Lincoln on Leadership - Book Report/Review Example

Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times By Donald T. Phillips. Book Review Abstract This is a review of a book of one hundred and seventy seven pages most of which are dedicated to setting out the leadership philosophy of Abraham Lincoln and helpful steps on how to incorporate his principles into your own management style. The book is sectioned into four different parts, each tackling a different part of Lincoln's philosophy, these are, People, Character, Endeavor and Communication. This review briefly describes each chapter highlighting the important lessons each one can give to the reader and the major conclusions the book reaches. This review concludes that whilst the book is Phillips' enthusiasm for Lincoln is obvious throughout the book and the layout of information makes the book easy to read and follow, there are a few factors that may be improved upon, for example, a slightly more critical view of Lincoln may have improved this account of Lincoln. Lincoln On Leadership By Donald T. Phillips: Book Review Donald Phillips' groundbreaking work, Lincoln On Leadership, is absorbing. Through the use of lengthy quotes from the mouth of Lincoln and in-depth analysis from Phillips, the author creates the impression that Lincoln is a truly inspirational person and one of the greatest leader of his time and possibly all of American history. Phillips argues that Lincoln's leadership philosophy can be applied to today's leaders in business and in the military and by following these principles, leaders can enhance their people skills, character and communication skills. Having been handed the presidency of a country being split into two and with less than fifty percent of the popular vote, Lincoln managed to succeed in defeating the rebel forces in the south and uniting the country under one banner. Phillips attempts to discover the secret to Lincoln's success and ability to turning around the fortunes of a fledgling nation and states that in order to be a great leader, effective communication is a vital tool for persuading your subordinates. In the book, Phillips covers four major areas of Lincoln's leadership philosophy, these are classified into People, Character, Endeavor and Communication. These themes are designed to answer the most challenging questions for both managerial business leaders and military officers, for example, what is the best way for a leader to interact with their troops? Phillips also writes about Lincoln's views on which character traits can make a person successful as well as Lincoln's advice on effective communication. Since the book is divided into these different parts, the book is easy to follow and the writing of Phillips is focused specifically to each section. In the first chapter, we are shown Lincoln's management fashion and what seems to be his golden rule for man management, “Get Out of the office and Circulate Among the Troops” (Phillips, 1993, p.13). This chapter argues that the best leaders need to be an involved listener and will set a good example by being seen around the office, by doing so, Lincoln believes that you will, “create a sense of commitment, collaboration and community” (Phillips 1993, p. 25). Phillips also shows that respect and confidence from your fellow peers is crucial in building alliances and Phillips (1993, p. 30) uses Lincoln's friendship with Seward to illustrate Lincoln's demonstration of this principle. I believe that the third chapter reveals Lincoln's secret on how he was able to influence so many people, this is shown in the title of this chapter “Persuade rather than coerce” (Phillips, 1993, p. 38). It is Lincoln himself that recognizes the value of persuasion over forcing people to do what he wants, “People generally want to believe that what they’re doing truly makes a difference and, more important, that it is their own idea.” (Philips, 1993, p. 40). The second part of the book is centered on the characteristics and habits of highly successful people and effective leaders. Abraham Lincoln is also affectionately known as 'Honest Abe' and, if the legends are true, he rightly deserved to be called this, Phillips suggests that the level of honesty that Lincoln processed is part of what made him a great leader since he was able to inspire trust in his followers,“The architecture of leadership, all the theories and guidelines, falls apart without honesty and integrity”(Phillips, 1993, p. 52). The next idea is one which most people would be familiar with, that is, “Never Act Out Of Vengeance Or Spite”(Phillips, 1993, p.58), although I believe that Gandhi preached a similar ethos when he said, “an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind” (Halpin, 2004, p. 106). Lincoln never looked for revenge after the American Civil War and the lack of malicious intent on Lincoln's part meant in him gaining more sympathy from the general population and more supporters and possibly more respect and loyalty from his existing supporters. Another successful character trait Lincoln had was his unwavering confidence that he had in himself and that he knew right from wrong, this gave him the ability to handle unfair criticism with either a witty response or to simply shrug off such slander, the power to do so meant that could make principled decisions without ever doubting that he had done the right thing, and having confidence in himself allowed others to have confidence in him as well. As Phillips puts it, “An overwhelming confidence in his own ability to know right from wrong also gave Lincoln great strength to combat unjust criticism” (Phillips, 1993, p. 73). The final character trait is perhaps one of the most confusing and thus challenging chapters in throughout the book, its hard to really understand what Phillips(1993) means by “Be a master of Paradox”(p.76). Perhaps it is just the title of the chapter that is confusing but Phillips (1993) sums it up best with the quote, “In many ways, mastering paradox is nothing more than having good common sense” (p.83) so I believe that Phillips is trying to communicate the value of having common sense in being a prosperous and effective leader. Following on from the previous section is a part of the book that is dedicated to Lincoln's philosophy of effort and endeavor, this seems to be the more practical section of the book. The first chapter of this section finds Lincoln encouraging readers to be decisive, bordering on ruthless, which is a stark contrast to the earlier chapters of the book. The most controversial statement in the whole book is one of the principles Phillips writes at the end of this chapter, that is “ Try ballots first; when ballots don’t work, use bullets” (Phillips, 1993, p. 98). This shows a very different side of Lincoln when compared to the previous chapter which shows Lincoln's more compassionate and honest character. The following chapter demonstrates Lincoln's pragmatic style of leadership as well as his outstanding ability to really listen to those he led and his adaptability to include the good ideas that came from them. By listening to his subordinates, Lincoln acquired a different perspective on problems and could achieve and implement new and imaginative solutions to problems, a leadership style Phillips (1993) describes as “lead by being led” (p. 99). This kind of leadership is quite easy to implement, “When a subordinate did a good job, Lincoln praised, complimented, and rewarded the individual. On the other hand, he shouldered responsibility when mistakes were made” (Phillips, 1993, p.103). The next chapter shows the single mindedness of Lincoln and we see a slight of the ruthlessness shown in chapter 8. The important lesson of this chapter is that, “he took one battle at a time rather than trying to win them all at once”, (Phillips 1993, p.110) demonstrating the importance of goal setting to Lincoln and his desire to get the desired results at any cost. Phillips then introduces an influential character from Lincoln's life, that is Ulysses S. Grant, who is considered one of the most successful army generals in history and Lincoln's general in chief of the union army during the American civil war. This is to underline the importance of having a competent second-in-command in order to help guide and give good advice or even just give a different position on important issues. A quote from Lincoln shows this, “All leaders should realize that they can’t do everything on their own. They simply must have people below them who will do what is necessary to insure success. Those subordinates who will take risks, act without waiting for direction, and ask for responsibility rather than reject it, should be treated as your most prized possessions”(Phillips 1993, p. 135). I also think that this shows another strength of Lincoln's in that he has an excellent judge of character, and that he did not stop trying to find his chief subordinate until he found the perfect one in Grant. The final chapter in this section naturally flows from chapter 9 where it shows how Lincoln liked to encourage his followers and try to encourage them to think for themselves. This chapter is similar but it emphasizes the leaders duty to continue learning and try to instill this curious nature in others, “Abraham Lincoln was naturally inquisitive, and he possess this inherent capacity to learn. He also had the desire to learn new things, which led him to be unusually innovative... He also expected and encouraged the same creative and resourceful behavior from his subordinates” (Phillips, 1993, p. 138-9). This leads us onto the last section of this book where Lincoln teaches us about effective communication, a vital skill for any leader to have. One of the most important parts of communication is public speaking hence why Phillips (1993) begins this section with a chapter called “Master the Art of Public Speaking” (p. 145). The message here is that to be an excellent public speaker is to be well prepared and to really know the audience that you are speaking to, the benefits of mastering this art are many and we have seen that some of the most influential people in history are still known today because of their skill in public speaking. An equally important part of leadership is the ability to influence people, this would be how to get people to do what you want them to do without coercion. Lincoln found that the best way to do this was by story telling, perhaps this is because uneducated people may not be so hurt by a rejection if told through the medium of a story and would be able to understand Lincoln's reasons better. Phillips (1993) includes a quote from Lincoln at this point, “They say I tell a great many stories. I reckon I do; but I have learned from long experience that plain people, take them as they run, are more easily influenced through the medium of a broad and humorous illustration than in any other way” (p. 155). The final chapter in this book talks about Lincoln's belief in the use of positive thinking a visualizing a goal in order to achieve it, “When effecting renewal, Lincoln called on the past, related it to the present, and then used them both to provide a link to the future” (Phillips, 1993, p. 166). By painting a final vision of what he had in mind for the U.S, this can help people to decide whether they agree with Lincoln's view and whilst some people may disagree, others may like and agree with the goal, and therefore, give their support to Lincoln as a result. So as we can see from this brief review of the chapters from the book, Phillips looks to answer the major issues that we outlined at the beginning of this assignment and the answers to these issues are the major conclusions he looks for the reader to take from this book as the important points are included throughout the chapters. The first point to learn from this book is that leaders should get familiar with the surroundings of their followers, this will make operations more fluid since you, as the leader, will be more accessible and can control things more easily. An additional part of this is that Lincoln persuaded his subordinates rather than ordered or coerced them to do anything. Another major conclusion from this book follows on from the last point in that once a leader begins to use coercion, they will become more of dictator rather than the compassionate leader that Lincoln was. Additionally, Integrity and honesty are necessary characteristics that a leader needs that will prevent him from becoming mad with power and dictatorial. The last major conclusion of this book is possibly the most important lesson of all, it is that for a leader to be successful, they will need to be an effective communicator or else they may find leading a group of people harder than those that can communicate effectively. This goes to show that even a leader who is in touch with his followers, is honest and compassionate may well be inferior to a leader who is simply an effective communicator. I will now spend the next section briefly criticizing the book on the shortcomings of the book and the areas where I think Phillips could have done more to improve the book itself. One possible problem is that the leadership skills of Abraham Lincoln may be representative of the skills he processed to be a great leader of his time, but these techniques may be outdated when compared to the leaders of today. I also believe that Phillips has drawn an ideal picture of Lincoln whilst ignoring the fact that Lincoln was only human and therefore was not perfect, these imperfections are rejected by Phillips and the reader never really sees this side of Lincoln. I would also like to bring into question the character section of the book, where it describes the characteristics of a successful leader. This is a problem since it contains no instructions or practical advice on how to really obtain these characteristics, and this could be because they are simply part of a persons personality. The last criticism I will bring up is that whilst Lincoln was a very successful army general, and this book may be ideal for an NCO looking to emulate Lincoln, but Lincoln's record with business is rather poor. Many authors describe Lincoln as “a failed storekeeper” ( Cosson, 2007, p. 1859), so I do not think that Lincoln's example would be the best one to follow, although some may argue that Lincoln was quite young at the time and his leadership skills had not fully developed at this point. So whilst some of Lincoln's leadership philosophy may be outdated, certain advice is timeless, such as his principle of “Get Out of the office and Circulate Among the Troops” (Phillips, 1993, p.13) has been adapted to fit in with modern man management methods. This can be seen by a modern technique called Management By Wandering Around (MBWA) advised by Tom Peters (McConnell, 2009, p. 189). However, other modern management models are very different, such as “Leaders at all levels” by Ram Charan (2007), this shows a different approach to Lincoln's, where the main emphasis is to teach leadership skill to subordinates, where as Lincoln's philosophy seems to be that the subordinates, whilst encouraging them to think for themselves, will still have to ultimately report to Lincoln and are not given so much freedom. The presentation of the book is overall very good, in particular I like the lay out the chapters especially with 'Lincoln's principles' at the end of each chapter, these are very useful especially if you need just a quick summary of his philosophy. I also believe that the sectioning of the book into its four different parts has added to the books accessibility, this is because the reader can simply skip to the section of the book they are most interested in. Phillips uses fairly lengthy quotes from Lincoln throughout this book which makes it more useful as a historical representation of Lincoln since it demonstrates his actual views and opinions rather than Phillips distorting Lincoln's words. Still, Phillips himself does provide useful analysis of Lincoln's philosophy which will also assist the reader in providing a different perspective on Lincoln's views. The enthusiasm that Phillips has for the study of Lincoln is obvious in his writing throughout the book and this could be what help Phillips give such a good insight into Lincoln's life. The book is also packed full of Lincolns stories and anecdotes, which also helped him become a great communicator and helps readers understand Lincoln better and they also keep the attention of the reader for longer. Whilst this book might be able to teach some business people a few things, I still feel that young NCO s in training will benefit the most out of reading this book. This is because Lincoln's reputation as a military leader is far superior than his reputation as a businessman. This book can also be used in order to study the historical account of Lincoln and see how his mentality caused him to make the decisions he made throughout his career. It may also be used in order to inspire those responsible for turning around a business, since Lincoln was faced with a tough challenge when handed the presidency as he only had a year of formal education, it looked like the United States was about to split and only had around forty three percent of the popular vote. In conclusion, Lincoln on Leadership is well laid out and the reader is easily directed to the appropriate section of the book with the exuberance for the subject from the author. Phillips' writing style takes the reader into a deeper understanding of Lincoln's psychology and his philosophy of leadership. The author uses lengthy quotes and examples from Lincoln's life in order to show and demonstrate to the reader how to take the principles laid out in this book and apply them to their management style. This book is interesting to me as it greatly enhanced my view of Lincoln as not only a compassionate leader, but I can now also appreciate the way he communicated with people and how important that is in order to be a great leader. References Charan. R, 2007, Leaders at all levels, New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons Cosson. J, 2007, Civil War and Reconstruction: 1850-1877, New York, Weigl Publishers Halpin. M, 2004, It's your world--if you don't like it, change it, New York, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing McConnell. C, 2009, Umiker's Management Skills for the New Health Care Supervisor Sudbury, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc, Phillips. T, 1993, Lincoln on leadership: Executive strategies for Tough times, New York, Warner books Read More