David's lessons on leadership - Take a Stand

In a series of posts I 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 blog titled  “David’s lessons on leadership – Intro”; that post outlines why I am looking into David’s life.

The previous blog dealt with knowing we all have flaws and being aware our flaws can lead us to join the ranks of “Tragic Heroes”.  This post deals with the topic of “Take a Stand”

There was a long period in David’s life when he was on the run from Saul.  Recall that Saul was David’s mentor and king, he became jealous of David and went through a bi-polar experience some days loving David and some days wanting to kill him.  It was in one of these ‘kill him’ moments we see David stand tall among his men and “Take a Stand”

Around 1000 B.C., Saul was chasing David through the Desert of Maon when he broke off his pursuit of David because the Philistines were raiding his land.  As Saul turned, David went up and “dwelt in the strongholds at En Gedi”, which is the largest oasis along the western shore of the Dead Sea. 

Saul finished his battle with the Philistines and took 3,000 men back to En Gedi to capture David.  Saul basically calls in the cavalry; he now outnumbers David 5:1.  Saul ends up having to relieve himself in a cave that turns out to be the very same cave that David and his men are hiding in.  David’s men encourage him, telling him, "This is your moment, go kill Saul, it is a sign from above”.  Six hundred frightened men, badly outnumbered convince their leader that in this moment he can deliver them from their weary travails.

David sneaks up to kill Saul and at the last moment spares him.  David merely cuts a piece of Saul’s robe (which he later shows Saul to prove that he does not want to kill him).  David comes back to his men and rebukes them.  He does not allow them to attack Saul.  He tells them, “Saul is my king and I made an oath not to lift my hand against him”.  David’s men see him “Take a Stand”

I look at this story and think “What are David’s men saying about him?”  Were they saying, “Look how great and glorious our leader is because he kept an oath and see how gracious he is toward Saul”?  Or were they saying, “What the heck has gone wrong with David?  We are on the run, tired, hungry, living in a rock, he has every chance to deliver us and yet he does not!”

We never know their reaction.  As you study this story you see the reaction of David’s men upon finding Saul, yet there is nothing about their reaction to David letting Saul go.  Why is there no record of their reaction in that moment?  Here I think is the lesson – it did not matter…

There will be moments in which you are publicly presented a situation where you have to either “Take a Stand” or please the people you lead.   Until people see you “Take a Stand” they will never know your values or be in a position to choose to accept your values or move on.

So here is a moment for David’s men; they see the choice that David made.  They know the sacrifice of this choice since David is on the run with them.  They see David have the opportunity to end it all yet choose to keep an oath and respect authority.  David’s men now know his values and can choose to follow him and his belief system or move on.

We do our people a favor when we “Take a Stand”; we let them know our value systems and ourselves.  We are no longer anonymous.  There is an old Chinese proverb - “A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion”

Show your values, don’t just talk about them; “Take a Stand”

David's lessons on leadership - Tragic Heroes

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 blog titled  “David’s lessons on leadership – Intro”; that post outlines why I am looking into David’s life.

The previous blog dealt with the impact of the support of one person, the change that occurs in our lives and leadership journey when we have a “Jonathan Moment”.  This post deals with the topic of “Tragic Heroes”

For this topic we go back to a time before Saul knew David, a time when Saul became king.  There came a point in Israel’s history when pressure emerged to centralize government into a kingship.  This pressure was largely from the threat of Israel's neighbors, especially the Philistines, whose victories had resulted in the destruction of the central sanctuary at Shiloh.  This reason for wanting a king is consistent with a well researched book called “Guns, Germs and Steel” in which author Jared Diamond points out that throughout history, amalgamation of smaller groups or tribes occurs for two reasons; merger by threat of external force or actual conquest.  Examples of merger by threat of external force include the Cherokee nation in the early 1700’s, the United States shifting from a loose set of states to a federal government in the late 1780’s and the central imperial German government of the 1870’s. 

So, the elders of Israel wanted and demanded a visible king be appointed over them.  They wanted to be like the well-organized nations surrounding them and have a leader who could take them to victory over their foes.  They petitioned Samuel and Samuel sat Saul down to tell him he would be king.

As Samuel is telling Saul he will be king, Saul, says to him, "But am I not a Benjamite, from the smallest tribe of Israel, and is not my clan the least of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin? Why do you say such a thing to me?"

Saul starts off so well, asking a fair question, “Why me?”  He starts with the admirable trait of humility, which leaves him quickly as he becomes king.  We first see it leave him when his son Jonathan bursts on the scene and demonstrates the first of what will be a repeated ability to lead an attack.  “Saul had the trumpet blown throughout the land and said, "Let the Hebrews hear!" So all Israel heard the news: "Saul has attacked the Philistine outpost”.  Saul takes the credit for Jonathan’s attack on the garrison of the Philistines. We see the fatal flaw in Saul begin to take root.  We know it is pride.  We know it is vanity and the desire for glory.  Saul’s own sense of insecurity will not allow his own son to receive credit. Saul needs the praise.

Saul as king has all the traits that Israel wants in a king, he is taller than most, good looking, strong and comes from a prominent family.  But his pride is his flaw, Saul is like some of the men and women we see attain fame, fortune and glamour only to fall from grace with a character failing.  Saul is a Tragic Hero, the main character in a tragedy who makes an error in his actions that leads to his downfall.  The main characteristics of a Tragic Hero include:

• The hero is led to his downfall due to hubris, or excessive pride.
• The hero discovers his fate by his own actions, not by things happening to him.
• The hero sees and understands his doom, and that his fate was revealed by his own actions.
• The hero is physically or spiritually wounded by his experiences, often resulting in his death.
• The hero is often a king or leader of people, so that his people experience his fall with him. This could also include a leader of a family.
• The hero learns something from his mistake.
• The hero is faced with a serious decision.
• The suffering of the hero is meaningful.

We see it around us today, in the failed institutions, the corporate leaders who forgot about leading, the athletes who disappoint us, and the public servants that betray our trust.  All around us are Tragic Heroes; we watch them fall and we see them suffer.  Here is what we must understand; they are not different from us.  In each one of us is a character trait that keeps us going and gives us fuel, but has the potential to be our downfall.  In each one of us exists a Tragic Hero.  For all are human and all have a flaw; the more the spotlight of the world pierces us, the more our flaw becomes known. 

Recall Polonius' advice to his son Laertes in Shakespeare's Hamlet, “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man”.

Know your flaw, be true to yourself and know what your flaw can do.  Know that without care we are each capable of joining the ranks of Tragic Heroes.

David's lessons on leadership - Jonathan Moments

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 blog titled  “David’s lessons on leadership – Intro”; that post outlines why I am looking into David’s life.

The previous blog dealt with going astray and why we should “Stay on Mission”.  This post is a commentary on impact of the support of one person, the change that occurs in our lives and leadership journey when we have a “Jonathan Moment”.

Early in David’s journey to leadership he went through a very difficult moment.  In that moment one friend, Jonathan stood with him and Jonathan’s allegiance led David to the next stage of his life.

Before I describe the moment, I need to give you the back-story.  After David kills Goliath at the tender age of 17, Saul the king promoted him to a high rank in the army.  David continued to serve Saul and lead troops into battle on Saul’s behalf.  The people of Israel and Judah loved what David was doing and the rest of the army commanders also became impressed with his victories.  In addition, David began a deep friendship with Jonathan, the son of Saul.  Saul goes through a strange metamorphosis whereby all the admiration that lands on David starts to make Saul jealous.  Saul started as a mentor to David and then makes several attempts to assassinate him.

The pivotal, difficult moment comes during the New Moon Festival or Rosh Chodesh, which was an important and visible ceremony for Saul.  David is convinced Saul is trying to kill him and Jonathan is equally convinced that his father, Saul, would never kill David.   

They devise a way to test Saul’s intent.  David is to stay away from the feast and when Saul asks Jonathan about David, Jonathan is to say that David wanted to go to Bethlehem and be with his family.  Jonathan would watch his father’s reaction and then come to a place where David is hiding and provide a secret signal.  He told David, “I will shoot three arrows to the side of where you are hiding, as though I were shooting at a target. Then I will send a boy and say, 'Go, find the arrows.' If I say to him, 'Look, the arrows are on this side of you; bring them here,' then come, because, you are safe; there is no danger. But if I say to the boy, 'Look, the arrows are beyond you,' then you must go”

Well, Saul gets angry that David is not there and tells Jonathan that David must die.  Jonathan heads out to where David is hiding and implements the plan.  Jonathan sends the signal that lets David know that Saul means to kill him.  As David gets up to leave all he has ever known, his friend Jonathan says to him, “Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other…between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever.”

This is a moment of deep despair for David.  When he heard the words, “Isn’t the arrow beyond you?” he knew that his life was changed in a profound way.  Everything he knew would be different.  Where he lived, how he lived, what he did and who he walked with - all different and all a mystery at this moment in time.  However, knowing Jonathan believed in him, David was able to move forward.

Each of us has moments in our lives when something happens and we know everything next will be different.  Leading up to that moment, we may think about the change, we may plan for the change, but until it is there we are not really “all in”.  Then it happens and the bridges burn behind us.  It is that moment when it is so critical to have at least one person who believes in you.  With just one person, you can move through life’s stages with confidence.

An example for me was a demanding moment at work on March 30^th, 2003.  It was the end of our fiscal year and everything crashed around my shoulders; I knew the next step would be difficult and different.  At that moment I had one man, an ex-boss and mentor, write me a short note.  I have kept it to this day.  Here is what he wrote:

I stopped by this morning, but you were in the gym. Since you looked like you had just watched your puppy get run over last night, I wanted to check in on you this morning.

However, knowing you as well as I do, I know you have moved on to the New Year, and are walking with confidence and enthusiasm this morning. Your team will expect you to be mad and lack some confidence and conviction after a rough close to the year, and as usual I know you will surprise them, and they will draw strength from your example.

Watching you attack your job, and emerge as one of the true top sales leaders in our company this year, all while "Doing it Right", has inspired me. It hasn't surprised me, though. Nor is it the first time you have inspired me.  Just wanted to drop you a note and make sure you weren't going to let two or three accounts, a war and an I/T slump have any impact on your confidence or your ability to lead. I'm not sure why I bothered.....I know you won't let that happen. You never have in the past.

Five years later this note still inspires me, it tells me at least one person believed in me in a really rough moment.  I am not sure this person knows just how much they lifted me up at this moment.  My ‘Jonathan’ arrived at the exact moment I needed him.

When Jonathan tells David, “Go in peace we have sworn friendship with each other”, he is giving David the incredible power of belief; the power one person receives when he or she knows there is at least one person who believes in them.  Each of us needs to commit to being a Jonathan.  Commit to taking a moment and letting the David’s in your life know you believe in them and are faithful to them.  When you say these four words, “I believe in you”; you can change a person’s life and shepherd them through the most difficult moments they face.

Go - hand someone a “Jonathan Moment”.

David's lessons on leadership - Stay on Mission

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 blog titled  “David’s lessons on leadership – Intro”; that post outlines why I am looking into David’s life.

The previous blog dealt with a detail on how leaders should treat their team titled “Everyone Matters”.  This post shifts to a discussion of going astray and why we should “Stay on Mission”

Much has been written about David, including recognition that he did some unsavory things in his life.  Of all his many mistakes, taking Bathsheba as a wife probably comes in at the top of the list - not just for what he did, but also for how he did it.  The lesson for us in David’s affair with Bathsheba is related to where David was when all this occurred vs. where he was supposed to be.

David, now King of Israel, wakes up one evening and as he is walking around he sees Bathsheba bathing and is struck by her beauty.  He immediately asks about the young lady and is told she is the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah.  The names of these two guys are important because they are both counted as David’s Mighty Men; basically David’s Green Berets.

So now we have David, bored on a rooftop, strolling around surveying all he ‘owns’, eyeballing the daughter and wife of two of his greatest warriors. But wait, it gets worse.  David summons Bathsheba, they get together and she gets pregnant.  In an attempt to cover this up, David recalls Uriah from the front and tries to talk him into spending the night with his wife so that the child would appear to be from Uriah.  Uriah is such a loyal soldier he refuses – he wants no comfort while his men are in tents in the field.  David tries to get him drunk and send him home.  Still Uriah refuses, choosing instead to sleep on a mat on the floor.  Now David gets desperate and he sends Uriah back to battle and commands the general in charge, Joab, “Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die."  Uriah dies in battle.

If you are like me, at this point your head is in your hands and you are just shaking your head in amazement; David – how could you let this happen?  David, what were you thinking?

If we look deeper into the story of David and Bathsheba we find a very telling moment, it is at the start of the story, “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.”

David stayed home following one of his greatest victories in the Ammonite-Syrian war. David gathered all Israel together, led them from the front over the river Jordan and did battle at Helam. The Syrians fled before Israel - seven hundred chariots were destroyed, forty thousand horsemen killed and all the kings allied with the Ammonites and Syrians fled.

Looking back over everything I have read about David, he is always out in the field leading the army, fighting the fight.  It is what he was built to do.  But this spring, this moment before the events with Bathsheba, the army goes out without its king. 

Instead of leading his army, David sent Joab and stayed at home. 

We all will make mistakes in our lives.  Because we are human we all will do things that are clearly not in the interests of the people we lead, the people we love and the people we respect.  I am pretty sure most of us will not screw it up to the level that David did with Bathsheba and Uriah, but we will do something wrong.  When we look back at our mistake(s) we will realize that all too often a sense of ease and security was the prelude to our errors.

There is an old saying that has many origins; the devil finds work for idle hands.  I was surprised to find out derivations of this phrase exists in most languages around the world.

L'oisiveté est la mère de tous les vice – French

Şeytan aylak ellere iş bulur – Turkish

Cabeça vazia é oficina do diabo – Portuguese

Laiskuus on kaikkien paheiden äiti – Finnish

La pereza es la madre de todos los vicios – Spanish

L'ozio è il padre dei vizi – Italian

Zahálka je matkou neřesti – Czech

The lesson for us in the story of David and Bathsheba is to Stay on Mission, stay working on what you are built to do, remain in front with your team, do not let a sense of ease and security overwhelm you.   When we know what we are built to do and we remain focused on our mission, the chances of screwing things up recedes.

Consider the following speech from the book “Gates of Fire” by Steven Pressfield.  Gates of Fire is the story of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.  It is the story of how 300 Spartans held off 20,000 Persians so the remainder of Greece could get ready for war.  During a brief pause in the fighting the Spartan king Leonidas tells the Persian king what a king should be doing,

“I will tell His Majesty what a king is.  A king does not abide within his tent while his men bleed and die upon the field.  A king does not dine while his men go hungry, nor sleep when they stand watch upon the wall.  A king does not command his men’s loyalty through fear nor purchase it with gold; he earns their love by the sweat of his own back and the pains he endures for their sake.  That which comprises the harshest burden, a king lifts first and sets down last.  A king does not require service of those he leads but provides it to them.  He serves them, not they him.”

Stay on Mission