An enduring portrait of courage in the C-suite
In strategy+business’s article “An enduring portrait of courage in the C-suite,” author Daniel Akst revisits Cameron Hawley’s 1960 business novel The Lincoln Lords to explore what truly makes an executive a leader. Published May 23, 2023, the article argues that leadership is not defined by title, charisma, or a corner office, but by judgment, courage, human understanding, moral independence, listening, timing, and the ability to lead through ambiguity.
For business leaders, the piece is a thoughtful reminder that the fundamentals of leadership have not changed as much as we might think. Akst shows how the novel’s executive protagonist, Lincoln Lord, earns credibility not through bravado but through humility, careful observation, personal discipline, respect for people, and the courage to make hard decisions when the stakes become real.
Executive summary for business leaders
Overarching theme: True executive courage often looks quiet before it looks heroic. Akst uses The Lincoln Lords to show that leadership is revealed in how an executive treats people, listens before acting, understands power dynamics, resists prejudice, navigates business complexity, and chooses the right moment to decide. The portrait of Lincoln Lord is especially valuable because he initially appears polished but possibly hollow, only later demonstrating deeper leadership capacity when he takes over Coastal Foods, a failing canning company facing customer loss, market shifts, financial pressure, and reputational risk.
The article’s deeper business lesson is that leadership is both human and strategic. Leaders must understand people’s motives and anxieties, but they must also grasp market realities, customer dependencies, financing constraints, technology shifts, community relationships, and stakeholder interests. Akst’s reading of the novel suggests that the best executives combine emotional intelligence, commercial judgment, social courage, and composure under pressure.
Major takeaways
1. Leadership is more than title, status, or polish
Akst opens by questioning whether leadership should be judged by results alone and what qualities are truly essential. In The Lincoln Lords, Lincoln Lord initially appears to have the outer signs of executive stature, but the novel gradually tests whether there is substance beneath the surface.
Business implication: Boards and CEOs should look beyond executive presence. Real leadership shows up in judgment, resilience, ethics, people insight, and the ability to act responsibly under pressure.
2. Courage begins with taking the difficult assignment
Lincoln Lord’s first act of leadership is accepting the job at Coastal Foods, a struggling company that others dismiss. Akst notes that some people in Lord’s social world look down on the business because it is Jewish-owned, but Lord does not share those prejudices and judges people by character and capability.
Business implication: Leadership courage includes moral independence. Executives must be willing to reject bias, take on unglamorous challenges, and see value where others see only stigma or risk.
3. Executive presence still matters — but only when backed by substance
Akst observes that Lord understands the importance of “acting the part.” His manner, dress, car, social networks, convention presence, speeches, and committee service help open doors for Coastal. Yet the article does not treat appearance as leadership itself; it shows that presence can support leadership when combined with judgment and competence.
Business implication: Executive presence is useful when it creates confidence, credibility, and access. It becomes dangerous when leaders mistake image for impact.
4. Human understanding is a core leadership skill
Akst writes that Hawley understood the importance of knowing one’s fellow humans. Lord memorizes staff names and personal details so he can greet people in ways that make them feel valued. This is not superficial charm; it is relationship-building as a leadership practice.
Business implication: Employees want to be seen. Leaders who know people’s names, roles, contributions, and concerns build trust faster than leaders who rely only on formal authority.
5. New leaders should listen before they act
Lord’s early priorities at Coastal are listening, learning, winning the team’s support, and evaluating inherited managers. Akst highlights that Lord is both a strong speaker and an effective listener, soliciting views and asking pointed questions to surface crucial information.
Business implication: New CEOs, COOs, and business-unit leaders should resist the urge to prove themselves immediately. The first job is to understand the people, economics, constraints, and informal power structure.
6. The people closest to the problem often know the most
Akst emphasizes that Lord recognizes his own ignorance and understands that people closest to a problem often know what is really happening. This humility helps him gather practical insight before making decisions.
Business implication: Leadership teams should establish mechanisms to ensure frontline intelligence reaches senior decision-makers without distortion.
7. Trust is a powerful morale-building tool
Lord uses praise strategically, but Akst suggests that his trust in subordinates may be even more powerful. He also deflects unwanted ideas without causing people to lose face, preserving dignity while steering the organization.
Business implication: Leaders build morale not only through recognition, but through the way they disagree. Rejecting ideas respectfully can preserve trust and keep people engaged.
8. Business problems are rarely only financial
Coastal’s challenge is not just poor performance. The company has lost its major customer, faces changing consumer preferences from canned to frozen foods, needs capital to build its own brand, and must navigate machinery, public relations, community expectations, and stakeholder tensions.
Business implication: Leaders should avoid narrow diagnoses. A revenue problem may also be a customer concentration problem, brand problem, investment problem, technology problem, and stakeholder problem.
9. Leaders must sometimes invent options, not just choose among them
Akst notes that Lord had been accustomed to big-company life, where executives often weighed options that others had prepared. At Coastal, he must act entrepreneurially and create options himself.
Business implication: In turnaround situations, leaders cannot rely only on inherited playbooks. They must create strategic alternatives when the existing path no longer works.
10. People skills and business skills are deeply connected
Akst highlights Lord’s ability to read meetings, detect subtle shifts in power, interpret facial expressions and body language, and use those insights in negotiations. In one key meeting, he wins back Coastal’s critical customer, Gellman Stores.
Business implication: Emotional intelligence is not separate from business performance. Negotiation, customer recovery, board influence, and internal alignment all depend on reading people well.
11. Composure is a leadership advantage
Lord does not lose his cool at work. Akst presents him as judicious, careful not to make snap decisions, but also unwilling to let problems fester through indecision.
Business implication: Leaders create confidence by staying calm without becoming passive. Composure is especially important in crises, turnarounds, negotiations, and reputational threats.
12. Courage includes timing
One of the article’s strongest leadership insights is that there is a right time to decide: neither too soon nor too late. This becomes especially important when Coastal faces a food-poisoning crisis involving its baby food.
Business implication: Executive courage is not impulsiveness. It is the disciplined ability to gather enough information, understand the stakes, and then act before delay becomes avoidance.
13. Crisis reveals the real leader
Akst writes that what initially looks like timidity ultimately resolves into courage when Lord confronts the food-poisoning crisis. The situation tests whether leadership is image, caution, or genuine responsibility.
Business implication: Crisis response is one of the clearest measures of leadership character. Leaders are judged by whether they protect people, face facts, communicate honestly, and accept consequences.
Leadership talking points
Leadership is not proven by charisma alone; it is proven by judgment under pressure.
The best executives combine human insight with business acumen.
Listening is not a delay tactic. It is how leaders gather the truth before acting.
Trust, dignity, and respect are strategic assets in a turnaround.
Courage often looks like calm, well-timed responsibility rather than dramatic decisiveness.
A leader’s moral independence matters, especially when social pressure, prejudice, or convention push in the wrong direction.
Reflection questions
Are we judging executive potential by polish, confidence, and résumé — or by judgment, courage, humility, and people insight?
Do our leaders know the people closest to the work well enough to understand what is really happening?
Where are we relying on appearances of authority rather than building trust?
Do we create enough space for listening and learning before major leadership decisions?
Are we prepared to act entrepreneurially when existing options are not enough?
How well do our leaders read stakeholder dynamics, power shifts, and unspoken concerns?
In a crisis, would our leadership team act with courage, composure, and moral clarity?
Potential action items
Use the article as a leadership discussion piece for senior teams, especially around courage, listening, crisis judgment, and executive presence.
Add “frontline listening” to new-leader onboarding, requiring leaders to meet employees closest to customers, operations, and risk.
Assess leaders not only on results, but also on how they build trust, preserve dignity, make decisions, and behave under pressure.
Review customer concentration, market shifts, reputational risks, and stakeholder tensions before they become crises.
Train leaders in crisis decision-making, including when to gather more facts and when delay becomes dangerous.
Encourage leaders to practice respectful disagreement so ideas can be declined without damaging trust.
Use crisis simulations to test composure, timing, communication, and stakeholder judgment.
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“What leaders get wrong about responsibility” — Pia Lauritzen argues that effective leadership is not simply about giving or taking responsibility, but about sharing it through better questions and distributed ownership.
“Lessons in mismanagement” — Daniel Akst uses Glengarry Glen Ross as a cautionary tale about desperate sales cultures, unreasonable demands, and destructive management behavior.
“Don’t be a ‘leader’” — Eric J. McNulty argues that leadership is not a static destination or badge, but a discipline requiring constant learning and a balance of specialist and generalist thinking.
“The Passionate Leader: An Interview With Jean Rene Fourtou” — A classic strategy+business interview on empowerment, passion, community, decentralization, and leading transformation in a global company.