 What Can Honest Abe Teach You About Leadership?
Let’s be honest. President Abraham Lincoln possessed many of the qualities today’s society considers being those of a great leader. Author Donald T. Phillips said that Lincoln “lifted people out of their everyday selves and into a higher level of performance, achievement, and awareness. He obtained extraordinary results from ordinary people by instilling purpose in their endeavors. He was open, civil, tolerant, and fair, and he maintained a respect for the dignity of all people at all times.”
Does this sound like the type of leader you aim to be? Read on for more of Honest Abe’s leadership principles, as described in the book by Phillips called Lincoln on Leadership.
• Get out of the office and circulate among the troops. Your troops are your customers, clients, employees, and suppliers.
• Remember that everyone likes a compliment.
• Spend time letting your followers learn that you are firm, resolute, and committed in the daily performance of your duty. Doing so will gain their respect and trust.
• Showing your compassionate and caring nature will aid you in forging successful relationships.
• When you extinguish hope, you create desperation.
• Delegate responsibility and authority by empowering people to act on their own.
• Remember that your followers generally want to believe that what they do is their own idea and, more importantly, that it genuinely makes a difference.
• Persuade rather than coerce.
• Honesty and integrity are the best policies.
• When you make it to the top, turn and reach down for the person behind you.
• Never crush a man out, thereby making him and his friends permanent enemies of your organization.
• Never act out of vengeance or spite.
• Have the courage to handle unjust criticism.
• Do the very best you know how-the very best you can-and keep on doing so until the end.
• The probability that you may fail in the struggle ought not to deter you from the support of a cause you believe to be just.
• Don’t surrender the game leaving any available card unplayed.
• Be decisive.
• Remember that compromise does not mean cowardice.
• Never forget that your organization does not depend on the life of any one individual.
• Unite your followers with a corporate mission.
• Set specific short-term goals that can be focused on with intent and immediacy by subordinates.
• Go out into the field with your leaders, and stand or fall with the battle.
• Coach and councel a new executive so that he or she may get off on the right foot. Remember, you want him to succeed. This is a must for your employees.
• Remember that the best leaders never stop learning.
• If you never try, you’ll never succeed.
• Master the art of public speaking.
• Influence people through conversation and storytelling.
• Preach a vision and continually reaffirm it.
Abraham Lincoln’s leadership principles are as strong and meaningful today as they were almost 150 years ago. They don’t lie. Think about it. You are the leader in your dental practice, your business, your corporation, and your life. What can Honest Abe teach you?
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