Member-only story

Leadership Lessons from The Four Freedoms

A timeless message from January 6 many years ago.

Scott Monty
Timeless and Timely
5 min readJan 6, 2022

--

F.D.R. Memorial, Washington, D.C. by Carol Highsmith (public domain — Library of Congress)

“Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1941

January 6 is one of those dates that will be hauntingly etched into our collective history.

Like December 7 or September 11, January 6, 2021 was an occasion when irredeemable harm was inflicted upon the United States. But this time, it was from within.

But January 6, 1941exactly 80 years beforemarked another memorable occasion: the delivery of Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech. Its development and key elements provide a window into leadership and communication.

A Team of Colleagues

As he was preparing this speech, as he did with many, FDR assembled his most trusted advisors: Harry Hopkins, Samuel Rosenman, Robert Sherwood. Along the way, he also got input from Adolf Berle and Benjamin Cohen in the State Department.

--

--

Timeless and Timely
Timeless and Timely

Published in Timeless and Timely

Making sense of the issues and ideas before us today by exploring history, literature, and culture. Designed to make you a better communicator, a better leader, and a better human.

Scott Monty
Scott Monty

Written by Scott Monty

Strategic communications & leadership advisor and speaker. I build better leaders, communicators & humans. #TimelessLeadership More: http://linktr.ee/scottmonty

No responses yet