Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership : Executive Lessons from the Bully PulpitExecutive Lessons from the Bully Pulpit Theodore Roosevelt, the youngest man ever to become president, was a leader of uncommon strength who, through the sheer force of his extraordinary will, turned America into a modern world power. Throughout his remarkable life he surmounted challenges that would have destroyed lesser men. He overcame a sickly boyhood, conquered enemy troops on the battlefield, and took an assassin's bullet with scarcely a flinch.