Joshua's lessons on leadership - Obedience

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.  If this is the first post in the series you have read, please do a quick review of the March 30, 2009 blog titled  “Joshua's lessons on leadership - Intro”; that post highlights why I am looking into Joshua’s life.

In the last entry, we dug into the backdrop for Joshua’s leadership lessons, in this entry, I want to look the very first time we hear about Joshua, when he “fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered”.  When Joshua arrives on the scene, he teaches us an unforgettable lesson about obedience. 

The battle with the Amalekites occurred right after events that have provided idioms in almost every culture.  Have you ever heard, “like manna from heaven” or “get water from rocks”?  Well, the Israelites had just been led out of Egypt and through the parting of the Red Sea.  They were about six weeks out of Egypt and they were complaining to their leader Moses that they had nothing to eat – this is when strange bread like substance called manna started appearing every day.  Manna is cross cultural, it is also identified in three different places in the Qur'an, each mentioning the divine supply of manna as one of the miracles with which the Israelites were favored.  Then the Israelites started whining that they were thirsty and wished they had never left slavery and according to the story, Moses struck the rock at Horeb with a stick and caused water to flow from it.

It is against this backdrop that Joshua is ordered into battle.  The entire tribe is whining for food, which they are given, then whining for water, which they receive.  I can only imagine that going in to combat was not high on the list of things folks wanted to do - much whining was going on for sure.  All we know about this battle is that the Amalekites, aboriginal people of Canaan and the Sinai Peninsula that waged constant warfare against the Hebrews started it.   The Amalekites attack and in response Moses tells Joshua, “Grab some men and go attack the enemy, I will be hanging out on the hill watching you”

Joshua does it.  I am not sure I would be as obedient as Joshua.  I am not sure it was real easy to find folks in the tribe willing to go fight.  My response might have been, “What, I am going to battle and you are going up on a hill with a stick in your hand?”  But Joshua does it, and check out what happens next.  This is the narrative we have of the battle, “So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill.  As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset.  So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.”

Wow, to me that is obedience to a leader.  Joshua is down on the field of battle sweating, bleeding, suffering and he looks up and watches the ebb and flow of the battle depend upon his leader's arms rising and falling.  “I am down here swinging a sword and you are up there waving your arms?”  He has to give it all he has got, obedient to the task and dependent upon his leader’s actions.  

When you read the work ‘obedient’ over and over again, does the hair on the back of your neck stand up?  Mine does, I am not sure I want to be ‘obedient’.  Why?

“The strongest is never strong enough always to be master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty” - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French writer whose novels inspired the leaders of the French Revolution.

What is Rousseau saying?  Turn obedience into duty?  Rousseau understood the very nature of humans that we take pride in duty and see it as strength of character.  Yet we scorn obedience allowing the mental image of a dog and master creep into our minds.  Obedience is the act of complying with authority.  Duty is something that one is expected or required to do by moral or legal obligation, the respectful and obedient conduct due a parent, superior, elder, etc.

Duty and Obedience are essentially the same thing; one noble and one mocked.  Why do we feel different about the two?  It is because with duty, we feel that we have had some choice in the matter and by choosing created a voluntary compact that is honorable.  Obedience on the other hand feels like it is laid over us like chains, we had no say in the matter and we are treated like slaves.

Alcibiades, Athenian commander in the 1st Peloponnesian War, said, “If force must be employed with a subordinate, take care that it be minimal.  If I command you, "Pick up that bowl," and set a sword-point at your back, you will obey but no part will own the action.  You will exculpate yourself, accounting, "He made me do it, I had no choice."  But if I only suggest and you comply, then you must own your own compliance and, owning it, stand by it.”

Obedience must be taught and learned.  But to teach it, you must first submit to it and experience it, the good type of obedience and the bad, so that you know the right way to install obedience in an organization.  Not with a sword to the back.

We see the making of a leader start with the obedience of Joshua.  Joshua showed us a key truth, how can you ask others to obey, unless you have first learned what it means to obey?