He has written about how Hoover failed to recognize the cataclysmic changes of the great depression and failed to realize the resources that he had to deal with it, while FDR realized the changes and dreamed of the resources and what he could do with them. Leaders must have followers.
Leadership is peculiarly problematic in a democracy.
DeToqueville stated that when conditions of men are almost equal, they are not disposed to take one of them as a guide and follow him implicitly. Burns, in his book on leadership stated that leadership is a relationship between consenting persons. Churchill stated that citizens in a democracy want their leaders to have their ears to the ground, but find it difficult to follow someone in that position. Two stories about Dwight D. Eisenhower can be used to illustrate leadership. In 1941 he was 51 years old, a colonel and had never been in war.