Leadership Lessons from Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln is one of the most respected, studied and quoted leaders in history. Soon after his election in 1860, eleven southern states seceded from the union and the Civil War erupted in April, 1861.  Lincoln was committed to preserving the Union. He was convinced that democracy was mankind's only hope for living free of tyranny, and that the American experiment would fail if the Union disintegrated. 

During the Civil War, an estimated 620,000 died. Lincoln was relentlessly criticized by the media, members of his own political party and his enemies. After four years of bloody conflict, the Confederate forces surrendered on April 9, 1865.  Five days later, Lincoln was shot by actor John Wilkes Booth and died the following morning - April 15, 1865.

Throughout his life, Lincoln was well-acquainted with grief and disappointment.  His mother died when he was nine years old and his beloved sister Sarah died in childbirth at age 20.  His political career included several lost elections. His son William died in 1862 while the Lincolns occupied the Whitehouse.   The lessons that he learned from his many losses served him and the country well during its worst crisis. The following are a few leadership principles illustrated by Lincoln’s own words (in italics).

Defining Moments Shape a Leader

That sight (slaves shackled with irons on board a river boat) was continual torment to me.

Align to Foundational Principles

It is the eternal struggle between these two principles - right and wrong - throughout the world.  They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle.  The one is the common right of humanity and the other is the divine right of kings.  It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself.  It is the same spirit that says, 'You toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.'  No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.

No man is good enough to govern another man, without the other's consent.   I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.  This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave.  Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.

Internal Division Produces Weakness

"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this Government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.  I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided.  It will become all one thing, or all the other.

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.  We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth.

Leadership Requires Resolve

If we stand firm, we shall not fail.  Wise councils may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later the victory is sure to come.

Don’t Succumb to Criticism

If I were to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me this shop might as well be closed for all other business.  I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end.  If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything.

Lead Courageously

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves.  Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

Keep Problems in Perspective

Yet they [the difficulties of the Presidency] are scarcely so great as the difficulties of those who, upon the battlefield, are endeavoring to purchase with their blood and their lives the future happiness and prosperity of this country.

Be True to Conscience

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.  I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left and that friend shall be down inside me.  

Acknowledge Limitations

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess that events have controlled me.

I have been driven many times upon my knees by an overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.     

Lead with Conviction

The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on.  It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. – Excerpt from the Gettysburg Address

Act on Behalf of the Common Good

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in ... to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

Let us all live faithful to these principles.

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