BU Abraham Lincoln Essay

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?MBA?: Mini-Biographical Analysis?
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
IMPA 610
Spring Semester 2021
PART I: Leadership Background
1. Born, Did, Died
When and where was the individual born? Where and under what
circumstances did the individual grow up (family life, formal
schooling, etc.), and what, if anything, did the individual do for a
living (job history, professional attainments, etc.)? If deceased,
when and under what circumstances did the individual die (old age
and natural death or other)?
2. Long to Lead?
Did the individual, either by word or by deed, give evidence of a
desire achieve any particular status or recognition as a leader? At
what, if any, point(s) in the individual?s life was there any explicit
evidence, explicit (as in express statements to that effect by the
individual) of a desire to achieve status or recognition as a widely
known, legendary, or even world-historic leader?
3. Goal-Directed / Purpose-Dedicated?
For the most part, was the individual more goal-directed or more
purpose-dedicated? How might the individual?s goals and/or
purposes be best characterized? Did the individual become either
more goal-directed or purpose-dedicated over time?
4. ?Crowned? to Lead?
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Did the individual emerge as a leader through selection and
succession protocols that were predominantly aristocratic/nondemocratic or predominantly democratic?
5. Crisis Response
Did the individual ever have to respond to a major crisis, and, if so,
how did the individual communicate in response to it, and was the
response, either at the time or thereafter, generally considered to be
a success or a failure? If the individual responded to more than a
single crisis, how, if at all, did the character or quality of the
individual?s communications vary from one crisis to the next, and
was there any evidence of the individual having learned from one or
more past crisis response and communication mistakes?
PART II: Leadership Profile
6. Which Traits?: Grit, Optimism, and Others
What were the individual?s main leadership-relevant traits? Were
grit or optimism, or both, among the individual?s leadershiprelevant traits? Did the individual possess a public or professional
reputation for traits that the individual did not actually have? Did
the individual possess traits for which the individual received little
or no public or professional recognition?
7. Skills Hierarchy
Were the individual?s skills predominantly technical, human, or
conceptual? What was the individual?s skills hierarchy, and was
the individual either extremely skilled, or exceedingly lacking in
skill, in any given area?
8. Major Signature Strengths
What were the individual?s three to five main signature strengths?
Which, if any, of these did the individual either intentionally or selfconsciously cultivate? Did the individual?s three to five signature
strengths either change over time or become evident, either to the
individual or to others, at different points in the individual?s
leadership life cycle?
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9. Democratic Leader/?Three Likes?
Whether the individual emerged via predominantly
aristocratic/non-democratic or predominantly democratic
leadership selection and succession protocols, did the individual
tend to think and act as a democratic leader? To what, if any,
extent did the individual lead others who differed from the
individual temperamentally, demographically, ideologically, or on
other dimensions? To what, if any, extent did the individual
exercise leadership in relation to people who the individual did not
like (or may even have loathed), and/or in relation to people who
disliked (or may even have loathed) the individual?
10. Full Range of Leadership?
Overall, considering the totality of the individual?s leadership life,
was the individual a predominantly transactional leader, a
predominantly transformational leader, or a leader who was either
transactional or transformational based on the circumstances,
exercising the so-called full range of leadership?
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MBA ILLUSTRATION
A Single-Source Mini-Biographical Analysis: Abraham Lincoln
Source(s) on Biographical Subject
Book-Length Biography
? Doris Kearns-Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of
Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon & Shuster, 2006).
Leadership Background
Born, Did, Died
When and where was the individual born? Where and under what
circumstances did the individual grow up (family life, formal
schooling, etc.), and what, if anything, did the individual do for a
living (job history, professional attainments, etc.)? If deceased, when
and under what circumstances did the individual die (old age and
natural death or other)?
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in a log cabin
nearby Nolin Creek in what is today Larue County, Kentucky. He
served as the 16th president of the United States of America.
Lincoln and his older sister were raised in rural poverty, moving
from dirt farm to dirt farm in Kentucky. His father was illiterate.
His mother taught him how to read and write. His mother died
when he was age 10. His sister, who served as his primary
caregiver after his mother?s death, died in childbirth at age 20.
Lincoln attended school only between farming seasons. His formal
education totaled maybe a year in all. But he loved to read. His
father, however, viewed the boy?s reading as a work-avoidance
habit, discouraged it, and routinely hired him out to pay off debts.
At age 22, Lincoln made his way to New Salem, Illinois. He had
trouble supporting himself there, and a woman whom he intended
to marry died. He left New Salem and went to Springfield, Illinois.
He found a job as a clerk in a general store.
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At age 23, Lincoln ran for a seat in the Illinois House of
Representatives. He came in 8th in a field of 13 candidates. Two
years later, at age 25, he ran again and won big. He ran and won
three times more, serving eight straight years in the Illinois House.
In 1837, Illinois suffered a deep economic recession that was widely
blamed on unprecedented state spending for internal
improvements. In the Illinois House, Lincoln had led the charge for
state spending on internal improvements. Thus, he was blamed by
many for the recession. He won his fourth term by a slim margin,
and he opted not to run for a fifth term.
In 1841, Lincoln awkwardly broke his first engagement to Mary
Todd, but he patched things up and married her the next year. The
Lincolns had four children, all boys: Robert, born in 1843; Edward,
born in 1846; William, born in 1850; and Thomas, born in 1853.
In 1843, Lincoln made his first run for a seat in the U.S. House of
Representatives. He lost. In 1847, Lincoln, then age 38, he ran for
the U.S. House as a member of the Whig Party. He won.
In 1849, after just one two-year term, Lincoln left Congress, ran
instead for Illinois Commissioner of the Land Office, and lost. In
1850, his second son, Edward, known as ?Eddie,? then age 4, died,
probably from tuberculosis.
In 1854, he ran again for the U.S. House, won, but opted not to
serve in order to remain eligible for election to the U.S. Senate.
In 1858, two years before being elected America?s 16th president,
Lincoln ran as a Republican for the U.S. Senate. His opponent was
Judge Stephen Douglas, and the debates between him and his
opponent became famously known as ?the Lincoln-Douglas
debates.?
Lincoln lost the election to Douglas. But, two years after losing to
Douglas, and eleven years after losing an election for the Illinois
Commissioner of the Land Office, Lincoln campaigned for the
Republican nomination for the U.S. presidency against several far
better-known candidates?Senator William Seward of New York,
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Senator Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Senator Salmon Chase of
Ohio, and Judge Edward Bates of Missouri.
Nonetheless, Lincoln won the Republican nomination, albeit on the
third ballot. He then ran for president against three other
candidates, his old opponent Douglas, who represented the
Northern Democratic Party; John V. Breckenridge as the Southern
Democratic Party candidate; and John Bell as candidate of the
Constitutional Union Party.
With 180 out of 303 electoral votes, and 40 percent of the popular
vote, Lincoln won the election and became the nation?s 16th
president. He was sworn in as president on March 4, 1861.
After southern states seceded from the Union, Lincoln served as
commander-in-chief during America?s civil war between the Union
and the Confederacy. The Civil War is generally dated as having
begun on April 12, 1861, the day that Southern forces fired on Fort
Sumter, South Carolina, or on April 15, 1861, the day that Lincoln,
as president, issued a public declaration and ordered up troops to
quell the insurrection.
On February 20, 1862, Lincoln?s third son, William, known as
?Willie,? then age 12, died of a fever. Mary Todd Lincoln, his
mother, was for many years thereafter inconsolable.
On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued a presidential proclamation
and executive order that became known as the Emancipation
Proclamation. The order declared that under federal law all
enslaved persons residing in states in rebellion against the federal
government were, as a matter of federal law, free.
On November 19, 1863, following the pivotal battle in Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania in which the Union?s forces defeated the
Confederacy?s forces, Lincoln delivered a brief speech that became
known as ?The Gettysburg Address,? which concluded with a line
stating ?that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom?and that government of the people, by the people, and for
the people, shall not perish from the earth.?
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With the Civil War far from over but clearly being won by the Union,
Lincoln moved to amend the U.S. Constitution so as to make
slavery unconstitutional. On April 8, 1864, the U.S. Senate voted
in favor of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery and
involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime. Following
negotiations and bargaining in which Lincoln was directly and
deeply involved from start to finish, on January 31, 1865, the U.S.
House also approved the amendment.
Lincoln won a second term as president and was sworn in on March
4, 1865. On April 9, 1965, Confederate General Robert E. Lee
surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General
Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
Five days later, on April 14, 1865, Mary Todd Lincoln rode through
the streets of Washington, D.C. in an open, horse-drawn carriage
with the president. Her ?memories of her husband?s infectious
happiness that day match the recollections of his inner circle. She
had never seen him so ?cheerful??even playful? (Kearns-Goodwin:
733). In her words:
During the drive he was so gay, that I said to him, laughingly,
?Dear Husband, you almost startle me by your great
cheerfulness,? he replied, ?and well I may feel so, Mary, I
consider this day, the war, has come to a close?and then
added, ?We must both, be more cheerful in the future?
between the war & the loss of our darling Willie?we have
both, been very miserable.? (Kearns-Goodwin: 733, emphasis
in the original)
That evening, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes
Booth, one of four pro-Confederacy conspirators who had plotted to
assassinate Lincoln as well as the Vice President, Andrew Johnson,
and the Secretary of State, William H. Seward.
Lincoln was shot by Booth while attending a play with his wife at
Ford?s Theatre in Washington, D.C. He was pronounced dead the
next day, April 15, 1865.
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Long to Lead?
Did the individual, either by word or by deed, give evidence of a
desire to achieve any particular status or recognition as a leader? At
what, if any, point(s) in the individual?s life was there any explicit
evidence, explicit (as in express statements to that effect by the
individual) of a desire to achieve status or recognition as a widely
known, legendary, or even world-historic leader?
Lincoln longed to lead. His private letters and public actions (most
notably his incessant office-seeking) as a young adult furnish ample
evidence indicating that he burned to become a widely recognized
and consequential leader whose fame would be matched by great
deeds and lasting accomplishments.
In certain of Lincoln?s private letters and intimate conversations, he
dramatized his desire to achieve status and recognition as a leader.
For example, in 1841, in a talk with his dear friend, Joshua Speed,
he confided ?that he was more than willing to die, but that he
had??as Speed later paraphrased Lincoln as saying??done nothing
to make any human being remember that he had lived, and that to
connect his name with events transpiring in his day and generation,
and so impress himself upon them as to link his name with
something that would redound to the interest of his fellow man was
what he desired to live for? (Kearns-Goodwin: 99-100).
In addition, Lincoln?s ambition to lead on a grand scale seemed to
figure in just about every important decision he made, including
highly personal ones. For example, among the reasons that led to
him breaking off his initial engagement to Mary Todd was his ?fear
that marriage might hinder his career? (Kearns-Goodwin: 98).
Likewise, he was self-conscious about ?the extraordinary reach of
his mind and sensibilities,? but ?feared from his earliest days that
these qualities would never find fulfillment or bring him recognition
from his fellows? (Kearns-Goodwin: 102).
Goal-Directed / Purpose-Dedicated?
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For the most part, was the individual more goal-directed or more
purpose-dedicated? How might the individual?s goals and/or
purposes be best characterized? Did the individual become either
more goal-directed or purpose-dedicated over time?
The biography on which this answer is based admits of more than
one reasonable response to these questions. That duly
acknowledged, it seems that, for the most part, early in his
leadership life, Lincoln was mostly goal-directed, but, over time, he
became ever more purpose-dedicated.
Indeed, one might claim that, even as late as March 1861, when
Lincoln was sworn in to his first term as president, or perhaps even
as late as January 1863, when he issued the Emancipation
Proclamation, he was still, on balance, more goal-directed than
purpose-dedicated.
But, by November 1863, when Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg
Address, and certainly by 1864, when he began the push for what
became, in 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment, he had become a
predominantly purpose-directed leader.
Alternatively, Lincoln might be characterized as a ?purpose-directed
pragmatist,? a leader who is ever purpose-directed at heart or in
principle, but who only speaks and acts accordingly?that is, only
speaks and acts in a distinctively purpose-directed way?when
goals deemed essential to advancing toward the purpose have been
duly accomplished.
This interpretation would seem to be supported not only by the
record of what Lincoln actually said and did, but when he actually
said and did it, with respect to what Lincoln, in the Gettysburg
Address, called ?a new birth of freedom.?
As late as 1858, during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln did
not publicly articulate any such purpose. Rather, ?he avowed that
he had ?no purpose to introduce political and social equality
between the?races,? and that he ?had never been in favor? of giving
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formerly enslaved persons full rights of citizenship extending to
voting, service on juries, and office-holding (Kearns-Goodwin: 204).
Three years later, in 1861, Lincoln?s first presidential inaugural
address echoed the positions he expressed during the LincolnDouglas debate more nearly than they anticipated the purpose he
would later articulate in the Gettysburg Address and elaborate
during his push to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. For example,
he declared that the federal government had ?no lawful power to
interfere with slavery in the states,? added that he had no
?inclination? to exercise such a power, and was rebuked for the
speech by ?the black abolitionist Frederick Douglass,? most
particularly for ?his readiness? to have the federal government
apprehend and return ?fugitive slaves? (Kearns-Goodwin: 331).
Nor could Lincoln?s positions on those matters be ascribed to some
unbending fidelity to uphold and enforce all existing laws or to
some overarching deference to the rule of law. For example, during
the Civil War, he suspended the writ of habeas corpus, at first for
just certain regions and eventually for the entire nation. With his
approval, thousands of civilians were imprisoned in the North for
alleged disloyalty or sedition, all without any due process of law.
More than 300 Northern newspapers were shut down or threatened
by his administration because they opposed the war. He also
encouraged his generals to give troops who were likely to vote for
his party furloughs so that they could cast ballots while denying the
same privilege to troops who were likely to vote against his party.
Lincoln as president persistently articulated two main goals, or one
goal and one means to it: preserving the Union and winning the
Civil War, or preserving the Union by winning the Civil War.
It was only after the Union victory at the battle of Gettysburg, and
only after he sensed that he could possibly cobble together the
coalition in Congress necessary to amend the Constitution, that
Lincoln proclaimed ?a new birth of freedom? and led accordingly in
an ever more purpose-dedicated way.
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Lincoln?s shift to purpose-dedicated leadership is perhaps best
captured by the shift in Douglass?s opinion of and relationship with
Lincoln starting with the Emancipation Proclamation, continuing
through the Gettysburg Address and, finally, the push for the
Thirteenth Amendment. For example, Douglass praised Lincoln?s
second inaugural address as heartily as he had criticized Lincoln?s
first inaugural address, meeting with Lincoln at the White House
and calling the speech ?a sacred effort? (Kearns-Goodwin: 700). The
two leaders ended up as friends, personal confidantes, and public
allies. In 1876, ?Douglass dedicated a monument in Washington,
D.C., erected by black Americans to honor Abraham Lincoln?
(Kearns-Goodwin: xv).
?Crowned? to Lead?
Did the individual emerge as a leader through selection and
succession protocols that were predominantly aristocratic/nondemocratic or predominantly democratic?
Although some among Lincoln?s critics charged him with acting like
an ?emperor? or a ?king,? he was most certainly not crowned to lead.
Still, there are at least two ways to address this question.
On the one hand, one could reasonably claim that Lincoln, reared
in rural poverty, lacking formal education, being without any
connections to people in positions to leaven his rise as a leader?or,
rather, being without any such connections that he himself did not
make?is a leader who emerged via a paradigmatically democratic
leadership selection and succession protocols.
But, on the other hand, one could just as reasonably claim that
Lincoln, considering all that it took for him to emerge as a leader in
competition with so many others, both North and South, who had
been born into (or married into) well-connected, wealthy families
and received elite educations, emerged as a democratic leader by
overcoming his day?s predominantly aristocratic leadership
selection and succession protocols.
Crisis Response
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Did the individual ever have to respond to a major crisis, and, if so,
how did the individual communicate in response to it, and was the
response, either at the time or thereafter, generally considered to be a
success or a failure? If the individual responded to more than a single
crisis, how, if at all, did the character or quality of the individual?s
communications vary from one crisis to the next, and was there any
evidence of the individual having learned from one or more past crisis
response and communication mistakes?
Lincoln dealt with many crises during his career in public life, but
none, of course, to compare with the Civil War.
Lincoln?s response during what is arguably the greatest crisis in
American history is generally considered to be a success (the North
won, the Union was preserved, and the Thirteenth Amendment was
enacted), albeit a success that was both incomplete and confounded
by the fact that the Vice President who succeeded him in office
when he was assassinated is generally considered to have been a
failure.
There are at least two notable dimensions to Lincoln?s public and
private communications during this crisis: his near-constant use of
humor in private communications; and his studiously calm and
non-inflammatory posture in public communications.
In the biography on which this mini-biographical analysis of Lincoln
is based, there are no fewer than fifteen separate entries discussing
Lincoln?s use of humor in both private and official capacities
(Kearns-Goodwin, index: 899), and there are many other passages
in the book that are not expressly indexed to Lincoln?s ?humor? but
in which his humor figures prominently. Although Lincoln never
joked about serious or life-and-death matters as such, he
persistently used humor to break the ice with people, defuse tense
moments, illustrate a critical point, or illuminate the practical or
moral reasons behind a decision.
Examples abound of Lincoln?s studiously calm and noninflammatory posture in public communications before and during
the myriad military and other crises of the Civil War, but among the
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less well-known examples is his response to crisis surrounding
England?s threat to grant diplomatic recognition to the Confederacy
and use its navy to break any Northern blockade of Southern ports.
England and other European nations were dependent on the
South?s cotton, and Lincoln and his advisers ?feared that England
would back the South simply to feed its own factories? (KearnsGoodwin: 363). Lincoln?s Secretary of State, William H. Seward,
drafted an angry, highly confrontational letter to Britain?s Foreign
Secretary, Lord John Russell. But Lincoln entreated Seward to tone
it down, and then rewrote the letter himself:
Lincoln recognized immediately that the tone was too
abrasive?All his life, he had taken care not to send letters
written in anger?Lincoln had no intention of fighting two wars
at once (Kearns-Goodwin: 363).
Leadership Profile
Which Traits? : Grit, Optimism, and Others
What were the individual?s main leadership-relevant traits? Were
grit or optimism, or both, among the individual?s leadership-relevant
traits? Did the individual possess a public or professional reputation
for traits that the individual did not actually have? Did the individual
possess traits for which the individual received little or no public or
professional recognition?
Lincoln?s leadership-relevant traits were many, but among the main
such traits were his intelligence, sociability, self-confidence, and
grit. He was most emphatically not an optimist, but he did
(obviously without thinking about or calling them such) practice
?learned optimism? techniques, and his grit, like his height (another
trait that he at times self-consciously used to his advantage), was
way above average.
Lincoln?s intelligence was consistently doubted or under-rated, but
he was (per the subtitle of the book on which this mini-biographical
analysis is based) a ?political genius? in part because he was also
an analytical genius.
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For example, without any formal legal training, he could parse a
complex legal question in ways that only erudite legal scholars
could; and, without any formal military training, he could assess a
battle plan?s strategic and tactical pros and cons in ways that only
West Point graduates could (or, indeed, that some, including certain
of his Union generals, whose reputations exceeded their abilities,
could not). He also demonstrated the kind of extraordinary
intelligence that can recognize the same thing in others.
Lincoln?s self-confidence was evident in just about everything he did
from his earliest childhood days, and was predicated not on the
assumption that he could do anything he chose to do, but on the
certainty that he could learn and get better at anything he tried to
do, whether wrestling stronger (if not taller) men, or learning from a
book that he could hardly understand the first two or three times
through, or persisting in courting friendships until the person
recognized in him one whom they would be fortunate to have in
their confidence and in their corner.
Lincoln?s sociability was legendary. While he was not plainly
extroverted, and while he often needed to recharge his energies by
spending time alone, meditatively, and in deep thought, he was able
to get people to like him, to want to be with him, and to look
forward to sharing his company. An extraordinary array of
accomplished individuals who began by disparaging Lincoln as a
leader ended up lionizing him as a leader, including both the
aforementioned Douglass and the aforementioned Seward. He
would also, when the occasion permitted, walk and talk among
soldiers, storekeepers, and others whose initial reaction to meeting
the president was shock or surprise, but who, a humorous Lincoln
quip or yarn later, found themselves conversing easily with the
commander in chief.
Lincoln suffered all his life from ?feelings of hopelessness and
listlessness,? which he followed his day?s medical conventional
wisdom in diagnosing as due to ?hypochondriasis,? a disorder ?in
the hypochondria, that portion of the abdomen which was then
considered to be the seat of emotions, containing the liver,
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gallbladder, and spleen? (Kearns-Goodwin: 99). But ?fueled by his
resilience, conviction, and strength of will,? Lincoln actively coped
with ?his depression? and managed his bouts of ?anxiety? (KearnsGoodwin: 100). As he once explained in a letter to his best friend,
the aforementioned Speed, for him, it had proven ?critical to ?avoid
being idle? ? and to engage in ?business and conversation with
friends? (Kearns-Goodwin: 100).
In the article by Angela Duckworth and James J. Gross that we
read for this course, ?Self-Control and Grit: Two Separable
Determinants of Success,? grit was defined in the article?s Abstract
as ?having and working assiduously toward a single challenging
superordinate goal through thick and thin, on a timescale of years
or even decades.?
For most of his leadership career, Lincoln?s ?superordinate goal?
was his very ambition to lead, and ultimately to go down in history
as the leader who effected ?a new birth of freedom.? Just as he
practiced ?learned optimism? without knowing or calling it such, so
did he both preach and practice, possess and perfect, grit:
What Lincoln lacked in preparation and guidance, he made up
for with his daunting concentration, phenomenal memory, acute
reasoning faculties, and interpretive penetration. Though
untutored in the sciences and the classics, he was able to read
and reread his books until he understood them fully. ?Get the
books, and read and reread them,? he told a law student seeking
advice in 1855. It does not matter, he continued, whether the
reading be done in a small town or a large city, by oneself or in
the company of others. ?The books, and your capacity for
understanding them, are just the same in all places?Always
bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more
important than any other one thing? (Kearns-Goodwin: 54,
emphasis in the original)
Lincoln was strikingly self-aware regarding the leadership-relevant
traits that he had, those that he lacked, and those that he might be
able to acquire or improve. He was preternaturally perceptive in
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discerning the traits that others possessed. It is true that he judged
certain Union generals to be more capable than they actually were;
but, apart from his biggest such misjudgment?General George B.
McClellan, who would run against Lincoln for president in 1864?
he was quick to recognize and correct his mistakes.
Finally, right up until his last two or three years in office, the 16th
president?s leadership qualities and prowess was understated by
Lincoln himself and underrated by just about everybody else.
Skills Hierarchy
Were the individual?s skills predominantly technical, human, or
conceptual? What was the individual?s skills hierarchy, and was the
individual either extremely skilled, or exceedingly lacking in skill, in
any given area?
Lincoln main traits?intelligence, self-confidence, sociability, and
grit?were arguably such as to characterize his skills hierarchy as
human, conceptual, and technical, in that order. A reasonable case
could be made for instead characterizing his skills hierarchy as
conceptual, human, and technical.
Major Signature Strengths
What were the individual?s three to five main signature strengths?
Which, if any, of these did the individual either intentionally or selfconsciously cultivate? Did the individual?s three to five signature
strengths either change over time or become evident, either to the
individual or to others, at different points in the individual?s
leadership life cycle?
With a leader as complex and consequential as Lincoln, it is
exceedingly difficult to answer these questions in a non-arbitrary
fashion, and also difficult to resist the temptation to reply ?all 24? or
the like. That duly noted, the biography on which this minibiography is based depicts a leader whose five main signature
strengths are quite arguably the following:
? Perseverance
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?
?
?
?
Social intelligence
Self-Regulation
Hope, and
Humor
Lincoln?s signature strengths became stronger, or at least more
evident, but did not change much if at all over time. For example,
from his first days in public life, ?in convivial settings, Lincoln was
invariably the center of attention. No one could equal his neverending stream of stories nor his ability to reproduce them with such
contagious mirth? (Kearns-Goodwin: 8).
But the steady Lincoln signature strength on this list that is
probably least widely-cited or well-understood, both on its own
terms and with respect to Lincoln as an exemplar of it, is the middle
one, ?self-regulation.?
That signature strength falls under the category ?Temperance,? and
it is basically associated with the ability to self-monitor and selfmanage one?s emotions in support of one?s goals and/or purposes,
not least in response to what one experiences as unfair treatment or
unwarranted criticisms.
Arguably, more than any other signature strength, Lincoln?s
leadership profile is defined by self-regulation. A typical example is
how he handled a challenge to his reelection from his own Secretary
of the Treasury, Samuel Chase, following assorted attacks on
Lincoln that the president knew Chase had a hand in orchestrating,
or at least knew about and had done nothing to discourage or stop:
Lincoln?s gift for managing men was never more apparent than
during the presidential boom for Chase that peaked in the winter
months of 1864?Discipline and keen insight had once again
served Lincoln most effectively. By regulating his emotions and
resisting the impulse to strike back at Chase?he gained time for
his friends to mobilize the massive latent support for his
candidacy?He had known all along that his treasury secretary
was no innocent, but by seeming to accept Chase?s word, he
allowed the secretary to retain some