David's lessons on leadership - Care for your crew

In a series of posts, I am going to reflect upon what we can learn about leadership from David, King of Israel.  If this is the first post in the series you have read, please do a quick review of the January 2, 2009 post titled  “David’s lessons on leadership – Intro”; that post highlights why I am looking into David’s life.

The previous post covered the broad topic of David’s Last Words.  This post will go into an important detail; how do you treat the people on your team?  For this lesson, let’s go to an interesting event in 2 Samuel 10.  First a little background.  While David was wandering, trying to evade Saul, he was shown kindness by a king named Nahash (by the way there are two different kings named Nahash).  Much later, Nahash dies and is succeeded by his son Hanun.  At this time David has become king and decides to send a delegation of ambassadors to Hanun.  David wants to express sympathy to Hanun for losing his father, thinking, "I will show kindness to Hanun son of Nahash, just as his father showed kindness to me."

Instead of accepting the delegation, Hanun cuts off half of each of their beards, removes the bottom part of their garments and sends them home; clearly poking his finger in David’s eye.  David has an interesting response, “Stay at Jericho till your beards have grown, and then come back.”

What is the big deal?  So they cut a little hair, why is David going through the effort to keep them in Jericho rather than just bring them home?  Why let them grow their beards back? Turns out the beard is a big deal.

The Sikhs consider the beard to be an integral part of the male human body as created by God and believe that it should be preserved, maintained, and respected as such.

The Hindus keep beards depending on caste and Dharma.

Because scissors have two blades, halakha (Jewish law) permits their use to trim the beard, as the cutting action comes from contact of the two blades and not the blade against the skin. This is important since Talmudic tradition explains Leviticus to mean that a man may not shave his beard with a razor with a single blade, since the cutting action of the blade against the skin "mars" the beard.

In Eastern Christianity, beards are often worn by members of the priesthood, and at times have been required for all believers.

Many Muslims believe that growing a beard is required under Islamic law due to the saying of the Islamic prophet Muhammad that Muslim men should grow their beards and trim their mustaches.

Whatever your religion throughout history there has been value universally set upon the beard, sometimes as man’s greatest adornment; a symbol of virility and wisdom. Cutting off of one-half of it was the greatest insult that could have been offered to the ambassadors, and through them to David their king.

So we learn that this act by Hanun, shaving off half the beard of the men in the peace delegation was no small matter.  David’s response was instructive; he showed his men tremendous respect.  David could have brought his men back and paraded them in front of his army to whip his army up into a frenzy in preparation for battle (later they did go defeat Hanun and his army).  However, he chooses not to sacrifice the dignity of his men.  In this moment David shows that a good leader looks after the whole person, not just the parts that the leader needs.  A good leader does not use and discard his people as pieces of a war machine; he cares for them as people first.  Or as my good friend Mike Kilbane told me, "Mission first, people always".  One can imagine the goodwill this action brought David among those who remained in Jericho and those he lead back home.

Once you put a person first, you can ask them to sacrifice and they will be happy to do it.  As I told a friend the other day who was preparing for a difficult speech; there is no greater compliment you can pay someone than to ask them to make a sacrifice for you  and/or the mission.   Assuming of course, that you put that person first in your heart before you ask them to sacrifice.  Admiral Grace Hopper said, “Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up and loyalty down. Respect for one's superiors; care for one's crews.”

David’s leadership lesson for us today is ‘care for your crew’