PRESIDENTIAL CHALLENGES

When he became president, he was actually an unlikely choice. He had so many things against him and yet over a wild selection process up against so many other very able candidates, four of whom were expected to become president rather than him. At the beginning there was no expectation that he could become president, none at all, but that’s what happened. As a Washington outsider, he was viewed widely as completely ill-equipped and unable to handle the presidency. What did work for him was his level of energy and activity, he did get things done. He also had a hands-on approach to his leadership ... and as an extrovert spent most of his time talking with people both in and out of the office.

He thought of himself as the voice of the people, the forgotten man. At first, he hired and fired associates to help him run the government. There was a lot of turn-over in the first couple years. It took a full three years to evolve things so that they reflected his policies and were effective. His administration suffered in the first year or two from people who were actually spies from his enemies who lacked loyalty and honesty and who did many things to undermine the things that he attempted to do. His enemies tried everything they could to discredit him.

In terms of the press and the press’s response to him, “he was publically called just about every name imaginable by the press ...” One newspaper labeled him “the craftiest and most dishonest politician that ever disgraced an office in America.” (p. 66). He suffered “severe and unjust criticism.” (p. 68).

Now those quotes (above) come from the book, Lincoln on Leadership (1992) by Donald T. Phillips. The names that they called the president included “a grotesque baboon, a third-rate country lawyer who once split rails and now splits the Union, a coarse vulgar joker, a dictator, an ape, a buffoon, etc.” That was politics 1860. Of course, none of that was about Donald J. Trump, it was about Abraham Lincoln.

Further, Trump is no Lincoln and he would do himself a lot of good if he would emulate Lincoln’s kindness, his ability to ignore insults, and forgive violations. He would also do so much better if he did as Lincoln did— stay absolutely focused on one thing and not get sidetracked on personalities. Lincoln focused on uniting the union and freeing the slaves; Trump should focus on “making America great again.”

One thing about leaders, especially leaders who get things done, and who take a bold stance for his policies— he will be criticized and mocked. And this becomes even more so when he is not a Washington insider, not someone from the swamp. Put up a non-politician, who doesn’t know the deceptive way of talking out of both sides of one’s mouth at the same time, against those who have vested interests and who are indebted to so many others — and you will have a person who

everyone in the swamp will hate and do whatever they can to get rid of him.

If all of that happened to the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, I suppose it will happen to others. I also suppose this is politics as usual. We can do better than this— much better.

For more, see Political Coaching: Self-Actualizing Leaders and Countries (2015), Chapter 23 is exclusively on Abraham Lincoln.