By Lee Sun-ho
In this 18th presidential election year on Dec. 19, one of the most popular current Internet sites among netizens is entitled “leadership and partnership,” derived from the Lincoln-Seward relationship in the mid-1800s in the United States.
Abraham Lincoln and William Seward were political rivals for the presidential nomination from the Whig Republican Party in 1860. Once Lincoln was nominated in Chicago and finally elected as the 16th president of the United States, Seward became a loyal member of his presidential campaign and played a key role as a Cabinet member for President Lincoln in preventing foreign intervention early in the Civil War.
Lincoln was one of America’s greatest heroes to perform his roles on the Civil War and the Great Emancipation. Formed out of the adage, “Hold your friends close and your enemies closer,” he selected a strong Cabinet composed of his political rivals including Seward.
Seward, even after Lincoln’s assassination, as succeeding President Andrew Johnson’s secretary of state, engineered the 1867 bargain for the $7.2 million super-duper purchase of Alaska from Tsar Alexander II of Russia in an act that was ridiculed at that time as Seward’s Folly or Seward’s Icebox. He is described as one of those American frontier spirits who went ahead of public opinion in exercising forward-looking insight to buy the vast stretch of frozen territory and all its useful natural resources for the everlasting wealth and safety of his homeland.
Nowadays, the Obama-Clinton relationship is also quoted by netizens as another supermodel case for the combination of leadership and partnership. Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton were also political rivals for the presidential nomination within the Democratic Party in 2008.
Upon Obama being elected as the 44th president of the U.S., Clinton has taken a super-important role as an eminent female secretary of state in dealing with ongoing hectic and versatile world affairs. Furthermore, her husband Bill Clinton, the 42nd president, saw the highest spike in tweets per minute of the night right at the end of his great campaign speech for Obama on Sept. 5 at the second session of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.
Leadership is organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal as shown either by Lincoln or Obama. It has been described as a process of social influence in which one person enlists the support of others in the accomplishment of a mutually-beneficial task. Someone who directs others is identical to somebody whom people follow.
A partnership is an arrangement where parties agree to cooperate to achieve their mutual interests as exemplified by Seward or Clinton. It is the relationship existing between persons who join to carry on a significantly-big deal. Since humans are social beings, partnerships between individuals, businesses, related parties, governments and varied combinations thereof, have remained commonplace.
Leaders such as Lincoln and Obama have acted with partners, including Seward and Clinton, for the members of the super-powerful organization called the U.S. They lead the people with the understanding of the needs of the members of this gigantic community. The leadership cannot exist without the partnership as both components are necessary for the successful administration of national or corporate interests.
A leader has to be fair and provide counseling and human resources to develop the right partnerships so that others can follow his behavior and vision. If a leader builds a partnership with the followers as they want it, they feel motivated and respected. The partnership is about respect for the leader. At least, the organization needs balance between cooperation and its consequences.
Korea’s presidential election is about two months away. Its political arena needs to adopt objective lessons from the above-mentioned Lincoln-Seward statesmanship or the Obama-Clinton allegiance in reality not only amid the scheduled path toward a fiercely-competitive election race among promising candidates but also sustaining national solidarity and prosperity, rooted in conservative or libertarian values, even after the election outcome.
All different livelihood brackets in Korea need to explore the affirmative ideas and relationships between leadership and partnership by manipulating a positive stance that eventually turns into stepping stones toward success.
The writer is an an outside director of Samyang Tongsang in Seoul. Contact him at kexim2@unitel.co.kr.