ABE LINCOLN'S EMOTIONAL STRENGTHS

Mocked as “a third-rate Western lawyer” and a “fourth-rate lecturer,” Abraham Lincoln turned out to be a political genius; not because he mastered politics but because of his emotional strengths:

Empathy.
Lincoln could put him self in other people’s shoes. He was rare among anti-slavery orators in trying to comprehend slave the owners’ position, arguing, “They are just what we would be in their situation.”

Magnanimity.
When Lincoln put three main rivals in his Cabinet, everybody thought he’d flunked his first leadership test. Edwin Stanton, for instance, had humiliated Lincoln by calling him a “long-armed ape” and shunning him. Even so, Lincoln appointed him war secretary, saying Stanton’s aggressiveness made him perfect for the job. “We needed the strongest men of the party in the Cabinet,” Lincoln said. “I had no right to deprive the country of their service.”

Generosity of spirit.
Sharing both credit and blame, Lincoln took the heat for others’ profiteering on Civil War supplies and later shared credit for winning the war with General Ulysses Grant.

Self-control.
Sometimes, Lincoln wrote an angry letter, then put it aside until he cooled off. When General George Meade let Robert E. Lee slip away after Gettysburg, Lincoln fumed that catching Lee would have ended the war. He stuck the letter in an envelope marked, “To Gen. Meade, never sent, or signed.”

Balance.
Lincoln took time to relax. In the evening, he regularly entertained friends.

Social conscience.
Lincoln wanted to accomplish something worthy. When an economic depression hit Illinois in the late 1830s and stranded his public works projects, Lincoln sank into a personal depression. Warned that if he didn’t rally up, he’d die. Lincoln said he’d willingly die but that he’d “done nothing to make any human being remember that he had lived.” Only a desire to improve the world pulled him out of his funk.

Adapted from “The Master of the Game” Doris Kearns Goodwin, Time.