Do you recognize this great leader?

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Taking Leadership to the Next Level

Leadership is a collection of skills, nearly all of which can be learned and improved upon. But improving leadership skills takes time. It's not something that can be done overnight as this real-life example shows.

At the age of seven, a young boy and his family were forced out of their home. The boy had to work to support his family. At the age of nine, his mother passed away. When he grew up, the young man was keen to go to law school, but had no prior formal education.

At 22, he lost his job as a store clerk. At 23, he ran for state legislature and lost. That same year he went into business. It failed, leaving him with a debt that took him 17 years to repay. At 27, he had a nervous breakdown.

Two years later, he ran for speaker in his state legislature. He lost. At 31, he was defeated in his attempt to become an elector. By 35, he had been defeated twice while running for Congress. Finally, he did manage to secure a brief term in Congress, but at 39 he lost his re-election bid.

At 41, his four-year-old son died. At 42, he was rejected as a prospective land officer. At 45, he ran for the Senate and lost. Two years later, he lost the vice presidential nomination. At 49, he ran for Senate and lost again.

At 51, he was elected the President of the United States of America.

Thus was the life of Abraham Lincoln.

DIGGING DEEPER
Most managers can become great leaders, but they have to work at it. Find out how in the Executive Report: Taking Leadership to the Next Level

Comments

[Julie Caverly]

Although all of these trials seem daunting, there were also many victories along the way as well that were not mentioned in this article. It's important to recognize that failure and victories often grace us equally throughout our lives. It's the nature of humanity to ride the roller coasters up and down.

[Ken Satterfield]

This is a mixture of truth and some misleading truth. Snopes does a good job of explaining events in the life of Lincoln: http://www.snopes.com/glurge/lincoln.asp. Not to take anything away from Lincoln, I found reading more details helped me to appreciate his life even more.