Leadership

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy stood before the American people and did something remarkable for a politician: he admitted total failure. The Bay of Pigs invasion—a CIA-backed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro—had been an utter disaster. Over 1,400 Cuban exiles were captured or killed. It was a humiliating defeat, just three months into Kennedy’s presidency. Kennedy didn’t deflect. He didn’t blame his predecessor. He didn’t hide behind classified briefings. ...

In 1968, psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson walked into an elementary school in San Francisco with a devious plan. They told teachers they had developed a new test that could predict which students were “intellectual bloomers”—kids on the verge of rapid intellectual growth. They administered the test, then gave teachers a list of students who supposedly scored highest. These students, they said, would show remarkable gains in IQ over the coming year. ...