Moments define us: moments of adversity reveal character; moments of challenge disclose courage or cowardice; moments of action uncover decision or irresolution; and defining moments reveal leadership.

This book is about seven defining leadership moments from the American Revolution. 7 Leadership Lessons is not a complete study of the American Revolution; readers will have to go elsewhere for such a chronicle. Rather it is the story of seven leadership moments that helped to win liberty during the struggle for Independence. On these pages you learn about real people facing real challenges and overcoming what reasonable observers believed were insurmountable odds. These leaders, thankfully, were unreasonable for the cause of liberty.

This work is a guide to learning about the leadership that created a revolution, opposed Great Britain, the greatest power of its age, and created the freest society on earth. In these pages you are able to study the leadership of a select few who changed the course of human events and helped bring about the birth of an exceptional nation. This is a compact collection of stories that retell some of the most dramatic events in the founding of the United States. These stories—for leadership is best learned by storytelling, rather than through lectures on process, style, or technique—offer you insights into the meaning of leadership and liberty that can change your life.

These seven leadership lessons are as relevant today as they were essential to the birth of the United States. The stories are about the leadership that forged colonial British subjects into a nation of Americans. They define the leadership that hammered out the standard for how Americans are expected to lead. In 1775, this leadership created the flame of liberty that lit the world, and offered a beacon of freedom and human progress to all men.