Lincoln on Leadership for Today: Abraham Lincoln's Approach to Twenty-First-Century Issues

by Donald T. Phillips Narrated by Donald T. Phillips

Overview

The author of the classic bestseller Lincoln on Leadership answers the question: How would President Lincoln handle the pressing crises of our modern world? Abraham Lincoln is recognized as one of history's finest leaders, a great president when the United States was under tremendous strain. But suppose he were alive today? How would Lincoln deal with today's high-pressure issues, from politics to business? Based on a lifelong study of Lincoln's life, writings, and speeches, best-selling author Donald T. Phillips offers compelling ideas on how Lincoln would employ his exemplary leadership and executive style. How would Lincoln handle today's frayed race relations, terrorism at home and abroad, gun control, and the influence of special interest groups on Congress? What would have been Lincoln's reaction to the invasion of Iraq? How would he have handled the Great Recession? What would be his stance on science and climate change? How did Lincoln feel about government entitlement programs? Would he have them at all? How would he feel about the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots, a worker's right to strike, the minimum wage, and labor unions? Would Lincoln have a mobile phone and embrace the whirl of social media? Phillips hews very closely to Lincoln's extensive writings and records to offer a fascinating look at how we might solve some of our most challenging problems, Lincoln-style.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

11/07/2016
Phillips’s topical follow-up to his earlier Lincoln on Leadership begins by describing the nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln at his mother’s deathbed, listening to her last words: “Be good to one another.” That sets the tone for this intelligent and often moving look at one of the nation’s greatest presidents. Phillips portrays Lincoln as a gentle and sensitive boy who became the same type of leader, trying to maintain the Union in his early presidency while dealing with high casualty rates and soldiers gone AWOL. While Lincoln was a conscientious congressman who often made bipartisan overtures, he also took care to denounce the “evil spirit” of corruption he saw in Washington, D.C. Elsewhere, Phillips recalls a momentous biblical quotation from one of Lincoln’s early senate campaigns, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Using his extensive knowledge of Lincoln, Phillips makes convincing cases throughout for what the 19th-century statesman’s opinion would be on a wide array of issues faced by the 21st-century U.S., including climate change, torture, immigration, and equal pay for women. For readers who find present-day politics almost too much to contemplate, Phillips’s closing vision of Lincoln witnessing the “current state of affairs” will be especially poignant and bittersweet. Agent: Bob Barnett, Williams & Connolly. (Feb.)

From the Publisher

Phillips’s topical follow-up to his earlier Lincoln on Leadership begins by describing the nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln at his mother’s deathbed, listening to her last words: “Be good to one another.” That sets the tone for this intelligent and often moving look at one of the nation’s greatest presidents. Phillips portrays Lincoln as a gentle and sensitive boy who became the same type of leader, trying to maintain the Union in his early presidency while dealing with high casualty rates and soldiers gone AWOL. While Lincoln was a conscientious congressman who often made bipartisan overtures, he also took care to denounce the “evil spirit” of corruption he saw in Washington, D.C. Elsewhere, Phillips recalls a momentous biblical quotation from one of Lincoln’s early senate campaigns, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Using his extensive knowledge of Lincoln, Phillips makes convincing cases throughout for what the 19th-century statesman’s opinion would be on a wide array of issues faced by the 21st-century U.S., including climate change, torture, immigration, and equal pay for women. For readers who find present-day politics almost too much to contemplate, Phillips’s closing vision of Lincoln witnessing the “current state of affairs” will be especially poignant and bittersweet.”  —Publishers Weekly
 
“Donald T. Phillips has a gift for making 19th-century history relevant for the 21st century. Lincoln on Leadership for Today is a marvelous way to think about our current policy woes. Highly recommended!”  —Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Rice University, CNN Presidential Historian, and author of the book Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America.
 
“Don Phillips has done it again…bringing Lincoln’s brilliant leadership to life. Lincoln’s brilliance is as relevant today as it was a century and half ago.”  —George Bodenheimer, Former President, ESPN, and author of Every Town is a Sports Town
 

Kirkus Reviews

2016-11-23
An author who has published frequently on leadership and leaders—from the Founding Fathers to Vince Lombardi—returns with his second book about Lincoln's leadership (Lincoln on Leadership, 1992).Phillips (The Clinton Charisma: A Legacy of Leadership, 2007, etc.) follows Lincoln's professional career chronologically, from lawyer to president. After each chapter, the author offers his opinions about how Lincoln might handle the most prominent political and social issues of our day, including abortion, capital punishment, international relations, and public education. The biographical chapters are well-researched, although Phillips rarely finds anything negative to say about Lincoln. As a metaphor for Lincoln's strength (physical and otherwise) he continually reminds us of Lincoln's ability to balance an ax at the end of each extended arm. It's risky business, though, yanking a character from a previous century into our own and speculating about what he or she would do. It forces us, in this case, to imagine a leader who died in 1865 sitting once again in the White House and dealing with issues in contexts that would entirely baffle him. In his "Lincoln on Leadership" sections, the author is forced, of course, to offer qualifiers like "My feeling is," "My sense is," and the like. Throughout, Phillips asserts that Lincoln would be a Democrat of today, supporting women's rights, voting rights, public education, environmental protection, action on climate change, and public health care. He would, however, in the author's view, allow states to keep the Confederate flag, permit capital punishment in heinous cases, find a "middle ground" on abortion, and keep the Electoral College. From Lincoln's behavior, the author extracts a number of leadership principles, including the importance of incremental change and working with your opponents. Deeply admiring biography mixed with much supposition that ranges from thought-provoking to ridiculous.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171198312
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	02/07/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

1
A Just and Generous and Prosperous System
 
“I am humble Abraham Lincoln,” he said. “I have been [asked] by many friends to become a candidate for the legislature. I have no wealthy or popular relations to recommend me. I have no other [ambition than] that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men ​— ​by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. If elected, I shall be thankful. If not, it will be all the same.”
 
That’s what Abraham Lincoln said, in part, when first introducing himself to the people. It was March 1832. He was 23 years old.
 
The next month, Lincoln enlisted in the frontier militia organized to push Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk Native American tribe back across the Mississippi River into Iowa. Young Lincoln was promptly elected captain of his company ​— ​a success, he said in later years, “which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since.” When an elderly Indian wandered into camp one night with a safe conduct pass, some of the men feared he was a spy and threatened to kill him. Lincoln quickly pushed the others away and stepped in front of the old man. “If anyone wants to hurt this fella, he’s going to have to come through me!” he essentially said. “And if any one of you doubt it, let him try!” One contemporary remembered that the “Lincoln Company was the hardest set of men he ever saw and that they would fight to the death for [their leader].” Lincoln and most of his men mustered out of the service not long before the Battle of Bad Axe ended the short-lived Black Hawk War. They took part in no real military action, and Lincoln used to joke that the only bloody battles he had were with mosquitoes. The men of the Lincoln Company were reported to have walked all the way home from the Wisconsin Territory.
 
By mid-July, our “military hero” was attending a political rally in the small town of Pappsville, Illinois. It was only a few weeks before the general election, and Lincoln, who had not planned to speak, was encouraged to say a few words. As he mounted the platform, a fight broke out in the crowd. Seeing one of his friends attacked, Lincoln jumped down and, as a witness described it, grabbed the attacker by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his trousers and threw him 12 feet away. Then he calmly walked back up to the stage and made his speech. “My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance,” he said. “I am in favor of a national bank . . . , the internal improvement system . . . , and a high protective tariff.”
 
Abraham Lincoln lost that election. He finished 8th out of 13 candidates. [Only the top 4 were elected.] As he would say later, it was the only time he “was ever beaten by a direct vote of the
people.”
 
Over the next couple of years, Lincoln was appointed postmaster of New Salem, Illinois, and worked as a deputy for the Sangamon County surveyor. Then, in 1834, he tried again for the state legislature. This time he won, finishing second in the field of candidates.
 
When Abraham Lincoln was first elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, the United States of America was still very young. George Washington had taken office as the first president only 45 years earlier. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had died 8 years before (in 1826, both on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence). John Marshall was still chief justice of the Supreme Court, Illinois had only been a state for 16 years, and Chicago had a population of barely 3,000 and had not yet been incorporated as a city.
 
There were two major political parties on the national scene back then ​— ​the Democrats and Whigs. Illinois was dominated by the Democrats, who were led by Andrew Jackson (one year into his second term as president). Jackson’s supporters were made up mostly of farmers and uneducated city laborers, reflecting America’s largely agricultural society. The Democrats were the conservative party back then. They believed in non–government intervention for almost everything, were against establishing a public education system, and, although somewhat divided on the big issue of the day, were mostly pro-slavery. On the other side, the fledgling Whig Party, having been founded by Kentucky senator Henry Clay less than two years earlier, was in the minority nearly everywhere. Whigs were liberal and progressive. Their supporters included businessmen, bankers, intellectuals, and artists. They favored government involvement to promote economic growth and expansion, supported public education, and were mostly anti-slavery.
 
The striking contrast between today’s Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Lincoln’s day is interesting for its almost 180-degree turn in political positions. However, Abraham Lincoln, himself, once noted that such change was not new but, rather, typically American. After once hearing a comment that the two leading political parties so frequently reversed their platforms that they began sounding like their rivals, Lincoln responded with an anecdote:
 
I remember once being much amused at seeing two partially intoxicated men engage in a fight . . . which . . . after a long, and rather harmless contest, ended in each having fought himself out of his own coat, and into that of the other. If the two leading parties of this day are really identical with the two in the days of Jefferson and Adams, they have performed about the same feat as the two drunken men.
 
Abraham Lincoln did not hunt, fish, smoke, swear, or drink. His leisure time was spent reading books and newspapers. In New Salem, Illinois, he was surrounded by farmers, family, and friends who were passionate Democrats and ardent supporters of Andrew Jackson. Lincoln went against the grain and joined the Whig Party.
 
Abe Lincoln spent four 2-year terms in the Illinois House of Representatives. During those years, he served on 14 committees (including the powerful House Finance Committee), was elected Whig floor leader, and was defeated twice for Speaker of the House (mainly because the Whigs were always in the minority). Nearly his entire career in the state legislature was devoted to championing economic development. In 1834, there was no real transportation infrastructure in Illinois that could help foster commerce and trade. In fact, there was not a single railroad anywhere in the state. Lincoln’s position was simple: Build an infrastructure that will aid commerce, and the associated businesses will follow. Essentially, it was an “If you build it, they will come” strategy.
 
Early on, Lincoln threw his support toward funding construction of a nearly 100-mile-long canal that would connect the Great Lakes with the Mississippi River (from the shores of Lake Michigan near Chicago via the Illinois River). And during his second term, he both co-sponsored and vigorously lobbied for passage of a $10 million bill to fund a wide range of internal improvements, including the construction of a 1,300-mile network of railroads across Illinois. A young state representative from the Springfield area led the Democrats in support of the new legislation. His name was Stephen A. Douglas.

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