Joshua's lessons on leadership - Joshua's Last Lesson

For those of you that follow this blog, I apologize for the length of time between posts. I generally update this blog every week or so and it has been four weeks since my last update. The last month has been a blur of travel that ended up with me accepting a role at a new company. I now plan to get back on my regular blog schedule. As always, I’d love any input on topics.

If you have been following the blog you know that I’ve been writing about leadership lessons 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, Joshua reminded us that “Leaders Protect the Truth”. In this post, I close out my thoughts on Joshua with “Joshua’s Last Lesson”.

The stage for this last lesson is Joshua’s farewell address. Joshua lead the Jewish people for 28 years and brought an area of land bounded by the Egyptian empire to the south and the Mesopotamia to the north under one rule through 14 years of conquest and settlement. This was no easy task since no one power ruled this section of land; it was inhabited by seven Canaanite tribes in 31 fortified city-states scattered all over the map, each ruled by its own "king." Here is what we know, "when the country was at rest from all their enemies around them, Joshua, by then old and well advanced in years, summoned all Israel, their elders, leaders, judges and officials". Joshua summoned them for his farewell speech. I imagine that people sat on the edge of their seat to listen. They were all there to hear the last words of the man who lead them to their permanent home.

Have you ever noticed we pay more attention to someone’s farewell speech than most anything else they say? I had a coach who once told me, “Alex, it is not about how you enter a role that matters; it is about how you leave it”. Think about some of the famous farewell comments through history:

• Napoleon – “Do not regret my fate; if I have consented to survive, it is to serve your glory”
• Edward VIII – “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility without the help and support of the woman I love”
• Lou Gehrig – “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth”
• LBJ – “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as President”
• Douglas MacArthur - “I came through, and I shall return”
• George Washington – “Observe good faith and justice towards all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all”

When it comes time to give a farewell address people become thoughtful and selective with their words. Whether passing on an idea, encouragement, closure, a lesson or a directive, a farewell message speaks loudly about the person’s deepest character and passion.

So what did Joshua tell the people that were gathered to listen to his final lesson? What did they hear as they leaned into his farewell address? "Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written…without turning aside to the right or to the left”

The last lesson of Joshua directs us toward strength, obedience and determination. Strength observed as moral power, firmness, or courage. Obedience defined as subjection to rightful restraint or control. Determination described as the quality of being resolute; firmness of purpose.

At the end of his life, in his farewell address, Joshua gives us one last great lesson. When we lead, it is not our words that matter. It is our actions that should demonstrate strength, obedience and determination.

Joshua's lessons on leadership - Leaders Eat Last

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, I discussed the reality that “Results Matter”.  In this post, Joshua reminds us “Leaders Eat Last”.

The setting for this lesson comes after Joshua has led Israel through many victories.  Tradition has it that he is close to 100 years old when he completes the battles that returned a people group to a land they had left 400 years earlier.  By this time Joshua had rolled up a pretty good record, 31& 0, decent results for a wandering people who had just crossed the Jordan.  Although Joshua did not obtain a total victory over the territory (he did not defeat the Philistines and others inhabiting the seacoast, and he did not capture the northern lands between Mt. Hermon and the Euphrates River, which would not be totally captured for another 300 years) he completed enough to shift from warrior to administrator.

After the victories, Joshua led an effort to divide the land between the various tribes that had wandered with Moses and fought with Joshua.  We read that, “Joshua took the entire land and he gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal divisions. Then the land had rest from war”.  It is in the act of dividing the land that Joshua sets an expectation of leadership.  After all of the land had been divided, we find out that “when they had finished dividing the land into its allotted portions, the Israelites gave Joshua son of Nun an inheritance.  They gave him the town he asked for - Timnath Serah in the hill country of Ephraim. And he built up the town and settled there”.

Let me get this straight; Joshua leads an army in a multi-year battle with 31 different kings, gives all the land away and then merely asks for a city to live in?  Was Joshua a Marine?  Forgive a little literary license.  I know Joshua was not a Marine, but I can see the Marine code in the way that Joshua led.  The code includes, in order: 

1. Accomplish the mission
2. Look after the welfare of your people
3. Look after your own needs 

With this code in mind, Marines take care of Marines first. This is where one of the more well known aspects of the Marines gets its’ origin…when Marines eat, the lowest ranking eat first, the highest ranking eat last.  It is an action observable by all, which occurs each day and is a visible sign of the culture of the organization. 

I just finished reading a book I highly recommend called “The Unforgiving Minute” by Craig Mullaney.  Craig grew up in a blue-collar, Irish-Catholic family and went to the U.S. Military Academy.  He graduated West Point in 2000 and was commissioned in the United States Army. After completing Ranger School, Craig continued to the University of Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. In 2003, Craig led an infantry rifle platoon along the hostile border between Afghanistan and Pakistan with the 10th Mountain Division as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. 

Here is what General David Petraeus said about Craig’s book, “The Unforgiving Minute is a wonderful, beautifully written story of the education and development of a young soldier-scholar, the coming of age of an infantry officer, and the exercise of a small unit leader's responsibilities in a tough, complex, and frustrating situation in Afghanistan. It captures particularly eloquently and movingly the relationships among those who walk point for our nation as part of that most elite of fraternities, the brotherhood of the close fight.” 

What does the Unforgiving Minute have to do with Joshua?  During Ranger training Craig writes, “There is a chain of command, but there also is a chain of influence…I had to lead by example.  If I wanted them to march faster, I had to march twice as fast with a smile on my face.  If I wanted them to extend their threshold of pain, I had to push myself even harder and under no circumstance could I afford to whine.  The only way to gain my squad’s loyalty was to show loyalty to them.  I served them, not the other way around.” 

At one point Craig is standing on Omaha beach in Normandy with a Lieutenant Colonel who is a combat veteran and a Ranger.  Craig asks the Colonel, “How do you know you’ll handle combat?”  The Colonel replies, “You don’t, you’ll never know until you are there.  What you will know for certain is that it will be chaotic and loud, and you’ll be ready to piss in your own boots.  You’ll be more scared of letting your men down than anything the enemy is going to do to you.  And then you’ll lead from instinct and judgment.  That is the price of a salute” 

The price of a salute.  Leaders are human, there is a tendency at least for me to say in my mind, “I have done this for 25 years, I deserve a little (fill in the blank – glory, luxury, rest, stuff, nice hotel room, bigger seat on the airplane).”  Basically saying, “What are the rewards of a salute?”  Joshua divides the land and gives it away first.  He gets his inheritance after the people he has led.  Joshua reminds us to eat last.  To show others through action the level at which you care about their welfare. To serve and not to take.  To wake up in the morning and think,"What will I do for my team today?" not "What will my team do for me today?"

The price of a salute? Eat last.

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?