Team of Rivals

Goodwin examines Lincoln's presidency through his cabinet, three of whose members had competed against him for the 1860 Republican nomination and considered themselves better qualified. William Seward became Secretary of State, Salmon Chase became Secretary of the Treasury, and Edward Bates became Attorney General, and Goodwin adds Edwin Stanton as Secretary of War, who had humiliated Lincoln professionally years earlier.

Her argument is that Lincoln's decision to appoint his rivals reflected a deliberate assessment that these were the most capable available men and that the country required them, and that his management of them, including tolerating disloyalty and criticism, was the source of his effectiveness rather than a weakness.

The specific practices Goodwin documents include Lincoln's habit of taking public responsibility for failures caused by subordinates, his refusal to act while angry which he managed by writing letters he never sent, his willingness to visit subordinates rather than summon them, his use of humour to defuse confrontation, his tolerance of Chase's open manoeuvring against him until it became untenable, and his repeated appointment of people who had criticised him.

The political material covers the Emancipation Proclamation's timing, the management of the border states, the relationship with the generals, and the 1864 re-election. Goodwin writes admiringly and the leadership framing has been criticised as anachronistic, since the cabinet appointments reflected the requirement to balance Republican factions as much as any theory of management. Historians also note that Lincoln's cabinet functioned poorly by many measures. The book is long. The specific behavioural material about handling capable and hostile subordinates is what transfers.