Leadership Lessons from Abraham Lincoln - Part 1

When most people think of Abraham Lincoln, they imagine a tall, skinny lawyer whose bumbling style and rural charm helped him win the presidency of the United States of America – and the Civil War.

These are the leadership skills that made Lincoln great – and the lessons we can learn from them...

1. Encourage – and listen carefully to – criticism.
There were no public opinion polls in Lincoln's day. Yet he kept in touch with common people and was able to perceive what they were thinking better than any other American politician at that time. With no way to measure public opinion, Lincoln invented one. The doors of the White House were thrown open almost every day for what Lincoln called his "public opinion baths."

Lincoln also asked nearly everyone he met to send him their ideas or their opinions. Hundreds of letters crossed his desk each month – more than any president before him had ever received. He handled much of his correspondence by referring letters to the appropriate officials. But he wrote an extraordinary number of replies himself – all in longhand and never dictating them.

2. Learn to communicate clearly and concisely.
There was no radio or television in Lincoln's day, and there were no national newspapers. His strongest channels of communication with theincreasingly diverse population were letters and speeches. To make these channels work effectively, Lincoln taught himself to speak clearly and directly – and in words the average person would understand.

3. Delegate authority – but never surrender it.
Lincoln's contemporaries thought him a pooradministrator because important details seemed to slip through his fingers. Actually he wasdelegating power to those best equipped to use it. Though he delegated well, Lincoln always kept his eye on the big picture. He set the tone for his policies and stepped in only when key decisions had to be made.