-Abe Lincoln (possibly)

Tuesday, December 24,2025🎄🎅

Some will attribute this quote to Abe Lincoln☝️while others disagree about the source🤷🏻‍♀️

I would add to this quote- that adversity can still reveal character. It will reveal it moreso than comfort or status quo. I will often tell my students, “you don’t know who you really are sitting alone in your dorm room.” Your character shows up in community, as we serve as mirrors for each other 🪩

But, somehow, when we are in a group… our strengths are magnified by others🔎 Our blind spots, or growth-areas, are revealed as well (which is an HR-approved way of saying that you will work with people who are good at things you suck at, and vice versa). This takes awareness, commitment, and most importantly- psychological safety. If you haven’t heard that term yet, I’d be surprised, but highly recommend going down the rabbit hole of Amy Edmonson and The Fearless Organization, or even further back to the Aristotle Project by Google (2012). I will be unpacking psych safety in a future blog- so come back if you’re interested in the topic as well.

Back to the “Abe Lincoln” quote…

if it resonates with you… let’s co-create a future where those with power know how to distribute it to others based on their strengths/expertise. Let’s not make decisions in silos, but leverage the collective genius that Aristotle described as the sum being greater than its parts.

We will then shift away from a hierarchy to a heterarchy organizational chart, and a leader will serve as a facilitator, a conductor🔥

Or we can just keep doing what we’ve been doing and expect different results 🤦🏻‍♀️