Abraham Lincoln
continues to be a legendary figure in American history. He has been
considered one of the best presidents and greatest leaders. It is a
superb idea to look to
Lincoln on leadership.
He
lead by example and promoted good character traits. He was a successful
leader and there are many things that we can learn from his life and
the lessons he taught.
1. Be close to your friends, and even closer
to your enemies. Lincoln truly put this into practice. To keep his
rivals close, he gave them important positions in his cabinet.
This
posed to be very frustrating for him during the Civil War, but he
listened to these people’s advice. By keeping his rivals
close to him, especially during a time of war, he was able to keep them
from breaking out of his cabinet and forming pacts with the opposing
side.
2. Continue learning. During his legal
career, Lincoln was involved in over 5,000 cases. Even though he never
attended law school, he worked really hard during his 23-year career.
Because he couldn’t afford law school, he found alternative
methods to learn what he needed to.
He traveled from city to city in
the state of Illinois working as an apprentice. He continued to learn
by doing this until he was able to start up his own practice.
Not only did he learn through practice, but
he also read a lot. He read thousands of law cases to help prepare him
for his cases and polish his skills.
3. Be modest. Lincoln always chose to
remember where he came from. He never got caught up in the fame of
being successful. He always chose to live plainly. He also chose to
wear clothing that wasn’t ostentatious and fancy. Being
modest helped Lincoln gain the trust of the people.
4. Be accessible. We can look to Lincoln on
leadership in many areas. One of them was his great quality of
listening to the people.
Wouldn’t that be interesting if we
could talk with our political leaders face to face? Lincoln especially
liked to get feedback on the choices that he was making.
5. Try, try again. Before Lincoln became
president, he lost over seven times. He looked at those defeats as an
opportunity to run for president again. If Lincoln gave up early in his
career, we could possibly be living in a very different nation.
As we look to Lincoln on leadership, there
is so much that we can learn.
Discover more
about becoming a great leader at www.RaiseALeader.com
