First published 2011
Nassir Ghaemi runs the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts University Medical Center. He believes conventional wisdom about leadership gets it wrong. Mental illness, he argues, creates better leaders during crises than mental health does. Ghaemi examines the lives of Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and John F. Kennedy across two centuries. He finds that mood disorders gave these figures four crucial qualities: realism about difficult situations, empathy for others' suffering, resilience after setbacks, and creative problem solving. Ghaemi combines historical evidence with current psychiatric research to show how these traits produced exceptional leadership when circumstances were most challenging. The book demonstrates that what society often views as weakness can become strength when crisis demands unconventional thinking and deep human connection.
Genres: biography, history, psychology, mental-health, non-fiction, academic
Vibes: intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: deep-human-connection, unconventional-thinking
Period: 19th-Century, 20th-Century, 21st-Century
340 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Press