Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

Throughout Lincoln on Leadership, Phillips provides many excerpts from Abraham Lincoln’s own letters and other writings to show how he regularly communicated his ideas to people through stories, metaphors, anecdotes, and parables. Chapter 14 addresses this pattern in Lincoln’s life directly, and Phillips believes that Lincoln’s use of stories was a deliberate communication strategy that helped him gain support among a wide variety of audiences. Lincoln had “an overwhelming inventory of anecdotes, jokes, and stories” and he “possessed the ability to instantly pull out just the right one for any situation that might arise” (157). Telling amusing stories made Lincoln more relatable to people from all walks of life, a necessary skill for a politician. Lincoln understood the appeal and memorability of stories and, much like he avoided behaving in a dictatorial way among his generals, he would often use stories with a hidden meaning to convey his opinions and desires rather than tell people outright what to do or what to think. Phillips refers to the practical utility of this approach today by stating “research in the field of leadership confirms […] the role of stories as powerful motivational tools that spread loyalty, commitment, and enthusiasm” (158). Like Lincoln, modern leaders should refine their communication style and strive to incorporate conversational techniques like storytelling and humor that will make them more relatable to colleagues or employees.

While Chapters 13 and 14 were more about Lincoln’s communication style, Chapter 15 returns to the topic of the importance of clear goals within an organization, first discussed in Chapter 10. In Chapter 15, Phillips describes goals as “vision,” but it is a similar concept. Lincoln not only had specific goals for the United States, he was also careful to communicate what these goals were so that the members of the Union were aware of his purpose in launching the Civil War. Without a clear and constant communication of his vision for the country, Lincoln knew the Union army would fall into chaos with no clear direction for its actions, thus, Lincoln consistently communicated the direction he intended for the country: “liberty” and abolition of slavery, and “to afford to all an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life” (163-64). By constantly reiterating this main vision or goal in his speeches, Lincoln wanted the people of the Union to realize that their individual actions were contributing to a collective purpose that would make the nation better than it had been in the past.

Phillips uses Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” as an extended example in this chapter. He provides a full transcript of the speech and analyzes it as a demonstration of how Lincoln articulated his vision for the nation and conveyed how this vision would endure into the future (166-68). Although this speech was only two minutes in length when Lincoln delivered it on November 19, 1863, it continues to be one of the most famous speeches in American history. Its effectiveness as a work of oratory communication proves that Lincoln’s commitment to a specific vision for the country is a strategy that leaders can also apply in organizations today. Phillips asserts that “accepted visions tend to foster innovation, risk-taking, empowerment, and delegation” (164). Developing a vision and communicating it effectively are “far more powerful than throwing money and people at the problem” (168), a lesson that Phillips argues modern leaders should remember and enact in their own corporate environments.

In the Epilogue, Phillips returns briefly to a problem he mentioned in the Introduction: While Lincoln was contemporarily recognized as a leader, the fallout from the assassination and the subsequent transformation of the martyred president into the “Lincoln Myth” means that people today do not recognize the useful leadership strategies Lincoln developed throughout the course of his life (171). Lincoln “routinely practiced nearly all the ‘revolutionary thinking’ techniques that have been preached to American industry in the last ten to fifteen years” (172). To ignore the lessons historical figures like Lincoln provide is to miss out on an important opportunity to learn to lead from an expert. In the Afterword, Phillips reviews what Lincoln accomplished in his presidency by examining his innovative methods for raising money to fund the Civil War in the middle of a financial crisis. In short, Lincoln “developed an entirely new financial system” and was responsible for national paper currency. This example reiterates Phillips’s position; Lincoln was an innovative leader who was not afraid to implement change on a large scale. He was able to gain the support of Congress to develop “a national banking system” (176), and he managed to shepherd the country through the Civil War despite extreme financial challenges. The Afterword ends by alluding again to Lincoln’s empathy and compassion, qualities that made him one of the most beloved and effective leaders in history.