This paper examines what made Abraham Lincoln an effective and enduring leader, analyzing his achievement-motivated style, empathy, oratorical skill, and political acumen. Drawing on sources including Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, Allen Guelzo's Redeemer President, and scholarship on presidential motivation, the paper traces Lincoln's development from frontier origins through his legal career and into the presidency. It also explores notable parallels between Lincoln and Barack Obama, particularly Obama's stated admiration for Lincoln's leadership under crisis. The paper concludes that Lincoln embodied both the "Great Man" theory of leadership and achievement-motivated political leadership, demonstrating that great leaders combine inherent temperament with deliberate, rational action.
The paper demonstrates synthesis across multiple source types — political psychology scholarship, presidential biography, journalism, and primary documents — to build a multi-dimensional portrait of a historical leader. Rather than summarizing sources sequentially, the writer weaves them together to support a consistent argument about Lincoln's motivational profile.
The paper opens with a theoretical framing of Lincoln's leadership type, then moves through a brief biography, an extended Obama–Lincoln comparison, an analysis of Lincoln's campaign oratory, a section on his pre-presidential life, and a focused treatment of his empathy. Each section reinforces the central claim that Lincoln was an achievement-motivated, proactive, and empathetic leader. The conclusion ties the analysis to the "Great Man" theory of leadership.
Abraham Lincoln is one of the most revered and respected leaders in the history of the United States. He is the man who emancipated the slaves and led America through the bloody, destructive Civil War. Barack Obama has said on many occasions that he looks up to Lincoln and admires him not just for his accomplishments but for his leadership in desperate times. Obama's deep respect for Lincoln renews scholarly interest in examining exactly what kind of leader Lincoln was.
It would appear that Lincoln was an achievement-motivated political leader. Achievement-motivated leaders are usually "rational negotiators" and are apt to seek "information and help from technical experts" (Winter, 2002, p. 26). They are known to be "moderate risk-takers" and they use feedback to "modify" their performance in political office. The success that a U.S. president achieves — and his capacity to lead — is based in part on his ability "to influence others" and to "energetically pursue objectives" that will have a lasting and profound effect on the functioning of American life (Deluga, 1998, p. 265). In other words, if a president is motivated to be proactive and has the charisma to drive his goals, he will likely be "unconstrained by situational pressures" and will persevere "until goals are realized" (Deluga, p. 266). This very aptly describes Abraham Lincoln. The analysis that follows consistently bears out that Lincoln was a rational negotiator and proactive leader.
Lincoln's biography establishes the foundation of his character. In his First Inaugural Address he warned the South: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war." He continued, diplomatically but firmly: "The government will not assail you… You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it" (White House). Lincoln made clear that he preferred not to go to war with the South, but that it was his duty to protect the Union through the use of federal law.
Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, the son of a frontiersman from Kentucky, and had a difficult early life. His mother died when he was ten years old and he grew up with his father in Indiana, where there were "many bears and other wild animals still in the woods" (White House). He said that he "didn't know much" when he reached young manhood, but he could read, write, and "cipher… but that was all." He made an "extraordinary effort" to learn whatever he could whenever he could. He was skilled at splitting rails for fences and served in the Black Hawk War as a captain. His education took place in log cabin schools at "short intervals" and he was "self-instructed in elementary branches" (U.S. Congress). He studied the principles of law and works on surveying, which led him to become an attorney. He served in the Illinois legislature for eight years, was postmaster of New Salem, Illinois, served as deputy county surveyor, worked as a general merchant in New Salem, was admitted to the Illinois State Bar in 1836, and moved to Springfield, Illinois to practice law in 1847. He tried several times but failed to win election as a Republican U.S. Senator. He was elected President of the United States in 1860, reelected in 1864, and assassinated on April 14, 1865 — Good Friday (U.S. Congress). He married Mary Todd and had four sons, though only one child lived to adulthood. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves.
A Newsweek article by Thomas and Wolffe (2008) points out that Lincoln and Obama were both "thin," hailed from "rude beginnings," were very new to Washington "but wise to the world," and sought to bring the nation together "to face a crisis." Just as Lincoln did, Obama writes his own speeches and pens them on "yellow legal paper" (Thomas). More substantively, both men tried to bring divided parties together. Obama used a quote from Lincoln in his victory speech at Grant Park in Chicago: "We are not enemies, but friends… Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection" (Thomas).
Obama has never made his fondness for Lincoln a secret. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama quoted from a piece he wrote in Time magazine: "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat — in all this, he reminded me not just of my own struggles" (Thomas). That passage was criticized by columnist Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal; Noonan wrote that the "previously careful Sen. Barack Obama" was "flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he's a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better" (Thomas). "Ouch!" Obama wrote in his book, recalling that attack. A careful reading of Obama's book makes clear that he was not portraying himself as Lincoln's equal — and certainly not claiming to be better. But attacks go with the territory, and Obama, like Lincoln, absorbed his bumps and bruises fairly well.
Obama also spoke at the dedication of the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois, and wrote in his book about how ironic and yet fitting it was that a Black man should speak at the dedication of a Lincoln library. When Katie Couric of CBS asked Obama which book — aside from the Holy Bible — he would "find essential" in the Oval Office, Obama responded, Team of Rivals (Thomas). He chose that book because he wanted to surround himself with high-quality people, as Lincoln had done. Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals describes how Lincoln brought in people who were better educated, "more experienced and who made no secret of coveting Lincoln's job" (Thomas).
Obama eventually chose his main — and sometimes bitter — rival in the Democratic Primary, Hillary Clinton, as his Secretary of State. Clinton had openly coveted Obama's job, but following Lincoln's model, the president turned to her anyway. In Goodwin's book, Lincoln "brilliantly managed his team of rivals," including Secretary of State William Seward (Thomas). Seward came into Lincoln's cabinet "thinking he would actually be controlling Lincoln," Goodwin wrote (quoted in Thomas). But Lincoln sat down with Seward and "reminded him who was president," and eventually the two became "close" friends (Thomas). Obama, having absorbed the deeper meaning of Lincoln's leadership style, followed a similar path (Thomas).
Goodwin told Newsweek that Obama "has got a temperamental set of qualities that have some resemblance to Lincoln's emotional intelligence" (Thomas). The ability to stay cool under enormous pressure is certainly part of Obama's strength, as was evident throughout the long campaign — especially during the debates. When John McCain and Sarah Palin attacked Obama repeatedly for "palling around with terrorists," Obama rebutted the charge while remaining cool-headed.
Likewise, Lincoln stayed calm during the primary campaign that led to his nomination in 1860. Goodwin (p. 224) explains that Lincoln was "not hindered by the hubris, delusions, and inconsistencies that plagued his three chief rivals," including William Seward and Edward Bates. While both Seward and Bates "felt compelled in the final months to reposition themselves toward the center of the party, Lincoln never changed his basic stance" (Goodwin, p. 224). This paper is not wholly intended to compare Lincoln and Obama, but because Obama made so many public pronouncements about his deep reverence for Lincoln's leadership — and because Obama took the oath of office using Lincoln's Bible — the Obama–Lincoln link is valid and worth exploring.
For example, when Lincoln ran for president he was an "unlikely" candidate who faced "long odds," according to Goodwin — precisely the kind of challenge Obama faced when he launched his campaign in Springfield, Illinois, the same city where Lincoln had launched his own campaigns for public office, including the presidency. As a method of "methodically" shortening those long odds against him, Lincoln arranged to have transcripts of his debates with Douglas published. The publication of those debates greatly improved his visibility and he began to receive invitations to speak at Republican gatherings. Goodwin explains that he gave speeches in Wisconsin, Indiana, Kansas, Iowa, and Ohio in the four months between August and December 1859.
Obama's books Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope similarly drove public interest in him as a candidate, though it is not suggested that he published them deliberately to emulate Lincoln's success. Here was Obama — a first-term U.S. Senator from Illinois not yet well-known outside Washington D.C. and Illinois — mirroring the trajectory of Lincoln in striking ways. The Janesville Gazette reported that "the high order of [Lincoln's] intellect left a permanent impact upon his listeners, who would remember his tall, gaunt form" and his "points and his hits" for "many a day" (Goodwin, p. 224). Obama's intellect and soaring rhetoric made a similar impression on audiences in 2007–2008.
Professor Winter asserts that it is difficult to study the motives of political leaders because they are not readily accessible to researchers, but he believes that psychologists can assess a politician's motives by studying speeches, interviews, letters, and other writings. Winter identifies three motives that drive political leaders: power, achievement, and affiliation. Power-motivated politicians exhibit behaviors that seek "impact" and "prestige"; if the individual is "high in responsibility," the power he seeks is "pro-social and involves successful leadership" (Winter, p. 26). Power-motivation certainly seems to fit both Lincoln and Obama.
To fully understand the measure of a man running for high office, examining his style of campaigning is a useful starting point. In the presidential campaign, Lincoln demonstrated tremendous skill and patience in his oratory at a time when the nation was on the verge of being torn apart by civil war. Rather than telling his audiences what they wanted to hear in Cincinnati, Ohio, Lincoln addressed Kentuckians — who had crossed the Ohio River to listen to him — with candor: he believed that Southerners were "as gallant and as brave men as live" (Goodwin, p. 225). But, he continued, "man for man, you are not better than we are and there are not so many of you as there are of us. You will never make much of a hand at whipping us" (Goodwin, p. 225).
The audacity of Lincoln's remarks — even viewed a hundred and fifty years later — made audiences more interested in him. He pressed on: "If we were fewer in numbers than you, I think that you could whip us; if we were equal it would likely be a drawn battle; but being inferior in numbers, you will make nothing by attempting to master us" (Goodwin, p. 225). The following day the Cincinnati Gazette reviewed his speech in glowing terms, calling it "an effort remarkable for its clear statement, powerful argument and massive common sense" (Goodwin, p. 225). This is a clear example of Lincoln using charisma to drive his goals while remaining "unconstrained by situational pressures" — again demonstrating achievement-motivated leadership.
The Gazette continued: his speech was possessed "of such dignity and power as to have impressed some of our ablest lawyers with the conclusion that it was superior to any political effort they had ever heard" (Goodwin, p. 225). Lincoln's popularity grew to the point where he became a "national spokesman for the fledgling Republican Party," and in doing so he was able to put out fires building within the party in Massachusetts. He also addressed an anti-immigrant movement, writing to Schuyler Colfax (then Speaker of the House of Representatives) that those fostering it "failed to see that tilting against foreigners would ruin us in the whole North-West" (Goodwin, p. 226).
Lincoln also recognized that if Ohio and New Hampshire tried to thwart enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law — the law requiring that runaway slaves be returned to their enslaved status — it might "utterly overwhelm us in Illinois with the charge of enmity to the constitution itself." Although he would later oppose slavery and free the slaves, Lincoln was politically astute enough to counsel his Republican campaign colleagues to "look beyond our noses and at least say nothing on points where it is probable we shall disagree" (Goodwin, p. 226). This pragmatic restraint is a hallmark of the achievement-motivated political leader.
There are several theories of leadership that fit well with Lincoln. The "Great Man" theory seems particularly applicable: it assumes that the capacity for leadership is inherent — that great leaders are born, not made. It can be said that Lincoln, though not necessarily mythic, was heroic and was destined to rise to leadership when the nation needed it most. In hindsight, he was great when he needed to be great, and saved the nation in the process.
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