Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin

“He knew who he was, and he liked who he was. He liked Harry Truman. He enjoyed being Harry Truman.”

That is a description that Truman’s biographer,?David McCullough , uses in an essay in the book?Character Above All . For Truman, who had little growing up, never went to college, wore "coke bottle" glasses, played the piano and worked hard as a farmer, character may have been his strongest suit. And it suited him as well as the suits he wore – having been a haberdasher (albeit a failed one).

Test Under Fire

McCullough writes that Truman's appreciation of himself was not a matter of hubris or arrogance. It was that he knew who he was and what he could do. The litmus test that marked him for life was his service as a middle-aged man serving in the U.S. Army as Captain of Battery D during the Great War. In their letters to their wife, Bess, Truman describes his first night under fire in harrowing terms; he was frightened, as were his men. But he rallied, pulled himself together and got his men, who had run from the fight, to regroup—courage under fire.

Although Truman entered public service as part of the corrupt Pendergrass Machine in his home state of Missouri, he did not enrich himself but gained a seat in the U.S. Senate. Truman made a name for himself as the crusading senator investigating war profiteering during World War II. He became Franklin Roosevelt's running mate, and when Roosevelt died shortly after beginning his fourth term, Truman became President.?

Small Stature Big Character

Truman, who had not known just how ill FDR was,?told reporters ?the day he was sworn in that he?“felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.”?Truman bore the weight admirably. He shepherded the nation through the final days of the war in Europe and later Japan – when it was his call to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.?

As McCullough writes, Truman was wedged between two giants of American history – FDR and Dwight Eisenhower, the General who had commanded Allied Forces in Europe. Truman never projected the gravitas of either man. He was often dismissed by his own Democratic Party and?his mother-in-law , who felt her daughter could have married better. A couple of sayings sum up popular opinion of the man – "I'm just mild about Harry" and "To err is Truman."

No matter, Truman knew himself and was steadfast in pursuing his own course, including winning the 1948 presidential election when his opponent, Thomas Dewey, the popular governor of New York, was favored by everyone—except the voters.

Mastering Self-Awareness?

The lesson leaders can learn from Truman is to be comfortable in their own skin, meaning to know their strengths and weaknesses. “Give ‘em hell, Harry" was a more favorable adage for Truman as he excoriated the "Do Nothing Congress ” of 1947-48.

Truman did find a way to vent his irritation and anger. He would write a scorching letter, then set it aside and often not send it.?Abraham Lincoln also followed this practice.

His temper, however, was not directed at staff. As McCullough notes, everyone who worked with him loved him, including one Secret Service officer who said that if he could have picked someone to be his father, it would be Truman.?

Self-knowledge, coupled with self-awareness, is essential to anyone in charge. It is necessary to have an ego, but it is equally important to keep it in check.?Sam Rayburn , a friend of Truman’s and the long-time Democratic Speaker of the House, warned Truman shortly after he became President to be wary of people seeking favors, especially those seeking to flatter him. "They'll come sliding in," said Rayburn, "and tell you you're the greatest man alive. But you know, and I know, you ain’t.”

This raises another point. Make certain that if you reach the top rung, you surround yourself with people who knew you when… when you had very little, but like Harry Truman, a will to persevere and a commitment to doing what it takes to make things better.

First posted on Forbes.com 5.01.2024

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