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2/3/13 Abraham Lincoln, as Management Guru - NYTimes.com

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January 26, 2013

Lincolns School of ManagementBy NANCY F. KOEHN

The legacy of Abraham Lincoln hangs over every American president. To free a people, to

preserve the Union, to bind up the nations wounds: Lincolns presidency, at a moment of

great moral passion in the countrys history, is a study in high-caliber leadership.

In this season of all things Lincoln when Steven Spielberg is probably counting his

Oscars already executives, entrepreneurs and other business types might consider

dusting off their history books and taking a close look at what might be called the Lincoln

school of management.

Even before Lincoln the movie came along, there was a certain cult of leadership

surrounding the 16th president. C.E.O.'s and lesser business lights have long sought

inspiration from his life and work. But today, as President Obama embarks on a new term

and business leaders struggle to keep pace with a rapidly changing global economy, the

lessons of Lincoln seem as fresh as ever. They demonstrate the importance of resilience,

forbearance, emotional intelligence, thoughtful listening and the consideration of all sides

of an argument. They also show the value of staying true to a larger mission.

Lincolns presidency is a big, well-lit classroom for business leaders seeking to build

successful, enduring organizations, Howard Schultz, chief executive of Starbucks, said in

an e-mail. Lincoln, he said, always looked upward and always called American citizens to a

higher road and to a purpose bigger than themselves. He did this by listening carefully to

those both inside and outside of his immediate circle and sphere of influence. Listening,

always being present and authenticity are essential leadership qualities whether one is

leading a country in wartime or a company during a period of transformation.

As a historian at Harvard Business School, I have been a student of Lincoln for more than a

decade. I have written a case study and several articles about his presidency and talked

extensively about him to business executives and entrepreneurs. The film Lincoln, which

follows his efforts to ensure the passage of the 13th Amendment, making slavery

unconstitutional, offers ample evidence of his ability to lead. But to me, his earlier

experience in drafting and issuing the Emancipation Proclamation offers one of the best

ways to appreciate his strengths as a leader.

Before and after he signed the proclamation, 150 years ago this month, Lincoln confronted

a string of military setbacks, intense political opposition and his own depression and self-

doubts. In the summer of 1862, Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee attacked

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repeatedly, relentlessly, with a courage bordering on recklessness, as the historian James

M. McPherson has written. Union supporters realized that the Civil War originally

envisioned as a short, swift conflict would be much longer and bloodier than imagined.

Northern newspapers and politicians assailed the administration for incompetence. The

number of Union Army volunteers dwindled. Abolitionists, who since the wars start had

urged Lincoln to move aggressively against slavery, grew increasingly frustrated.

All of this bore down on the president. When he learned that George B. McClellan,

commander of the Army of the Potomac, had retreated after a series of conflicts known as

the Seven Days Battles, Lincoln described himself as nearly inconsolable as I could be and

live. And, personally, the death of his 11-year-old son, Willie, five months earlier still

weighed heavily on both the president and his wife.

Yet despite all of his mental suffering, Lincoln never gave way to his darkest fears. His

resilience and commitment to preserve the Union helped sustain him.

The ability to experience negative emotions without falling through the floorboards is vital

to entrepreneurs and business leaders.Ari Bloom, a strategic adviser to consumer-related

companies and a former student of mine, put it this way: Nothing prepares you for the

emotional ups and downs that come with starting a business. There willbe obstacles, big

and small, that come at you every day, from personnel issues to supplier delays, to late

payments or even hurricanes. Throughout, entrepreneurs must maintain their

professional composure while staying true to their vision and their integrity, he said.

Lincoln is striking because he did all this under extremely difficult circumstances, Mr.

Bloom said. Some of his ability to navigate such difficult terrain was about emotional

intelligence and the deep faith he nurtured about his vision. But some of it was also about

how he gathered advice and information from a wide range of people, including those who

did not agree with him. This is important in building a business because you have to listen

to customers, employees, suppliers and investors, including those who are critical of what

you are doing.

Lincoln had long opposed the expansion of slavery, declaring it wrong, morally and

politically, because it violated the rights of all people to life, liberty and the pursuit of

happiness set forth in the Declaration of Independence. But he had also made it clear that

preserving the Union was more important than trying to abolish slavery head on.

In the early summer of 1862, events conspired to change his perspective. There was

McClellans humiliating retreat, the mounting overall toll of the war and growing supportin the North for attacking slavery. His earlier concerns were overridden by exigency.

Things had gone on from bad to worse, Lincoln recalled later, until I felt that we had


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reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had

about played our last card, and must change our tactics, or lose the game!

Lincolns ability to shift gears during hard times without giving up his ultimate goal is

a vital lesson for leaders operating in todays turbulence. When I teach the case, many

executives comment on the importance of shaping ones tactics to changing circumstances.

Sometime in late June or early July of 1862, Lincoln began drafting what would become the

Emancipation Proclamation. On July 22, he told his full cabinet that he had resolved upon

this step, and had not called them together to ask their advice, but rather to lay the

subject matter of a proclamation before them. He had decided that, as of Jan. 1, 1863, all

people held as slaves in states in rebellion against the United States government would be

declared forever free.

Lincoln had always been a slow, deliberate thinker, examining an issue from all sides. The

cabinet was divided over the proclamation, but at this point he was unlikely to be

dissuaded. Nevertheless, when Secretary of State William H. Seward suggested that the

president wait for a Union victory before issuing the proclamation, lest it seem the last

measure of an exhausted government, a cry for help, Lincoln agreed.

In mid-September 1862, after a bloodyvictory at Antietam in which more than 20,000

Union and Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded, Lincoln made the Emancipation

Proclamation public. Practically, it would free none of the almost four million slaves held

in the Confederacy, where it could not be enforced; it made no claims to liberate slaves

held in the border states that were not in rebellion against the United States. And it did not

free slaves held in certain parts of the Confederacy occupied by Union forces.

But as Lincoln understood, the proclamation was a radical act. In declaring certain slaves

free as an act of military necessity, it transformed the meaning and stakes of the Civil War.

What started as a conflict to save the Union as it had existed since the 1787 Constitutional

Convention had become a contest to save a new, different kind of United States one in

which slavery was permanently abolished.

Americans reacted strongly to the proclamation. Abolitionists greeted it with acclaim, but

many in Lincolns own party called it unconstitutional. Union Democrats condemned it; the

Democratic-leaning New York World said Lincoln was adrift on a current of radical

fanaticism.

In the South, President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy called the proclamation an

effort to incite servile insurrection, saying it supplied additional reasons for theConfederacy to fight for its independence. Foreign response was also critical, partly

because the proclamation posed a potential threat to cotton supplies. That November, the

effects of the Emancipation Proclamation, the wars huge casualties and the governments


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deteriorating military fortunes combined to hand the presidents party major reverses in

the midterm elections.

Faced with these and other setbacks, Lincoln grew more depressed, but his commitment to

the proclamation did not waver. When he signed the final document into law, he knew he

was altering a landscape that had become much larger than when he became president. And

he realized that he must communicate his own steadfast commitment to a larger purpose.

Throughout the war, Lincoln was able to experience a range of emotions without acting on

them rashly or in other ways that compromised his larger mission. This ability offers

another powerful lesson for modern leaders.

Consider Lincolns emotional state after the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863: Lees

retreating forces had escaped south into Virginia and out of the Union Armys reach.

Lincoln was frustrated and furious. He composed an angry letter to Gen. George C. Meade,

who had commanded the Union forces at Gettysburg, writing him that Lee was within

your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late

successes, have ended the war. He added: Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am

distressed immeasurably because of it.

But Lincoln decided not to mail the letter. Instead, he placed it in an envelope labeled To

Gen. Meade, never sent or signed. There is no question that Lincoln had cause to lament

the generals inaction, especially in the larger context of the presidents early experience

with Union Army officials, but he recognized that he couldnt afford to alienate him at such

a crucial time.

When I work with executives, I often say: Imagine if e-mail had existed in Lincolns time

and he had hit send because he was distressed. The course of history might have taken a

very different turn.

It is crucial for todays leaders to practice this kind of forbearance. Much of what leaders

experience every day is emotionally difficult. Instantaneous, round-the-clockcommunication like e-mail, texting and social media often stir up even more turbulence

within.

Executives face the challenge of navigating their own and others emotions with

forethought and consideration. As Lincoln realized, the first action that comes to mind is

not always the wisest.

In November 1863, at the new cemetery in Gettysburg, Lincoln outlined the important

moment in which America found itself and which he had helped create. In 272 words, he

laid out the stakes of the Civil War, asserting that its bloody toll was necessary in order

that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the


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earth.

When I discuss the Gettysburg Address with executives and entrepreneurs, they often

compare the huge changes wrought by the Civil War to aspects of organizational

transformation and their own roles in communicating with stakeholders.

Executives including Anne M. Mulcahy, the former C.E.O. of Xerox, often find that decisions

made in the best long-term interest of a company often conflict with the shorter-term

demands of shareholders. In 2000, against the counsel of advisers, Ms. Mulcahy refused to

declare bankruptcy as Xerox ran up nearly $18 billion in debt. She faced criticism and

skepticism as she worked to reinvent the organization, but she remained focused on

restoring company profitability, innovation, competitiveness and efficiency.

Lincoln often traveled to battlefields to visit Union troops, and he held open office hours

in the White House to receive interested citizens and their countless requests. Like

Lincoln, Ms. Mulcahy knew she could not lead from behind closed office doors. She often

went into the field to speak with executives, employees and, most important, customers.

Even while Rome was burning, she said in a 2006 speech, people wanted to know what

the city of the future would look like.

Today she is credited with leading a very successful business turnaround.

Executives often point to the strength that Lincoln found to bear the death and destruction

of the war and to weather intense opposition and still not relinquish his mission. If there isone point when Lincoln discovered his own leadership backbone, it was surely in

conceiving and issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and then committing himself and

the country to its broader consequences.

When I discuss my Lincoln case study with executives, that is one of the most powerful

lessons they take away. As Kelly Close, founder and president ofClose Concerns, a health

care information firm, said in an e-mail, Being responsible for even a small company and

all the people and issues involved in such management forces you to come to terms withyourself and whether you can rise to the challenge not once but many times. Lincoln,

she added, was able to do this in a way that amazes and inspires me.

On April 9, 1865, at Appomattox, Va., Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, head of the

Union forces. Six days later, Lincoln was dead. And the Emancipation Proclamation, which

took effect two years earlier, would become part of a broader process of emancipation that

culminated in ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865.

Lincoln, said Mr. Schultz of Starbucks, taught us that whether you are a business leader,

an entrepreneur or a government official, ones foremost responsibility is to serve all of the

people, and not just ones self-interest. Lincoln knew that success is best when shared.


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Lincoln was able to learn and grow amid great calamity. His story, like no other,

demonstrates that leaders do not just make the moment; they meet it and, in the process,

are changed by it.

ref-abraham lincoln, as management guru

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