimistic, energetic, a bit naive, and confident of a greater destiny for themselves and the United States.  Leadership, at both the individual level and at the national level was closely connected with a sense of destiny as a result, Roosevelts notions related to leadership were dependent on personal and national ambitions.  To be sure, as the preexisting Monroe Doctrine and its Manifest Destiny principles already provided for, there were many in the United States before Roosevelt who had begun the process of American expansionism in a manner which stressed national leadership in broader geographic areas.

Roosevelt contributed to these vague principles of destiny by actively advocating and pursuing through his own actions armed conflicts and wars designed to make this national destiny a reality.  It can therefore be argued that Roosevelts view of American leadership was inherently and unapologetically aggressive and that he viewed the American military as an essential component and tool of effective national leadership.  This type of national leadership perspective can be seen in his complete philosophical disdain for those Americans who viewed American leadership from a more diplomatic perspective early on in Rough Riders, for instance, he writes that A large number of my friends felt very differently from the way I felt, and looked upon the possibility of war with sincere horror.  He was well-aware of the competing views regarding American leadership, mostly between those who preferred a more peaceful and insular approach and those advocated a more militaristic approach, and he clearly defined American leadership in terms of its ability to be expansionist, aggressive, and uncompromising.  Indeed, reflecting on the debates which preceded the war against Spain in Cuba, he notes quite plainly that Wefelt very strongly that such a war would be as righteous as it would be advantageous to the honor and the interests of the nation.  American leadership through the exercise of war was thus, in Roosevelts view, morally justifiable and necessary to secure and safeguard growing American interests in ways that transcended Americas physical boundaries.

One presidential scholar, agreeing with the assessment that Roosevelts view of American leadership expanded the traditional principles attributed to the Monroe Doctrine, argues that  the Monroe Doctrine featured decades of dormancy broken by sporadic reassertions and that the  new U.S. approach received a fresh formulation early in the twentieth century with the proclamation of what historians would label the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.  Roosevelt thus reinvigorated and expanded through his advocacy and his actions a much grander and a much more aggressive view of American leadership in the world.  He premised this expanded role on the idea that America was duty-bound to function as an international policeman in the Western Hemisphere textually, in Rough Riders, he states that it was Americas duty to take this opportunity of driving the Spaniard from the Western World.  While Roosevelt probably should have written the Western Hemisphere rather than the Western World, the latter of which Spain was certainly a legitimate part, the clear conclusion is that Roosevelt truly believed that all areas in the Western Hemisphere belonged to the United States either directly or indirectly and that American leadership should employ an uncompromising and militaristic approach in securing and safeguarding its dominant place in the Western Hemisphere.

It is within this larger framework concerning Roosevelts opinions pertaining to American leadership that he judged individual leadership qualities and failures.  Good leaders advanced American interests through self-sacrifice, they led by example rather than by passive words, and they were uncompromising in pursuit in organizational and individual objectives.  Men, in his view, either seemed to be suitable leaders or unsuitable to be leaders and there is very little middle-ground from an individual leadership perspective in Rough Riders.  Interestingly, he frequently refers to leaders who are born or natural rather than the product of training.  This is interesting because Roosevelt never defines how an individual leader is born, though there are insidious racial suggestions throughout the text, and this compels any analysis of individual leadership to wonder precisely what Roosevelt means by naturally-born leaders.  He states, for example, that one Bucky ONeil was himself a born soldier, a born leader.  In support of this assertion, Roosevelt simply lists a number of previous armed conflicts against the Apache as a commander and maintaining discipline in a town as a sheriff.  Leadership in Roosevelts view is closely aligned with authoritarian tendencies, a willingness to use deadly force in order to maintain discipline or to accomplish stated objectives, and a successful track record.

Although the American Civil War had been concluded decades previously, and although the blacks had been nominally freed, Roosevelt also seems to view leadership as a uniquely white phenomenon.  He had a colored bodyservant, the Calvary remained segregated under the leadership of a white Brigadier-General, and at the end of the book makes his racial views rather explicit when he writes that Mr. Bonsals claim of superior efficiency for the colored regular regiments as compared with the white regular regiments does not merit discussion.  Good individual leadership in Roosevelts view was thus of an aggressive and militaristic nature while also being racially-based this may perhaps, to some extant explain what he meant by vaguely-defined references to natural born leaders.

In the final analysis, Roosevelt was an extraordinarily forthright man and writer.  Whether one agrees or disagrees with his philosophical premises, the fact remains that he functioned both rhetorically and through his actions to articulate and to defend more aggressive notions of American leadership in the world and to envision aggressive individual leaders willing to use force and war in order to realize these larger visions related to American expansionism and dominance.