Introduction
The presentation covers various aspects of leadership with a focus on Abraham Lincoln. The presentation begins with a critical analysis of effective leadership and its importance. After the analysis, the presentation assesses the background of Abraham Lincoln, including his early life and death. Based on Lincoln’s life experiences,, the presentation covers his leadership style during his political tenure.
Leadership
Leadership has become of increasing interest to the arts and the sciences. The success of any organization, team, society, or community largely depends on a leader. Today, organizations are actively pursuing sustainable goals by fostering a work culture that moves rapidly between leaders and their subordinates (Cortellazzo et al., 2019). Therefore, the importance of effective leadership is extensive and necessary, demanding self-awareness, organization, insight, communication, and successful recruitment of team followers motivated to a given vision. Gandolfi and Stone (2018) defined leadership as the process by which individual influences other people to accomplish a common objective cohesively and coherently. Leaders perform their duty by carrying out their roles by applying their leadership skills and knowledge. Although leadership is learned, the knowledge and skills possessed by a leader can be influenced by their traits and attributes like values and beliefs. Knowledge skills and attributes made Abraham Lincoln an outstanding leader.
Abraham Lincoln
“Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but leave him when he is wrong” and Abraham Lincoln was one to follow. Lincoln is widely celebrated as the Great Emancipator, Honest Abe, and the Rail-Splitter. In addition, Lincoln is among American heroes who still have a unique appeal, a charm derived from his life storm, from his humble origins to his dramatic death. In particular, Lincoln’s personality and relevance endure attributed to his eloquence in advocating for democracy. During the American Civil War, Lincoln worked toward preserving the Union since it embodied a critical ideal, self-governance(Holland, 2022). Born in 1809, in Kentucky, U.S., Lincoln received no formal education (Nicolay, 2018). Gradually, he grew an interest in politics and began borrowing law books to feed his interest. Lincoln studied by himself and got absorbed in seeing knowledge: his determination for success was unmatched. From an early age, Lincoln developed great discipline in everything that mattered.
Lincoln’s Leadership Style
Leadership is an integration of traits, skills, and behavior and Abraham Lincoln possessed all three. The leadership styles of Lincoln include democratic, coaching, transformational, strategic, and servant leadership. Focusing on servant leadership, it is characterized by foresight, stewardship, empathy, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, and commitment to others (Cahyono et al., 2020). Lincoln showed a great deal of stewardship and empathy during his political tenure. In addition to being a political novice, Lincoln was motivated to help other people reach their full potential. Essentially, Lincoln considered different perspectives in the political arena (Holland, 2022). For instance, while Lincoln was against slavery, he was empathetic for the slave owners, a trait that turned his opponents into supporters. Lincoln brought a team of rivals onto his team since he believed the country demanded the best talent to address slavery, which ignited the Civil War.
Servant Leadership
Additionally, empathy allows leaders to see the bigger picture. Serving as a national representative can be daunting but through empathy, a president can comprehend difficult situations. Lincoln took the unpopular position on slavery despite warnings. When Congress was divided on the matter of slavery, Lincoln took the responsibility to lead with much devotion (Arnold, 2022; Holland, 2022; Nicolay, 2018). Lincoln’s grasp of political and military strategy shaped his character and in arriving at pragmatic decisions, which were aligned with the values of a servant leader. Additionally, despite the conflicting and relentless pressure throughout his presidency, Lincoln was calm, focused, and used humor in projecting his vision and winning negotiations.
Conclusion
In conclusion, principles of effective leadership have been established throughout history. Modern-day leaders and professionals can learn from past leaders and how they approached every situation. Lincoln remains an essence of leadership and future leaders should take note of the context of his skills and techniques and apply them to modern-day situations. His primary goal as president was uniting the nation and his main tactic as a servant leader was challenging other leaders’ opinions on the people’s freedom regardless of gender, race, or color. Through servant leadership, Lincoln successfully waged a civil and political struggle that ended slavery and created social freedom for all Americans. Leadership equal influence and Abraham Lincoln set a good precedent for present-day leaders.
References
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Arnold, I. N. (2022). The History of Abraham Lincoln, and the Overthrow of Slavery. BoD–Books on Demand.
Cahyono, Y., Jihadi, M., Arifin, Z., Purnamasari, W., Wijoyo, H., Putra, R.S., Putri, R.A., Muliansyah, D., Suryani, P. and Purwanto, A. (2020). Do Servant Leadership Influence Market Performance? Evidence from Indonesian Pharmacy Industries. Systematic Reviews in Pharmacy, 11(9), pp.439-451. Web.
C Parsons. (2008). Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address [Video]. YouTube. Web.
Cortellazzo, L., Bruni, E., & Zampieri, R. (2019). The role of leadership in a digitalized world: A review. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 1938. Web.
Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4), 261-269. Web.
Holland, J. G. (2022). The life of Abraham Lincoln. BoD–Books on Demand.
Nicolay, J. G. (2018). A short life of Abraham Lincoln. BoD–Books on Demand.
Pregler, J. T. (2018). Mr. Lincoln for the Defense–Riding the Illinois Central–Dunleith and Dubuque Bound. Web.