Was Harry Truman the Most Successful “Imposter” of All Time?
A few years ago, I started a Google Doc to track all the instances I had heard or read about someone experiencing imposter syndrome. Because I re-read the document shortly before consuming David McCullough’s biography of Harry Truman, it was hard not to notice imposter feelings arising throughout the former president’s life, especially once he assumed the office.
The day Franklin Roosevelt died, Truman was summoned to the White House. Upon hearing the news, he said to Eleanor Roosevelt, “Is there anything I can do for you?” She famously replied, “Is there anything we can do for you…. For you are the one in trouble now.”
Going into the previous election, Truman understood that FDR’s failing health would likely mean he would become president. But it was still a shock when it happened, and Truman had trouble seeing himself in the role. McCullough writes, “Truman felt great division within himself. Like John Tyler, he must be President, act presidential, but could he ever feel he was? ‘I’m still Harry Truman,’ he had said several times to different people since 7:09 the evening before.”
Had Truman read the Washington Post editorial page upon taking office, he wouldn’t have gotten much confidence either. “He must pick up the work of a world-renowned statesman who had had more than 12 years of experience in the White House . . . [and] we should be less than candid at this grave moment . . . if we did not recognize the great disparity between Mr. Truman’s experience and the responsibilities that have been thrust upon him.”
Truman came from humble beginnings and never went to college, which put him at a seeming disadvantage relative to his predecessors and the Ivy League-educated staff that were part of Roosevelt’s administration. “His own favorite President of the century, Woodrow Wilson, had had a brilliant academic career. Herbert Hoover had been a world-famous engineer. Franklin Roosevelt, heir to a great name, had been the popular governor of New York, the nation’s richest, most populous state,” writes McCullough. “And who was he, Harry Truman? What qualifications had he beside such men, or so many others in public life who wanted the job?”
Of course, Truman is now rated as one of the most effective U.S. presidents, and he grew to have what British Prime Minister Anthony Eden called an “air of quiet confidence in himself.”
Part of the shift from feeling like an impostor to being confident in the role was leaning into authenticity, and Truman discovered that his perceived flaws were actually strengths. For example, rather than trying to match the soaring rhetoric of Roosevelt, he stuck with his straightforward speaking style. McCullough writes, “Convoluted structure and highblown or evasive phrases greatly annoyed [Truman]. ‘That’s not the way I would say it,’ he would remark. [...] ‘Let’s just say what we mean.’”
Moreover, the way Truman engineered his comeback win in the 1948 presidential election against Thomas Dewey was to put his authentic personality forward. McCullough concludes, “[T]here was never any question as to why Truman won. He had done it by being himself, never forgetting who he was, and by going to the people in his own fashion.
When reading about Truman’s imposter feelings and comparing them with others’, it’s hard not to conclude that imposter feelings are the inevitable result of being an emotionally healthy person who stretches themselves and opts for novel situations.
Imagine being thrust into the presidency in the middle of a world war, after just 82 days as vice president, and being told that you’ve now got to decide how to use the most powerful weapon ever created. I’d worry far more about the person who stepped into that situation without any doubts about their ability to do the job well than the person who has to learn how to handle imposter feelings.