Joshua's lessons on leadership - Intro

In a series of posts, I want to discuss what we can learn about leadership from Joshua ben Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim, which would become known as the most militaristic of the tribes of Israel through Joshua's campaigns. 

Why Joshua?  At the end of the series on David I asked folks what they wanted to hear about and I got a comment that said, “Alex, what about followership?  Great leaders are first great followers such as David's respect for flawed King Saul. How much improvement would there be in our companies and culture if we gave as much effort to being a good follower as we do to become a good leader?” 

Everyone, regardless of your belief system, knows about a guy named Moses, but what about the guy that had to follow him?  Joshua is the second person to lead the Jewish people. He spent the early part of his life training under Moses, and took over for him when the Israelites entered the land of Canaan. Joshua's charisma and skill as a leader are evident from the success of the Jews during his lifetime, and their rapid decline following his death. In fact the Israelites do not find a comparable leader until Samuel hundreds of years later.

Joshua was born in 1536 B.C. and died in 1426 B.C.  This is a period of time where Egypt re-unified her empire.  Ahmose I (1570-1546) drove the asiatics from Avaris, and began the unification. Under Amenhotep I (1546-1526) Egypt began the process of establishing a great empire. Amenhotep pushed Egypt's borders beyond those of the Old Kingdom and established an Egyptian presence in Asia. Thutmose I (1525-1512), pacified the Nubian south, and his successor, Thutmose II (1512-1504), solidified the Egyptian presence in Palestine to the Syrian border. Thutmose III (1504-1450) became Egypt's greatest warrior pharaoh, and is known to history as the Napoleon or Alexander of Egypt. Thutmose III established the empire far into Asia, demanding tribute from Babylon, Assyria, and the Hittites. He fought 17 campaigns abroad and was victorious in all of them.  Thutmose III established a professional army through which Egypt reached its pinnacle as a military power.  Joshua lived and led against a backdrop of a great empire at its’ peak.

Any look into Joshua’s leadership can leave you stunned by the brutality of battles, bloodshed and warfare.  So, it is important to understand the phase of civilization that Joshua lived within.  The period starting in 1500 B.C. through A.D. 100 covers the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age and was a time during which a revolution in most aspects of people's existence and organization occurred. During this time humankind refined the social structures that were essential to the functioning of large and complex social orders and, in doing so, brought into existence a new and more destructive form of warfare. There was almost constant war, a time in which states of all sizes came into existence only to be extinguished by the rise of still larger empires, which, in their turn, were destroyed by military force.

The time of Joshua saw the practice of war become firmly rooted in man's societies, experience and psychology. War, warriors, and weapons became a normal part of human existence.

After Joshua’s death a time of disarray existed among the Israelites until Samuel arrived in 1115 B.C.  This occurred against a backdrop of one of the most important stimuli in warfare - the discovery and use of iron. The Hittites first employed iron as a technology of war about 1300 B.C.  The importance of iron in the development of ancient warfare lay not in its strength or ability to hold a sharp edge. Iron's importance rested in the fact that unlike bronze, iron was widely available. It was easier to extract and the abundant supply of this material made it possible for states to produce quantities of reliable weapons cheaply.  No longer was it only the major powers that could afford enough weapons to equip a large military force; almost any state could do it. The result was a dramatic increase in the frequency of war.

While the armies of the Late Bronze Age when Joshua led were large compared to those at the beginning of the period, they were very small by comparison to the armies that fought later in the Iron Age. Persian armies under Darius and Xerxes in the time of David could easily number 200,000 – 300,000 soldiers. While the army of Sargon of Akkad in 2300 B.C. is estimated as large as 5,400 men, an army of this size represented a supreme national effort and even then could be deployed in the field for only a short time. In general there were much smaller Bronze Age armies than the one that Sargon led.

The net of all of this is that Joshua led at a brutal time in history under the shadow of an empire.  A time when warfare was beginning to define mankind, yet weapons and weaponry had not yet progressed to the point where large armies were possible.  Warfare under Joshua was up close and personal.  Battles and therefore families, tribes and civilizations were won, lost sustained or destroyed based upon the actions of 10, 100 or 1,000 people at most.

Now that we have the backdrop for Joshua’s leadership lessons, let’s see what we can learn from him.  The next post will look at the very first time we hear about Joshua, when he “fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered”.