According to the professor of history Sidney R. Bland, Alice Paul told him that Burns was “never quite as committed as we’d like”— an astounding statement that says more about Paul than it does about Burns, given that Burns also endured hunger strikes and torturous force-feedings. According to Professor Bland, “Lucy Burns was the first of the ‘silent sentinels’ to be incarcerated; she spent more time in jail than any American suffragist.”

Lucy Burns never wanted to live a purely monomaniacal life like Alice Paul’s, but that does not mean she lacked fire or focus. Alice Paul didn’t appear to have much of anything else in her life than her work for women’s rights because, the evidence leads me to conclude, she didn’t feel the need for much of anything else in her life. Lucy Burns, in contrast, did feel the need for other aspects of her life. That Paul focused nearly 100% of her fire on the fight for suffrage and women’s rights doesn’t make her a more worthy template to follow. Lucy Burns also focused her fire during the fight for suffrage, just not in the purely monomaniacal manner of Alice Paul.

It happened in steps. Many of her first steps were not about what but about who. Suppose you’re tossed into a leadership role for which you feel unprepared, and in which you find yourself lost in the fog without a clearly articulated vision for what to do or where to take the company. What steps should you take? Graham did what many great leaders do; she practiced the “First Who” principle: First get the right people on the bus, then figure out where to drive the bus. If you don’t know what’s coming down the road, your best bet is to have people with you who can adapt to and perform brilliantly no matter what challenges and opportunities come along the way. Step by step, person by person, hire by hire, seat by seat, Graham gradually assembled a busload of the right people around her.

Woodward later described this moment as like a shot of Adrenalin, showing her full support and resolve, but also making clear her standards: “Never” was unacceptable. “At that moment she achieved the perfect managerial pitch,” recalled Woodward. “She wasn’t going to meddle, try to edit or second guess, but she did, after all, want a better performance. Her skill was to raise the bar, gently but relentlessly.” Raising the bar, gently but relentlessly—now that is a powerful leadership encoding.

Sherman influenced events with a rare instinct to wait until precisely the right moment to speak. Historian George Bancroft wrote of Sherman, “In the convention he never made long speeches, but would intuitively seize on the turning point of a question, and present it in terse language, which showed his own opinion and the strength on which it rested.” This ability to sense “the turning point of a question” proved to be one of Sherman’s most effective leadership encodings.

In the end, Franklin drew upon his earned respect and facility with language to formally move for adoption of the Constitution in a final speech (read aloud for him by the Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson) to secure enough support of the delegates to send it to the states for ratification. Franklin had come to see the wisdom in human affairs of embracing the best imperfect result.