#Opponents November 29

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Today’s contribution to the 30-Day Election Trivia Challenge is on OPPONENTS.

One interesting thing came out of the 1860 Presidential Election when rival politicians actually joined the same team.

Abraham Lincoln Cabinet

Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote a fascinating book called “Team of Rivals“

The author focuses on Abraham Lincoln‘s presidential strategy—appointing rivals and OPPONENTS to positions of power in his Cabinet.

The biggest leadership lesson in the book is to view who President Lincoln surrounded himself with in 1861. The three men all ran against him in the 1860 election: Edward Bates, William H. Seward, and Salmon P. Chase.

Edward Bates became his Attorney General, Seward his Secretary of State, and Salmon Chase his Secretary of Treasury. To the surprise of virtually everyone, Lincoln specifically appoints his old OPPONNENTS to prominent Cabinet positions. He also appointed Edwin Stanton to the position of Secretary of War. Edward Stanton early in Lincoln’s law career called him a “long armed ape” and humiliated him in front of his legal peers.

In an interview during the Tim Ferris Podcast. Here is what Doris Kearns Goodwin had to say about Lincoln.

He refused to let himself get jealous of people. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the normal human emotions of jealousy or envy or anger. But he said, “If you allow those to fester, they’ll poison you.”

Lincoln had a leadership mastery that enabled him to turn RIVALS into a team. He eliminated the emotions of jealousy, anger, and hate in forming a group of difference makers.