Page 31 - Harvard Business Review, Sep/Oct 2018

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by

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN

LINCOLN

and the Art of

Transformative

LEADERSHIP

o the times make the leader, or does the providing case histories that illustrate the skills and strengths
leader shape the times? How can a leader that enabled these four men to lead the United States through
infuse people’s lives with a sense of purpose periods of great upheaval.
and meaning? The article that follows is excerpted from her case study
These are among the questions that of Lincoln’s pivotal decision to issue and guide to fruition the
D Doris Kearns Goodwin explores in her Emancipation Proclamation—a purpose that required the
new book, Leadership in Turbulent Times, which examines support of the cabinet, the army, and, ultimately, the American
four singular styles of leadership: transformative, crisis people. Rarely, Goodwin notes, was a leader better suited to
management, turnaround, and visionary. She follows the course the challenge of the fractured historical moment. Struggle had
of leadership development in the careers of Abraham Lincoln, been his birthright; resilience his keystone strength. Possessed
Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson, of a powerful emotional intelligence, Lincoln was both merciful

126 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2018 Art by Piotr Lesniak