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  • Winter 2019
  • Article
  • Leader to Leader

Leadership Forged in Crisis

By: Nancy F. Koehn
  • Format:Print
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Abstract

Five great leaders from history (Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Ernest Shackleton, Rachel Carson, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer), according to Koehn, had their leadership forged in crisis. She writes that “leaders can emerge from many different backgrounds, genders, races, and personality types.” Each leader was made, not born, and faced varying degrees of hardship, from Douglass' escape from slavery to Carson's hardscrabble upbringing. She writes, “Perhaps most significant, each of the five leaders embraced a mission uniquely his or her own.” Koehn elaborates on Carson's sensitivity and the ingenuity of Lincoln and Douglass. She concludes that “the very way that each lived was an act of leadership unto itself, whose impact resonates—and calls to us—in the early 21st century.”

Keywords

Leadership; Leadership Style; Personal Characteristics; History

Citation

Koehn, Nancy F. "Leadership Forged in Crisis." Leader to Leader 91 (Winter 2019): 26–31.
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About The Author

Nancy F. Koehn

General Management
→More Publications

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More from the Author
  • Nancy Koehn on Leadership Lessons from Rep. John Lewis and the Civil Rights Movement By: Nancy F. Koehn and Devjani Roy
  • Why Ernest Shackleton Is Still Relevant Today By: Nancy F. Koehn
  • We Need a COVID-19 D-Day—and the Leadership to Execute it By: Nancy F. Koehn and Dutch Leonard
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