Forged in Crisis Quotes

“This is an essential lesson for anyone who yearns to lead. The temptation, especially in times of discouragement and failure, is to leap into the first opportunity that comes our way, to do something—anything—that may advance our mission. But this is not, as Douglass realized, right action for leaders. Right action requires taking a long pause and considering how one can do the most good. This always entails putting one’s gifts and experience to their best use.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“He intuitively understood, as we must today, that leaders need to construct a reinforced base to support all that they are going to do. What are the most important pillars of your thinking about a vital issue? Why are you invested in this particular problem? What do you hope to achieve as you delve into it, and what is your best guess about how you will do this? The answers to these questions are vital not only to your actions going forward, but also to how you sustain your commitment when you run into obstacles and setbacks.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“In the midst of a crisis, every leader has to shoulder the two sets of burdens that Lincoln did. He or she has to manage the turbulence itself—fight the war, turn the company around, or save the teenager who has turned to drugs. At the same time, he or she has to define what the crisis means and why it is worth navigating, solving, or reversing—first for him- or herself, and then for all the other people involved.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“Leaders trying to accomplish a worthy mission have to cultivate the ability to identify the one, two, or three essential issues facing them at a given moment. It is never five or ten. It is always one or two—maybe three—issues that really matter. Having indentified these, leaders must let the remaining concerns go, either by giving themselves permission to turn their attention away from all that is not central to their purpose or by handing peripheral issues to others, including an adversary. Being able to do this—to concentrate on the most important issues while relinquishing the rest—depends on a leader’s willingness to recognize two things: first, he or she cannot do it all, and second, by saying no to that which is not mission critical, one is actually saying yes to that which is.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“There was a lot of systematic theology in this lecture, as well as dogmatics and symbolics; but they served as occasions for dealing with the main question. And this was: what has God done? Where is he? How does he need us, and what does he expect from us?”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“The second lesson that Bonhoeffer took away from his time in America was the power of empathy. Through his experience in the black community, he discovered a world and a set of perspectives very different from his own. The more he learned about African-Americans, the more he understood what it meant to live on the margins of society. Bonhoeffer nourished this empathy, using it to try to understand the suffering of others—including victims of Nazi brutality. In late 1942, Bonhoeffer would define this empathy as “the view from below,” the ability to see “the great events of world history … from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled—in short, from the perspective of those who suffer.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“The first was the significance of assessing one’s work in terms of its tangible consequences. He’d arrived in the United States an accomplished intellectual; he returned home concerned with what his theology and faith meant in the real world. As Germany’s situation grew darker in the mid-1930s, this interest deepened. Bonhoeffer came to see his work—as minister, activist, and eventually political resister—in relation to its tangible impact. What lessons did Christianity offer to a nation controlled by the Third Reich? How was a follower of Christ to advance righteousness in the face of Nazi atrocities? The genesis of these questions dated directly to his year in New York.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“Like Bonhoeffer, leaders today must nurture a strong sense of self-discipline to direct their attention and energy toward what really matters.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“Focus and discipline are essential tools for leaders in our own time. Attention spans are shrinking; many of us have trouble concentrating, listening well, and reflecting. Some of this difficulty is a result of nonstop connection to information and other people, and some is a function of trying to do several things at once.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“Putting such stakes in the ground requires that leaders see not only the big picture, but also their impact on it. People who aspire to lead have to recognize what is at risk at a given juncture, what right action the moment demands, and what the consequences are of choosing one course over another.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“It offers an important lesson for today’s leaders. No matter the mission—whether it be fighting injustice, starting a company, or teaching a classroom of fifth graders—leaders have to put a stake in the ground acknowledging what they’re doing and why. Each person must consciously decide for himself to embrace the larger purpose; he must also decide whether he is ready to walk onto the broader stage and lead.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“What, if anything, did men and women who believed in the goodness of Christ’s teachings owe to those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis, and how did these obligations translate into individual commitment and action?”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“Douglass recognized that to make a big impact, he had to create his own moral, intellectual, and emotional infrastructure. This was thorny, complicated work. We can imagine it as a series of conversations he had with himself as he considered how he might affect broader events. These internal discussions formed the cornerstone of Douglass’s leadership, helping him make day-to-day choices, communicate his mission, and navigate through moments of doubt and despair. All individuals who aspire to lead effectively must build their own foundation.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“Like Lincoln, who taught himself geometry, grammar, and military strategy, Douglass treated the improvement of his mind as an ongoing project. He did not know exactly how he would use what he was learning, but he was committed to making himself into all he could.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“Every leader will come face-to-face with his or her darkest doubts. In these moments, the way forward is to move directly into one’s fear—to do the thing, address the person, or seek out the information that seems so terrifying. When such a moment has passed—as it did for Frederick when the fight with Covey ended—a leader realizes not only that he or she is still standing, but also that beneath (or beyond) the fear is a more resilient, more courageous self that is waiting to be claimed.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“His was not a story of superhuman heroism. Lincoln’s journey was one of learning by doing, ongoing commitment to bettering himself, keen intelligence harnessed to equally acute emotional awareness, and the moral seriousness into which he grew as he attained immense power. It was also an all-too-human path marked by setbacks, derailments, and disappointments.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“Lincoln had read the Bible all his life, but he had never attended church regularly or talked publicly about sustaining any kind of spiritual faith.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“Both secretaries thought Lincoln should curtail the time he spent seeing individual citizens, but he continued to hold office hours throughout his presidency. Labeling the visits “public opinion baths,” Lincoln viewed them as an important means to gauge popular sentiment about the war and his policies.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“My friends—No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe every thing. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and remain with you and be every where for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“[Lincoln] wore a somewhat battered “stove-pipe hat.” … [His] ungainly body was clad in a rusty black frock-coat with sleeves that should have been longer. … His black trousers, too, permitted a very full view of his large feet. On his left arm he carried a gray woolen shawl, which evidently served him for an overcoat in chilly weather. His left hand held a cotton umbrella of the bulging kind, and also a black satchel that bore the marks of long and hard usage. His right hand he had kept free for hand-shaking, of which there was no end until everybody in the [railroad] car seemed to be satisfied. I had seen, in Washington and in the West, several public men of rough appearance, but none whose looks seemed quite so uncouth, not to say grotesque, as Lincoln’s”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“But Lincoln was never motivated primarily by money. Measured against his father’s livelihood, the son made a good living. Lincoln was also consistently careful about his reputation. He may have wanted to avoid any hint of impropriety associated with charging high prices—either to poor clients who couldn’t afford them or to wealthier ones to whom he might feel beholden. Lincoln might also have wanted people to remember him as a lawyer who underpromised and overdelivered. This strategy was good for building a legal practice. It was also useful for one interested in electoral politics. In the 1860 presidential election, for example, Lincoln’s small fees would be held up as evidence of his good character.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

“He realized that slavery and the racial discrimination that underlay it contaminated whites as well as blacks and damaged the fabric of the nation. At an even deeper level, he recognized that Americans (or any other people) couldn’t become all they might in the presence of widespread prejudice against their fellow citizens.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Making of Five Courageous Leaders

“More important, the new law gave the president a mightier purpose than that he had assumed when he took office. In early 1863, Lincoln realized that his work had become bigger than saving the Union, as essential as this was. His responsibility now encompassed transforming the country—even as he tried to preserve it—by aligning it more closely with the United States’ original reason for being: freedom for all.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Making of Five Courageous Leaders

“Despite its limited application, the Emancipation Proclamation represented a critical inflection point. It altered the purpose and dimension of the Civil War. It marked an irrevocable break with the nation’s past. The institution that had done so much to structure social and economic relations in both the North and the South, affect national politics, and provoke the ongoing conflict had been, in the stroke of a pen, put on a path to potential extinction. By signing the document, Lincoln had effectively eliminated the possibility of a negotiated peace with the Confederacy. After January 1, 1863, as he clearly understood, if the North won the war, this victory would also include the death of slavery. This would, in turn, give rise to widespread social and economic transformation in the South and among millions of freed blacks, who would take their places among white Americans in the nation they shared.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Making of Five Courageous Leaders

“Some of his diffidence may have resulted from his lack of social polish or his sense that he was homely, which he occasionally joked about. (For example, during the 1858 contest for the US Senate seat from Illinois, Lincoln’s opponent, Stephen Douglas, accused him of being two-faced. Lincoln reportedly shot back, “If I had another face, do you think I’d wear this one?”)”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Making of Five Courageous Leaders

“He studied by himself, starting with the eighteenth-century treatise on common law, Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. “The more I read,” Lincoln wrote later, “the more intensely interested I became. Never in my whole life was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I read until I devoured [the Commentaries].” When he finished Blackstone, Lincoln dug into other books. He became fixated on his studies. Lincoln the law student, a neighbor remembered, “would go day after day for weeks and sit under an oak tree on [a] hill . . . and read.” When the sun moved, the neighbor continued, Lincoln “moved round [the] tree to keep in [the] shade . . . [he] was so absorbed that people said he was crazy. Sometimes [he] did not notice people when he met them.” Years later, Lincoln advised a young man who was considering a legal career: If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already. It is but a small matter whether you read with any body or not. I did not read with any one. Get the books, and read and study them till, you understand them in their principal features; and that is the main thing. It is of no consequence to be in a large town while you are reading. I read at New-Salem, which never had three hundred people living in it. The books, and your capacity for understanding them, are just the same in all places. . . . Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.”
― Nancy F. Koehn, Forged in Crisis: The Making of Five Courageous Leaders