Abraham Lincoln's transformational leadership

Abraham Lincoln faced extraordinary obstacles during his Presidency. Over the course of time, researchers attempted to gain a better understanding of Lincoln's leadership abilities by evaluating the leadership characteristics he exhibited as the President. The historical narrative research study attempted to find a relationship between Lincoln's leadership characteristics with the leadership style called transformational. The current theory evaluated the relationships of leaders with their followers in order to determine the characteristics of an effective leader. The transformational leadership theory developed by Bennis and Nanus provided a framework to examine Lincoln's leadership characteristics. The four leadership characteristics analyzed in the study in determining if Lincoln was a transformational leader included: vision, social architect, trust, and self-deployment. The study incorporated primary and secondary sources with a focus on Lincoln's own words in evaluating Lincoln's leadership characteristics and in determining if Lincoln was a transformational leader.