Glorification Of Leadership In American Leadership By Donald T. Lincoln

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Recommended: An essay on Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln was a great leader. He became president during a very turbulent time in American History and was able to fill big shoes and decisively lead the US through one of the bloodiest wars in history. However, this required a great deal of leadership ability, maturity, and a steady hand, which Lincoln brought. He had policies about him that make him a great leader, and these were written about by Donald T. Phillips. I find that a number of the ideas in this book are very important and relevant. I’ll take us on a bit of a journey to touch on each one that I find to be the most important. The first idea that I find important is the notion of “Get Out of the office and Circulate Among the Troops.” The idea is that you don’t really get what your …show more content…

The leader should act for the people and the victory should be shared. Glorification of the leader is bad because it makes the followers wonder why they worked so hard just to not be recognized. One of Lincoln’s principles reads that “If you are a good leader, when your work is done, your aim fulfilled, your people will say, "we did this ourselves."” This is interesting because the idea is to encourage your people and rise them up so it’s a team effort, synergy would be a way to describe it. The idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, people want to know that their contribution is valuable and that they made a difference. This is very important because letting your people lead you helps give them purpose and makes you a better leader because you can learn from them and they from …show more content…

If people fail, don’t lose confidence and keep letting them try. Don’t surround yourself with people who will just validate your ideas, find people who are willing to challenge the way you think so you can continue to grow as a person and as a leader. He also says to encourage people to take action on their own initiative without orders, be proactive in taking care of business. In general, I find this to be important because people in top level positions tend to surround themselves with yes men so they don’t ever get a sense that they’re ever wrong. Confirmation bias is very dangerous, it’s important to find others who think differently than

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