Leadership Analysis of Abraham Lincoln

Kouzes and Posner established a leadership model as a framework for analyzing the leadership credibility of great leaders. They defined Six Disciplines of Credibility. I decided to select a past president that has contributed a great deal of leadership to help shape our nation that it is today. Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States and a popular icon on the $5 bill.

I admire Lincoln a lot because he was not afraid to pursue his vision, communicate it, and empower people to be creative and innovative. He also engaged in a process he believed would help our nation in the years to come. But most importantly, he understood the challenges and stood up to them by appointing the best and brightest to his cabinet. In fact, his cabinet consisted of his sharpest rivals in the presidential race.

At the SHRM’s 2008 Annual Conference in Chicago, Doris Kearns Goodwin, a keynote speaker and 2006 Lincoln Prize winner for her best-selling book, Team of Rivals, identified 10 characteristics that made Lincoln a great leader and recommends that organizations take a closer look when recruiting a leader in today’s environment. These characteristics are:

1.) Capacity to Listen to Different Points of View
2.) Ability to Learn on the Job
3.) Ready Willingness to Share Credit for Success
4.) Ready Willingness to Share Blame for Failure
5.) Awareness of Own Weaknesses
6.) Ability to Control Emotions
7.) Know How to Relax and Replenish
8.) Go Out into the Field and Manage Directly
9.) Strength to Adhere to Fundamental Goals
10.) Ability to Communicate Goals and Vision

If we think about this list for a moment, we can easily see a correlation between Goodwin’s identified leadership characteristics with those identified by Kouzes and Posner. Abraham Lincoln developed a capacity and was open to other people’s suggestions without having the fear of retaliation. He always tried to incorporate additional suggestions into his public speeches and developed a capacity to make the final decision with full accountability and responsibility. He was learning on the fly and quickly acknowledged errors and ensured that they didn’t happen again. Whenever concerns were expressed whether by the public, cabinet members, friends or family, Lincoln would address them in a political and professional manner. When success was achieved he would acknowledge individual contributions. However, when failure existed, he would never blame it on an individual basis but rather blame everyone as a team. Don’t you want a leader with such leadership style? I know I do!!

Lincoln also understood the significance of relaxation, entertainment, and humor in order to have a work-life balance due to internal and external environmental factors. He took his job very seriously but he loved to joke around with his cabinet members and shared his appreciation of their hard work and dedication. And because of this deep understanding of what it takes to be a front line employee, Lincoln enjoyed going out into the field to visit soldiers and manage them directly. He had a great appreciation for them and always tried to thank them in person for causes they stood up for and believed in. Because of this personal connection to the soldiers, their morale had increased significantly.

Unfortunately, today’s organizational leaders don’t have the time to follow Lincoln’s leadership style. It seems to me that they care more about the bottom line profits than their workforce, which contributes over 75% of the bottom line profits. Or maybe they simply don’t care about becoming engaged with the workforce as much as they care about their $10 + million paychecks despite the red numbers in the third or fourth quarter…

However, Lincoln cared down deep about his cabinet members, the public, and their opinions. Shouldn’t every organizational leader do the same? Even though he was pushing to abolish slavery, he never disregarded public opinion just as organizational leaders should disregard their employees’ opinions, or should they?? Think about talent retention…