A special thanks to my fellow writer/author and hometown-Iowa-friend, Lucas De Koster, who now resides in Hong Kong. It was his inspiration in his book compilation of newspaper articles entitled, Not Yet Home, and his one amazing article on Lincoln that I read this past week, that inspired this article. Keep that inspiration coming, Luke!
This week (February 12, 2009) our country is celebrating what would have been the 200th birthday of the sixteenth president of our great nation, Abraham Lincoln.
I wasn’t alive at that time, however, Lincoln has been on my mind a lot this past year, really several years of my life. Whenever I have felt down or uncertain about a goal, a dream or a desire, I always looked to Lincoln’s life as a great example of perseverance and unwavering leadership of self and others.
I believe Lincoln was one of the greatest leaders of our time.
When one thinks of a leader, often times they are the most educated, the most courageous, the most eloquent people that stand out in a crowd anywhere they go, right? At least when you look at our past presidents (Bush One and Two, Clinton, and Reagan), didn’t they come into leadership that way?
Leader is defined: Leader\, n. 1. One who, or that which, leads or conducts; a guide; a conductor. Especially: (a) One who goes first. (b) One having authority to direct; a chief; a commander.
Yet, what do you know about Lincoln? What formed his leadership ability to make him the leader of our country in times such as the Civil War era?
Let’s take a quick peek at his life. And while we do this together, I encourage you to compare your own life and your own leadership to Lincoln’s.
Lincoln was born to uneducated farmers in a rural area of Kentucky. He came from very humble beginnings and reportedly only had eighteen months of formal education himself, mostly educating himself and being a great reader of books on his own time. There was no Harvard or Yale in his blood (in fact, his son Robert Lincoln was the only one in their family that would go on to college and it did happen to be Harvard).
Leaders know a little (or a lot) about moving forward in spite of what “others” think or say about them and where they came from.
Lincoln didn’t seem to mind that he did not have a big background in education and lost his job and was defeated for state legislature in 1832, then failed in business in 1833. Yet he bounced back and still became a state legislator in 1834 in Illinois and a lawyer in 1837, where he began his charge against slavery less than thirty years before taking the oath of office. Nothing seemed to stop this man from pursuing great opportunities to serve people and his state/country, in spite of a simple background. He was fearless and never took no for an answer.
Leaders know a lot about failure (a.k.a. setbacks) and successes.
Lincoln would then go on for the next twenty plus years to experience the death of his sweetheart, nervous breakdowns, defeats for the House/Congress, be defeated for nominations and re-nominations, rejected as land officer, and the list goes on until 1860. Yet, it was all of those “setbacks” he experienced, with a few wins along the way that brought him to become the leader our country so desperately needed.
Leaders never give up.
Lucas De Koster points out in his book, Not Yet Home:
When he became president, Lincoln had to deal not only with a rapidly fracturing country but also with a fractured party. Several men had gotten their sizable egos bruised by not being chosen as the Republican candidate in 1860 … His (Lincoln’s) solution? Name them to his cabinet … The men continued to feud with each other…and…privately complained about Lincoln’s leadership and dropped hints about replacements—usually themselves….(Lincoln) steadfastly refused to keep grudges, absorbing the insults…at considerable damage to his own image and re-electability …
