According to a Time magazine account of the 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton kept Donald Phillips's bestselling book, Lincoln on Leadership, by his side on the campaign trail, frequently rereading passages and making mental notes of key points. Clinton relished Lincoln's advice on the art of leadership and admired Lincoln's penchant for getting out of the White House to see what was going on in the real world.
Phillips, a former speechwriter for EDS who was recently elected mayor of tiny Fairview, Texas, has released a sequel to his 1992 hit, titled The Founding Fathers on Leadership (Warner Books). Part political history, part management theory, the book urges modern managers and politicians to study the approach American revolutionaries took in the fight for independence and apply them to their organizations.
According to Phillips, team-based leadership propelled the patriots to victory. John Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and the other founding fathers, he writes, took turns assuming leadership roles, applying their particular skills at critical times when the independence movement most needed them. No one leader dominated, each recognizing one another's strengths and their own weaknesses. Furthermore, they applied democratic principles to their leadership styles.
The admiration Phillips holds for the patriots contrasts starkly with his view of 20th century business administration principles. "True leadership," Phillips writes, "is very different from many theories of modern management that are centered around a command and control hierarchy."
The founding fathers teach that good leaders must listen to people, inspire them, be willing to compromise and build strong alliances, Phillips writes.
"Leadership is more inspiration than administration," Phillips said in an interview with Government Executive. "People have a natural resistance to change." But the founding fathers involved the people they served and built trust, so people felt like they were part of an important cause, Phillips said.
Some historians would no doubt differ with Phillips's argument that the patriots' effort involved "classic teamwork." He has a penchant for describing the founding fathers in terms usually associated with the world of late 20th-century management consulting.
But Phillips's anecdotes are entertaining. In his description of the First Continental Congress, Phillips notes that John Adams wandered through Philadelphia's Carpenters Hall whispering "independence" in the ears of the other delegates, hoping the idea would take hold. Within two years, people across the colonies were shouting for independence. Phillips marvels in George Washington's commitment to his troops, noting how his soldiers rallied around the general after he spent a brutal winter with them at Valley Forge.
The author contends that the leadership principles the founding fathers practiced are still applicable today, though he says the lack of a crisis makes it harder for leaders to build consensus. But leaders throughout history have faced similar challenges, he says.
"If you are an action-oriented person, if you try to take action, there is always going to be a small faction that's going to attack you," Phillips said.
Phillips said his next book will look at the leadership style of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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