How Gen. Robert E. Lee focused on a new mission & created a great encore career

Number 186

Resilient people sometimes find guidance and the strength to keep going by visualizing how a heroic figure might behave when facing challenges like theirs. In Virginia, where my husband and I have a farmhouse, a popular role model is Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. I’ve heard that many generations of Virginia students have learned to grapple with problems by asking, “What would Gen. Lee do?”

I, too, am fascinated by Lee, but not in his role as a military leader. What amazes me is that late in his life, soon after suffering an extraordinary defeat, Lee became a peacetime visionary and stimulated the reform of American higher education.

Just 20 weeks after surrendering at Appomattox, Lee was inaugurated as president of Washington College, in Lexington, Virginia. As Charles Bracelen Flood describes in his moving book, Lee, The Last Years, the general had hesitated for several weeks about whether to accept the job. He didn’t know whether his fragile health could stand the strain. He hated aspects of the role, like fund-raising and public speaking. And he thought he still might be charged with treason.

The college was a shambles, emerging from the war years with no money, buildings still occupied by Federal troops, and only about 40 students. Lee didn’t take the job because it seemed like a promising opportunity. What moved him to sign on was his understanding of a larger mission.

In urging Lee to accept the job, the college trustees had appealed to his sense of duty, arguing that the future of the former Confederate States of America depended on its ability to train its young men. On the day after his inauguration, Lee wrote, “I think the South requires the aid of her sons now more than at any period in her history.”

So within months after his crushing defeat as the general in command of all Confederate forces, Lee found the resilience to look to the future and launch his encore career. In the last five years of his life, he revitalized and reorganized the college that, after his death, would be renamed “Washington and Lee University.” Moving beyond the traditional approach to higher education, he envisioned a program of “practical education” that would train young men to rebuild the South. An innovator who knew how to recognize and implement others’ good ideas, Lee redesigned curriculum and introduced new fields of study, like business and journalism.

Lee’s innovations and educational achievements influenced universities throughout the nation. At the same time, he became a model of how to accept defeat. His extraordinary career transition, following crushing defeat, exemplifies one of the most important attributes of resilient people: When one path leads to a dead end, they dig deep, focus on a big goal, and start taking steps.

Encore career lessons from Gen. Lee:

• Don’t obsess about the past. Instead of giving in to sorrow about all that was lost, within weeks after Appomattox Lee shifted his focus to the future. Flood says: “To a Confederate widow who was expressing hatred for the North, he said, ‘Madam, do not train up your children in hostility to the government of the United States. Remember, we are all one country now. Dismiss from your mind all sectional feeling, and bring them up to be Americans.’”
• Look for a way to make a difference: Lee didn’t set out to win personal kudos as an educator. He looked around the post-war South and focused on a pressing need: a new generation of engineers, manufacturers, journalists and others with the skills to rebuild the economy. If you’re contemplating an encore career, think about the issues that really get your juices flowing. Is there some way you can contribute to change and make the world a better place at the same time you earn an income? (For more on creating an encore career with social impact, visit Encore.org)
• Connect with others. Lee knew he needed help to rebuild the college, and he quickly reached out to friends and even strangers throughout the United States. His first big supporter was Chicago inventor Cyrus H. McCormick, who sent a check for $10,000, at the time a small fortune.