This is a short study of Dwight D. Eisenhower's style of leadership. It traces two concepts—collaboration and friendship—over the course of his life with the aim of exploring a particular theory of leadership, as applied to Eisenhower's career and practices. It traces them not by reconstructing events or great deeds—as many other historians and biographers have already done—but instead by a synthetic and comparative history of Eisenhower's relationships, and the personality types and character roles that made those relationships, and collaboration, work.

A collaborative leader is a cross between a coach, cheerleader and administrator. For any single leader to play all three roles simultaneously would appear almost impossible. Various people, including Eisenhower himself, have tried to interpret the roles in combination. The most familiar of the interpretations is that of the hidden hand. But this hand was not hidden all the time. Nor was it a guiding or manipulating hand so much as a grip that inspired, persuaded and compelled others, especially friends, of their own accord, to collaborate on behalf of the greater good.

To isolate and reproduce the qualities behind Eisenhower's effectiveness as a leader, we need not rely entirely on his self- image or fall back upon ineffability. The qualities were mysterious but not unknowable. They originated from his place in his own large family, his experiences in a small Midwestern town in the early twentieth century, in his military education and early military assignments and, finally, in his development of emotional intelligence during the war when his main, overriding mission, besides victory, was to keep the alliance fighting and winning together. All this made him well suited to be president during a time of perceived consensus. Yet even here Eisenhower did not take consensus or collaboration for granted. His presidency may have papered over a few deep social divisions—which, as some critics would later say, led to crises that blew up during the 1960s and 1970s. Had these crises blown up earlier, as some civil rights and labor disputes nearly did just after the war, today we might be talking about the tumultuous 1950s. But these divisions did not blow up then, for which there were important reasons.