Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“Further, with this letter Lincoln revealed the cornerstone of his own personal leadership philosophy, an approach that would become part of a revolution in modern leadership thinking 100 years later when it was dubbed MBWA (Management by Wandering Around) by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman in their 1982 book In Search of Excellence.” 

This quotation connects Lincoln’s leadership style with a modern concept in leadership studies. By alluding to Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, Phillips emphasizes the applicability of Lincoln’s hands-on leadership approach to businesses and companies today. Phillips occasionally uses modern jargon from the field of business management, as he does here with the acronym MBWA, to highlight Lincoln’s usefulness as a model for modern leaders and to reinforce his personal credibility in the field.

“It hurt Lincoln somewhat not to have formed a successful link with McClellan, but at least he’d maintained his integrity. The lesson to be learned here is to simply not give up attempting to build solid alliances. For every failed attempt like the relationship with McCellan, there may be two successful ones like Seward and Stanton.”

This quotation is important because Phillips acknowledges that even Lincoln would sometimes meet with failure in his leadership efforts. Lincoln was unable to form a productive relationship with General George Brinton McClellan due to differences in personality and leadership styles. Phillips implies that leaders need to move past setbacks like this and focus on other collaborations that will better serve a project or company.

“If modern leaders don’t intuitively understand human nature as well as Lincoln did, they should at least make an attempt to learn more on the subject. After all, the most important asset an organization has is its employees.” 

This quotation encapsulates one of the central tenets in Lincoln on Leadership: leaders must actively strive to form productive relationships with colleagues or employees. Lincoln valued other people’s ideas and understood that widespread support of Union officials and soldiers would be necessary for winning the Civil War. Similarly, modern leaders must accept that they must earn the support and trust of employees or their companies will fail.