Team of Rivals

"Goodwin's study of Lincoln's leadership and strategic thinking aligns with Kobe Bryant's focus on competitive excellence and mental fortitude, as explored in his own writings."

"This account of Lincoln's cabinet, composed of former rivals, fits Jamie Dimon's interest in leadership and navigating complex, high-stakes environments. It aligns with his focus on effective management and strategic decision-making."

"This is just about the best book on politics I’ve ever read. You have to be a bit careful because with somebody like Lincoln there is such mass of material out there, but what Doris Kearns Goodwin has managed to do is to give it a freshness and a depth that is very rare – it’s an unputdownable historical account. It is called Team of Rivals because it is Lincoln’s story but also the story of the three people who were his rivals for the presidential nomination – it’s their stories all interweaving, plus a fifth main character, this guy Edwin Stanton, who had absolute contempt for Lincoln , as did the others at different levels and at different stages. They just didn’t see him as this great figure that he’s now seen as. He was a backwoods lawyer from Illinois, I think he’d only been one term in the House of Representatives, and he’d lost a couple of elections to the Senate. If you are interested in political campaigns… As I read it I was thinking, ‘God, what would these guys be like today, or what would we be like back then?’ Just think about campaigning for the presidency of the United States. In the television age, and with aeroplanes and all the rest of it, it’s quite straightforward but it’s still bloody hard. It’s incredibly gruelling. Well, these guys are spending all their time travelling. Some of the most extraordinary things she gets are actually in the letters they write. Today, if you’ve got a message to deliver you go on the telly or you buy an advertising spot or something. These guys used to write to people: literally, ‘Dear Mr Bloggs, I am blah blah…’ Then, of course, they would have these big public meetings and they would often be in the same areas – they were always sleeping in the same rooms and talking about their affection for one another. This was a totally different political era where the relationships between the political figures themselves were so much richer and more entwined. I mean, imagine before the TV debates if Brown, Cameron and Clegg had been sharing a room. There’s an amazing account of the nomination campaign of these three: William Seward, Salmon Chase, and Edward Bates. If you had had political bookmakers back then, Lincoln would have been fourth favourite. This has an incredibly detailed account of how he turned it round and how he won. And then he gave all the top jobs to his rivals, like Obama in making Hillary Clinton Secretary of State. Yes, he said if he had to take only one book into the White House this would be it – although he also chose the Bible, which they always have to say. So Seward became Secretary of State, Bates became Attorney General, and Chase became Treasury Secretary. And then this other bloke Stanton, who had been vile about Abe Lincoln, used to call him a baboon and a long-armed ape and all this sort of stuff, he became Secretary of War. So he built his team around them. And then during his presidency, particularly at the time when the country was in a state of civil war, his political genius, as the book calls it, was holding all these factions together. “If you had had political bookmakers back then, Lincoln would have been fourth favourite.” Now, some of them he gets rid of. Chase kept threatening to resign and in the end he called his bluff and got rid of him. Basically, Lincoln got the nomination and Chase thought it might not go so well so he kept manoeuvring to get the nomination next time around, and eventually Lincoln got rid of him. But the rest of them adored him. Of course all these guys were better educated and more experienced, but they all said by the end – this guy is like the nearest we’re going to get to perfection in a human being. There is no doubt that he had a political genius that was not apparent when he first came on the scene. In a way I guess Obama, whom people thought looked like the most amazing thing… Yes. And Lincoln was dealing with a collection of such difficult issues. There is so much detail in the book about him and his family. And again, which interests me, he was a depressive. She’s got a lot about that, about his moods and his melancholia, as they called it. It’s funny, I often wonder about these guys when they were part of it, whether they knew how history would be written. If you say to most people ‘Lincoln’ they will know. But Seward, Chase and Bates? Lincoln has become the figure in history for that period and yet they were a very, very important part of what he achieved. And the whole idea about leadership, I think, is not just about the leader but about the team that you build and how you use the different skills of the people around you. And there are an awful lot of lessons in it for people in politics today. And, as with Churchill, another depressive, how would he have coped now? It is interesting to speculate what Churchill would have been like with the 24-hour media. What would Lincoln have been like? It has created this extra layer. Because what you get from this and from the Churchill biographies is the sheer scale of stuff that they are dealing with at all times. Now, so are modern politicians, but we look at them in a completely different way because there is this bloody television blaring away 24 hours a day. Partly, people get strength within an organisation by challenging or by standing for leader, then they win a place in the leader’s team of rivals. But what was interesting about Lincoln is that he was very much the underdog. Now they talk about ‘the Lincoln league’ meaning the top presidents of all time. But you read here about his demeanour and his style in his early political career and you think there is something missing – but then he became this great historical figure. It’s true that in most democracies now, people say, ‘Well, they have to be able to communicate and they have to be able to command an audience on television.’ Lincoln could clearly command an audience but in a very different way. I hope there is still room for that kind of slightly quirky character to come through and then emerge as something very special – but I do think it’s harder now. We are narrowing the political gene pool in a way that is dangerous. “We are narrowing the political gene pool in a way that is dangerous.” And this whole post-expenses thing in Britain is in danger of making politics just a game for the rich again."

"For all the attention this work has received, I’m surprised we haven’t taken to heart what Lincoln tried to accomplish during a time of crisis [the American civil war]. Lincoln faced one of the greatest challenges to a presidency, but he understood that he needed the people around him – no matter their previous relationship or ideological differences – to steer through a crisis together and fight for the greater good. It’s a valuable lesson for all of us. Strong leaders must always find a way to build a coalition, to build the broadest consensus to move the cause forward. Lincoln set the standard for this kind of leadership."

"This is an essential read for anyone who wants to understand the presidency and it’s beautifully written. I would argue that every president up until Lincoln pulled from their key political rivals when assembling their administrations. That was just how it was done. But even if you disagree with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s central argument, Team of Rivals still reveals so much about the Lincoln administration. What makes this book so important and what made Abraham Lincoln so remarkable was that he was perhaps the least known and least experienced of all the people in his cabinet, and yet managed to cultivate close relationships and real respect with his cabinet members. Lincoln’s command of his cabinet shows his political genius. I would say Jefferson, Lincoln, Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Kennedy. Although Kennedy’s cabinet undermined his administration."

"I think Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” is incredibly important."

"I would also recommend Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, about Lincoln's predilection for surrounding himself with advisers of diverse outlooks."

"I’m probably the last person on the planet to read it; I loved the movie “Lincoln” and wanted more. I am awed by the amount of research that went into that book."

"“Team of Rivals,” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I lived in it the way that you do with truly great books; putting it down with glazed eyes and feeling disconcerted to find yourself in the 21st century."

"I really enjoyed "Team of Rivals," by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I like the idea of bringing together people from different perspectives to serve the same cause."