I enjoyed learning about Lincoln from the perspective of leading the United States through arguably the most difficult years of its existence. His personality combined with specific strategies made him an effective leader, and I will certainly take away some of the principles. I found myself becoming uninterested towards the end of the book, maybe that's because the pattern of "stories, lessons, recap, next story..." became repetitive. Anyways I would recommend it, and will probably revisit it in the future.

Great book for those aspiring leaders who enjoy history. I enjoyed the author’s ability to take snippets of Lincoln’s life and how he went about handling issues that arose and then successfully incorporating them into present day lessons for upcoming leaders. This is a book I will certainly keep close to my side and reflect back on throughout my career.

One of the best books I have read. The simplest methods of Lincoln’s leadership styles are clearly revealed. President Lincoln’s words at his second inauguration address would be better served as a navigation device for today’s separation in government and politics in general. These precious words: “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war (racial divide) may speedily ass awRfd

Insightful and very entertaining.

- explain yourself in writing
- seek casual contact with subs
- Good temper and affability
- Everyone likes a compliment
- set a good example
- acquire most reliable and up to date info
- let followers see you as resolute, firm, committed daily
- convince subs that your are his sincere friend
- seek consent of your followers to lead them
- follower want to believe what they do is their own idea and that it makes a difference
- empower people to act on their own
- request, imply, make suggestions, not issue orders
- have malice toward none and charity for all
- it will not hurt ifbsometimes you let things slip
- embrace paradox of granting employee security and encouraging risk taking
- make no explanations to your enemies
- avoid major conflicts, quarrels and arguments
- take advantage of confusion, desperation, urgency to exercise strong leadership
- never let subs take action upon your responsibility without consulting you first
- effectively communicate your judgment after a decision
- let subs know honor will be theirs and blame yours if they fail
- unite followers with corporate mission
- win through hard, desperate fighting
- half finished work is labor lost
- choose as subs those who crave responsibility and take risks
- don't lose confidence in your people when they fail
- let subs know you'll always be glad for their suggestions
- let subs take own initiate without waiting for orders
- avoid yes men
- be the best stump speaker, with droll ways and dry jokes
- Extemporaneous speaking is your avenue to the public
- use variety of body language
- couple written docs with verbal
- speak in simple and familiar strains, without superiority
- humor is huge
- use short stories to illustrate
- loyalty is won through private conversation
- - provide clear, concise statement of the direction of your organization and justify actions you take
- always reaffirm and remind people of the basic principles
- personal roving leadership style

I think there are basically two ways to look at this book - first as a history book. In that, in fails. The author makes a lot of assertions, but doesn't actually back up any of those assertions with evidence or analysis. The quotes used from primary sources are few and far between and most are the most well-known Lincoln quotes, so there's not a lot of new ground covered.
The second way is as a self-help book. I pretty much hate all self-help books so I'm not really equipped to comment on that except that all the things the author suggests ought to be done in leadership that were exemplified by Lincoln seem like common sense to me.

Using a historical figure for a lesson in leadership. Not bad. Most leadership or management books discuss some CEO or Business figure that turned company x around to make y profits in z short a time. Lincoln took a myopic military, a divided country, and slavery and turned it around. For his work, he earned an assassin's bullet. After reading the book, I found myself agreeing with the author; Lincoln is an outstanding example of patient leadership.

I didn't actually finish it. I've read a lot of leadership books, but somehow this one just really didn't resonate with me. I guess to me it felt fairly superficial, merely recounting what Lincoln did like a student regurgitating answers on a test -- no real depth of insight into the man, no real meaty assessment of his style. Just "great leaders do X; Lincoln did X too; here are examples to prove that Lincoln did X". No spark that grabbed my attention.

This book is very boring. Good way to fall asleep.

I read this book for an Executive Bookclub at my work, and I’m glad I did. More than learning about Lincoln’s leadership style, I heard that Lincoln was actually a pretty cool dude. I mean, this monstrously tall, unattractive guy with a sense of humor walked around the place telling people all these ridiculous stories instead of telling you what to do and let you figure out what conclusion to draw. I love that.

If anything, people should read this book just to read the stories Lincoln told people. My personal favorite was the horse chin-fly—you’ll get it if you read the book.

The fact that Lincoln would also make fun of himself for being so unattractive makes me love the guy.

Now that we know Lincoln was a hilarious and generally great SOB, we get into his leadership lessons. This book was great in that, obviously it’s not written by Lincoln, but there is so much original text straight from Lincoln’s hand and/or mouth, it literally feels like Lincoln is teaching you these lessons of leadership.

The book divides Lincoln’s leadership style into 4 parts: People, Character, Endeavor, and Communication. To be honest the People and Character sections were my favorite and provided the most value to me. (And they are probably the sections that are most needed in today’s world.)

I liked that historical context was given for each story presented on Lincoln’s leadership styles, but not so much history that it felt like a history lesson.

Overall, this is a well-balanced book that provides amazing historical context of what it was like to be Lincoln (and president) during the Civil War, and insights on how to be an effective leader that transcend time from my new favorite president Lincoln.

For most of my life, I've been largely disinterested in everything related to the American Civil War; however, listening to stories of how Lincoln was able to keep his cool through professionally and gentlemanly handling a war and a division of our country successfully kept my attention. It is proper to tell of Lincoln's leadership strategy and prowess through anecdotes of his presidency, as he himself was fond of communicating his points through stories.

This is a great book. This book gets you feeling on how Abraham Lincoln was thinking and how much of a leader he was. If you read this book you want to learn more about him and you dont want to stop reading and that is why I give this a 5 star rating. In my opinion I think more people should read this book for sure