NAR CEO: Good leaders embrace their adversaries
At the Realtors Legislative Meetings in D.C., historian Doris Kearns Goodwin spoke with Nykia Wright about the themes of adversity, strength and leadership.
Key points:
- There's strength in "working with people who had different views, who are smart and are challenging in different ways,” NAR CEO Nykia Wright told an audience of Realtors.
- A belief in land ownership as "fundamental" to the development of the U.S. dates back to Thomas Jefferson, noted Doris Kearns Goodwin.
- While strong leaders have been instrumental in shaping the country, lasting change comes "from the ground up," Goodwin said.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Before Nykia Wright went to business school at Dartmouth in 2007, and long before she became CEO of the National Association of Realtors, she read historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln."
The book details, in part, how Lincoln chose to stack his cabinet with his own political adversaries, noting that they were "the strongest and most able men in the country" despite their political differences.
"That was really, really incredible because I understood at that point the strength out of working with people who had different views, who are smart and are challenging in different ways," Wright told thousands of real estate professionals during the general session at the Realtors Legislative Meetings — NAR's midyear conference — in Washington, D.C. Monday morning.
"I certainly deal with that view at the National Association of Realtors," Wright added, prompting laughter from the audience.
Wright interviewed Goodwin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and presidential scholar who has written biographies of Lincoln, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson, as part of the conference's recognition of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The two came onto the stage with "My Shot" from the musical Hamilton playing in the background.
'Greater strength' through adversity
Goodwin offered the perspective of history as a balm for today's challenging times, noting that during the Civil War, Lincoln "didn't know the Union would be secured"; during the Great Depression, FDR "didn't know then that he'd be able to get a safety net under people" — and no one in the country knew if the allies would win World War II, she pointed out.
"If we could just remember that they lived through those times and somehow re-emerged with greater strength through each one of those adversities, we can do it again," she said, prompting applause.
Thomas Jefferson's belief that owning land was essential to self-governance was "fundamental" to the birth of the country, according to Goodwin.
"He believed that if people could own their own land and build their own homes, that somehow there would be stability, they would have a stake in the community, they would have dignity," she said, connecting that foundational belief to "what you guys are doing today."
The importance of leadership
Goodwin gave example after example of what a difference leadership made in the nation's history. In the early 1900s, she said, there was a sense that the country was splitting apart as technological innovations widened the gap between the rich and the poor.
"The industrial revolution had shaken up the economy, much like globalization and AI and the tech revolution today," Goodwin said.
When FDR came in, he relaxed antitrust regulations and gave money to car factories to start making tanks and planes on an assembly line, which meant that even before Pearl Harbor, the U.S. had enough surplus weapons to send to its allies.
"In 1942, we were able to produce a plane every four minutes, a tank every seven minutes, and a ship was launched every single day," Goodwin said.
"That shows what America can do when business and government come together."
Creating change 'from the ground up'
Goodwin repeatedly emphasized past presidents' moral character, noting that Lyndon Johnson, for example, had spent his limited political capital — making calls to congressmen around the country at all hours — to pass civil rights legislation, including the Fair Housing Act, in 1964. When others tried to dissuade him, Johnson reportedly said, "Then what the hell is the presidency for?"
When Wright asked Goodwin what gives her hope, the historian and political commentator pointed out that past social justice gains have been made not just from the top, but from people on the ground: Union soldiers won the Civil War; volunteers created settlement houses to help the urban poor and immigrants before FDR's New Deal.
"The civil rights movement, the women's movement, the gay rights movement — it always comes from the ground up," Goodwin said.