Powerful. Clear. Resolved. Resolute. Lincoln. Bush.

We could learn a lot about communication and about leading transparently from Abraham Lincoln. It's President's Day here in the United States and we remember and celebrate many great people who have helped lead this country over the past 200+ years.

Perhaps no president has faced a greater challenge to this young country than President Abraham Lincoln. As the country was in tatters from a war pitting son against father and mother against son surely this great gaunt man must have had his heart shredded from the horror of war. Surely the resolve he displayed was forged from the depths of a divine destiny to alter to the course of human history so that all men could be free.

The resolve I admire in Lincoln seems to have been granted to our current President, George W. Bush. I'm encouraged today that the tapes that Doug Wead, former friend/advisor to the Bush and Reagan Administrations, 'leaked' show that President George W Bush is the same in private as he is in public. Perhaps there's no greater assurance to us at this time in American History than that what we see is what we get. That what President Bush says he will do will be done and that what he stands for will not change with the latest Gallup Poll. I admire that in Lincoln and I'm proud of that in President George W. Bush. I believe he is honest and fair and humble and harbours a deep sense of divine desinty. He seems to believe that he was born for a time such as this. And, so do I.

The words that President Lincoln spoke at the Battlefield in Gettysburg in 1863 are a powerful reminder to us all of the price of liberty and the power of resolve and character in a leader. A resounding reminder that freedom is never free. Here is his brief speech from that historic day...

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.

Powerful. Clear. Resolved. Resolute. Classic. Lincoln.

We can all learn a lot about leadership from Lincoln and Bush.

Is your communication marked by the clarity that comes from a resolved character?

Have a great day,
Jeff

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p.p.p.p.s. Okay last one! Feel FREE to distribute this content as long as you pass it along in it's entirety with all links in place pointing to original urls. Give credit where credit is due and use this to build other people up. Thanks for playing and thanks for passing this along. Jeff Fuson