Exodus chapter 10
Today we are walking in: The Most Powerful Force
Today we look to the word-LEADER- H5057 nagiyd-- leader, ruler, captain, prince; excellent thing, (chief) governor, leader, noble, prince, (chief) ruler.
The Torah Testifies.............................
*****
The prophets proclaim...............
Isaiah 55:4 - Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader H5057 and commander to the people.
The writings bear witness.............
2Chronicles 32:21 - And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders H5057 and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword
The Most Powerful Force
Character is the most powerful force a leader can possess because it protects his life, his leadership, and his legacy—it manifests who he is and shapes
who he will become. Without character, every other aspect of leadership is at risk. Let’s look at some of the ways that character protects and preserves one’s leadership.
Character Protects a Leader’s Inner Life
Character establishes a leader’s integrity and enables his growth as a person of ethics and values. Leadership training and development must start with the inner life of the leader before it can move on to the principles and process of leadership.
Having character will not prevent you from experiencing various struggles and setbacks in life—all leaders have those. But for long-term personal and professional success—and for the ultimate summation of your life— maintaining character is indispensable.
“Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
Character Extends the Longevity of Leadership
As we have seen, leaders across the globe—in all levels and arenas of society—are being removed from their leadership roles and positions due to ethical violations and moral concerns. Their downfalls have cut short their leadership, causing them to lose their ability to exercise their innate gifts, through which they were meant to fulfill their purpose and vision in life.
A point that we will return to as we explore the nature of character is that leadership is a privilege given by the followers. When a leader violates moral standards, he forfeits the privilege to use his gift in the service of the followers who gave it. Leaders don’t have a “right” to be followed. The privilege of leadership is one that leaders must protect through their character and the trust it evokes. Only the power of genuine character can restore the faith in leadership and authority that many people lack today.
I have watched many highly gifted leaders who have manifested a character failure act as if they had done nothing wrong. Believing they could cruise along on their gifts alone, they didn’t understand that they had forfeited the opportunity to continue serving their talents and abilities to the world—at least until they had effectively addressed their character defects. Leaders who have fallen need to stop and correct their ethical issues first. Then, they can begin to earn others’ trust again, and, hopefully, move forward in genuine leadership.
Businessman Elmer G. Leterman wrote, “Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.” Your character—not your gift—is the fuel of your leadership. Your gift is validated by your character. So, when your character isn’t maintained and starts to “leak,” your gift loses the ethical power that propels it.
A leader’s gift is only as safe as the character that contains it.
So, while leaders have many opportunities to use their gifts and skills, it is character that ultimately determines the length and effectiveness of their leadership. Years ago, one of my mentors told me, “Whatever you compromise to gain, you will lose.” Many people have sacrificed a great future on the altar of compromise. They have taken their potential to impact the world and thrown it away for momentary pleasure or monetary gain.
Jesse Jackson Jr., a former U.S. Congressman and the son of the civil rights leader, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for using campaign funds to make more than 3,000 personal purchases over a period of seven years, totaling approximately $750,000.4 The prosecutor for the case commented, “Jackson’s political potential was unlimited.... He squandered his great capacity for public service through outright theft.”5
The consequences of lost leadership affect not only individuals but also corporate entities. Energy company Enron went bankrupt and had to sell off all its assets after some of its executives used fraudulent accounting practices to hide its debt. The actions of those executives helped to crack the foundation of the whole company, and their own contributions as leaders were cut short.
Accordingly, leaders must become aware of an often-overlooked, but very real, threat to their leadership longevity: success. Don’t expect your success to carry you in life. Rather, let your success be carried by your character. Many people cannot handle achievement well because the accompanying responsibility, rewards, and stakes weigh too heavily on them. People can fall into all kinds of moral and ethical problems when they are successful because they suddenly feel all-powerful and unrestrained. They don’t realize that they are setting themselves up for a disastrous fall.
People become leaders when they make the decision not to sacrifice their principles on the altar of convenience or compromise.
The great leader Jesus of Nazareth said, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”6 In effect, a person can “gain the world” through the power and riches associated with his leadership but, at the same time, forfeit his soul—the very core of his being—by ignoring or betraying his own character. In doing so, he can lose his leadership impact and longevity—not to mention the reason for his very existence. That is a tragic waste of his leadership and his life.
The only way to protect what you hope to accomplish as a leader, and what you have already accomplished, is to develop and maintain strong personal character.
Character Preserves a Leader’s Cause and Legacy
As we have noted, a leader’s failure can damage the reputation of the government, company, organization, or associates with which he is connected. This truth illustrates another foundational principle that we will explore more fully later on: A leader’s values are personal—but they are never private.
Some years ago, when United Way chairman William Aramony was sentenced to prison for embezzling the organization’s funds, the news of his actions damaged the charity’s reputation. When a scandal occurs within an organization, that organization has to rebuild its reputation and earn the public’s trust all over again. The United Way board took immediate action to restore the faith of its donors by hiring as their interim chairman a businessman who was known for his integrity.
A leader’s values are personal—but they are never private.
Some leaders fall dramatically and publicly, destroying their legacies in an instant. Other leaders unravel their legacies over a long, slow moral descent that eventually ruins their lives. When the longevity of an individual’s leadership is cut short by a character issue, he is often unable to leave the legacy that he was meant to give to his generation. He has to forfeit his vision —or, if not his vision itself, then his own participation in that vision.
Shortly after Lance Armstrong stepped down as chairman of his charity due to doping charges, the charity—which helps those who are dealing with cancer—changed its name from the Lance Armstrong Foundation to the LIVESTRONG Foundation. Former Executive Vice President of Operations Andy Miller said, “We set about charting an independent course forward.”7 Ironically, the name of the charity’s founder and former leader had to be
removed to help safeguard its future.
No matter how much good a person may have done, his contributions can be overshadowed by even one questionable act. For two hundred years, Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and vice president of the United States, has been more widely remembered for the term that was coined based on his single act of political maneuvering than for any other part of his time in public service: gerrymandering.
Hitendra Wadhwa, a professor at Columbia Business School, wrote about one of the characteristics that made Martin Luther King Jr. a great leader and helped to preserve his purpose, message, and legacy. It was his commitment to control his anger at the injustices and insults that were continually hurled against him, and to channel that anger toward constructive purposes. “King had reason enough to be provoked, time and again. He was physically threatened and attacked by bigoted people, repeatedly jailed by state authorities (sometimes on trivial traffic violations), harassed by the FBI and even vilified by fellow black leaders who preferred more aggressive forms of resistance.”
Wadhwa then quoted from King’s autobiography, in which the civil rights leader recorded how he admonished himself, “You must not harbor anger.... You must be willing to suffer the anger of the opponent, and yet not return anger. You must not become bitter.” The professor concluded: “Only by taming his own anger did King earn the right to become a messenger of peaceful struggle to the people of the nation.”8
When we intentionally develop our character, we strengthen our frailties, tame our vices, and prepare ourselves to fulfill our personal leadership role.
Character Prevents a Leader from Hurting Those Around Him
A leader’s fall can deeply hurt those close to him and others who have put their trust in him. It can destroy not only his life but also the lives of his victims, the families of his victims, his own family members, his associates, and his associates’ families. Returning to the example of Bernie Madoff, the businessman’s investors were afflicted with shock, anger, and economic devastation due to his Ponzi scam, as many of them lost much or all of their life savings.
Moreover, not one member of Madoff’s family was present in the courtroom to support him when he was sentenced to the longest prison term for fraud ever given.9 Either he had alienated them by his deception, or they were afraid to be seen with him.
In addition, tragedy has stricken the former tycoon’s family. His older son, Mark, committed suicide on the two-year anniversary of his father’s arrest.10 His younger son, Andrew, is currently fighting stage IV cancer of the blood. He had been in remission from the disease, but he feels that “the stress and shame that he dealt with after hearing about his father’s...Ponzi scheme caused his cancer to surface again.” He declared, “Even on my deathbed I will never forgive him for what he did.”11 Once more, our personal behavior often has consequences for others. We can jeopardize their futures, as well as our own.
The only way to stay focused on your vision and keep moving forward in the midst of the inevitable stress, criticism, attacks, temptations, and setbacks that come with leadership is to develop personal character. The only way to contribute meaningfully to your generation is to maintain character.
What do you want to achieve? What do you want to contribute to the world? Character will pave the way to its fulfillment and also protect it.
No Substitute
We are living in difficult social and economic times when we must refocus on the priority of character—because character is the foundation for all aspects of effective leadership.
Authority, gifts, skill, knowledge, experience, expertise, and so forth are integral elements of leadership, but they can never substitute for character. Unless we want to see the conditions of our world grow increasingly worse, and unless we disregard the lives and legacies of our leaders—and that includes us—we can’t move into the future with the same methods and values of leadership that we’re employing today. The public has been learning bad habits from its leaders. We must have a course correction—and it must start with each one of us.
Character is the foundation for all aspects of effective leadership.
We face a great “war” today: the struggle between character and compromise. I believe character will ultimately win, as more and more leaders commit to becoming ethically conscious and principled, because true character rests on a strong foundation that has the power to defeat compromise.
All leaders should be encouraged to value integrity so that they will not turn away from their ethical standards and thereby sacrifice the great potential they possess. Those in high office and in other visible positions must take this truth especially to heart. Engineers know that the taller the building, the deeper the foundation must be. Similarly, the more exposure a leader has to the public—the more fame he acquires, the more influence he exerts—the more vigilant he must be to maintain deep, well-established character.
Your Leadership Rests on Your Character
Despite current trends, it is possible for leaders to have character in the twenty-first century. We have many examples of people from former times who faced similar challenges with conviction and who can inspire and encourage us. Think of Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks became a leader simply by insisting on being treated equally when she rode the city bus. She refused to sacrifice her principles on the altar of convenience or compromise.
No matter in what domain you are a leader—financial, political, educational, religious, medical, corporate, scientific, artistic, and so forth—your leadership rests on your character. In The Power of Character in Leadership, we will explore...
What character, or moral force, is, and how to develop it.
How your beliefs shape your values, morals, ethics, and principles.
How to build your leadership so that it is both effective and enduring.
How to develop specific qualities of principled leaders.
How to be restored after a failure in character.
You will be challenged to assess the strength of your current beliefs and values, and to make a new or renewed personal commitment to ethical leadership. This will necessitate making changes in your life. Yet change is the best thing that can happen to us when we take what is weak and make it strong, and when we take something good and make it even better.
Character matters to you because...
1. It establishes and strengthens your inner life, so
that you are a person of integrity and honor.
2. It enables you to effectively fulfill your purpose and potential.
3. It protects your leadership and your vision— preventing you from canceling them prematurely, and enabling you to leave a legacy for your own generation and future generations.
Character matters to the world because...
1. It is the key to inspirational leadership. People
need the encouragement and influence of genuine leaders if they are to fulfill their own purposes and live peaceful, productive lives.
2. It safeguards the well-being of those who are under the authority of leaders or are otherwise affected by leaders’ actions and influence.
3. It enables leaders to build and maintain healthy communities while addressing critical problems with ethics and integrity.
Your family, community, and nation need you to be a leader of principle. Guard your character, prizing it as “better than silver or gold.” Learn the theories and practical skills of leadership, but first establish values and ethics that will free you from moral hindrances and empower you to carry out your singular purpose in life.
The Divine destiny connection, the chain that links us together.
Friday, November 29, 2024
Thursday, November 28, 2024
CHARACTER MATTERS
Proverbs chapter 22
Today we are walking in: Character Matters
Today we look to the word-LEADER- H5057 nagiyd-- leader, ruler, captain, prince; excellent thing, (chief) governor, leader, noble, prince, (chief) ruler.
The Torah Testifies.............................
*****
The prophets proclaim...............
Isaiah 55:4 - Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader H5057 and commander to the people.
The writings bear witness.............
2Chronicles 32:21 - And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders H5057 and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword
CHAPTER 1
Character Matters
“A man’s character is his fate.” —Heraclitus, Greek philosopher
On the day that former business magnate Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for his massive Ponzi scheme—which cost his clients billions of dollars—the judge made some striking comments about Madoff’s life and leadership:
In terms of mitigating factors in a white-collar fraud case such as this, I would expect to see letters from family and friends and colleagues. But not a single letter has been submitted attesting to Mr. Madoff’s good deeds or good character or civic or charitable activities. The absence of such support is telling.1
Remarkably—and significantly—not one friend, family member, neighbor, colleague, or acquaintance came forward to offer a positive statement about Madoff’s character or deeds. Such a statement might have helped to commute his sentence, allowing him the possibility of being released on bail some time before the end of his life.
“Better than Gold”
An ancient proverb declares, “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.”2 Many fallen leaders could affirm the truth of this proverb. While some have fallen from higher and more public places than others, they have all suffered losses. These losses were avoidable, but they came about because the leaders lacked “a good name,” or integrity.
Starting Strong Then Self-destructing
I have been training leaders for more than thirty years, in more than seventy nations. It has been a true joy to see men and women throughout the world discover who they were born to be, and subsequently make an impact on their homes, communities, businesses, and nations through their personal leadership.
There’s nothing I want more than for leaders to be successful—fulfilling their purpose and vision in life. Specifically, I want you, as a leader, to succeed.
Yet I have observed a troubling development in our world. Too many leaders start strong but then fail or self-destruct because of defects in their moral compass. As a result, they lose much—or all—they have worked for. They nullify their potential, so that they are unable to make future contributions to their generation. And every leader’s contribution is needed today as we face a myriad of complicated issues and crises across the globe that need the influence of strong leadership. This is a critical time in our world when the future of leadership is at stake.
The Greatest Obstacle to Leadership Success
As a leadership consultant, I have witnessed the frustrations of national leaders and their cabinet ministers as they have tried to deal with the complex political, economic, and social challenges confronting their nations. I have worked with corporate executives who were determined to discover a more principled and effective leadership approach for themselves and their staff members. I have observed the string of fallen leaders in a variety of fields whose ethical failings have been shouted to the world almost daily via news headlines and talk show programs.
Everywhere, people are struggling with the idea of what it means to be a leader and on what foundation they can build true leadership.
This is a critical time in our world when the future of leadership is at stake.
Certainly, there are times when a leader fails because his knowledge and skills aren’t right for the particular business, organization, or government for which he works. Or, the timing may not be right for him—perhaps he was promoted too soon and isn’t able to handle the responsibility. It could be that his lack of training in the essential principles of leadership keeps him from pursuing his purpose and potential, or from recognizing the right time to move to the next level of leadership. In such cases, the person’s position is not one that can—or should—be preserved. He needs to step back and reevaluate his true place as a leader.
Yet I have concluded that the greatest obstacle to a leader’s success is a deficit of character. If I could teach a leader one thing that I believe would preserve his leadership, and even his very life, it would be the priority of character—internal values and principles that one is committed to and that manifest in one’s life as ethical conduct.
What Kind of Character?
Throughout this series, we will be examining various definitions of character so that we may have a full picture of its meanings and applications. We’ll begin with one of the most universal. Character is:
• the complex of mental and ethical traits marking and often individualizing a person, group, or nation.
In the sense of this definition, everyone has “character.” We are each identified by the sum of our mental and ethical traits.
But the question we are asking is this: As we exercise leadership, of what kind, or quality, are our mental and ethical traits? Are they positive or negative? Do they build up or tear down? As we talk about character, therefore, we will focus on what it means to develop and manifest honorable principles and ethics that will distinguish our lives.
In the world of leadership training, there is an abundance of seminars and workshops that offer instruction on the leader’s purpose, vision, and passion. There are also many academic courses available on leadership principles, business management, team building, and so forth. While important, they focus mainly on the mechanics of leadership.
How many courses or training sessions do you see offered on the topic of character formation and the establishment of strong values? On how to live according to one’s conscience, not compromising one’s standards? Not many. This vital aspect of leadership is being overlooked—to our own detriment.
Moral deficits frequently lead people to negative or ruinous consequences— such as missing out on promotions and advancements, being fired from their jobs, losing their life savings, betraying their families, surrendering their lifelong dreams, and going to prison. A leader must know how to establish a solid foundation for living that will sustain him and keep him on the right path in times of uncertainty, temptation, and crisis.
“Convicted” for Good Character
The judge’s comments about Bernie Madoff’s character lead us to ask ourselves some probing questions about our own lives:
If my family, friends, and colleagues were asked to give a statement under oath in court about the strength of my character, what would they say? Would they be able to talk about my good values and the positive contributions I have made to society?
Changing the analogy around, would their testimony be strong enough to “convict” me for my good character? If so, would their assessment be true in light of what I know about myself?
How much importance have I placed on having a good name—and the character to back it up?
What difference would it make to my family, my business, or my organization for me to be acknowledged as a person of genuine integrity?
Am I living ethically in all areas of my life—such as the ways I work with others, meet my responsibilities, and treat others in the world?
Your Personal Security System
Good character is like a personal security system for your life. Many people install security devices in their homes and places of business to protect them from outside forces—such as thieves who would steal from them and intruders who would do harm to their family members or employees.
Suppose a would-be thief tried to open a window of a home that was electronically “armed” by the security system. An alarm would sound, exposing the intruder, with the goal of scaring him off, while alerting the security company. Or, what if a trespasser managed to sneak into an office building during working hours and lie low until everyone had left for the day? If the security system has been installed properly, the moment he came out of hiding to steal or ransack, the system would detect his movement and set off a signal, alerting security and/or law enforcement officials to his presence.
Good character, or moral force, is like a personal security system for your life.
We can “install” character in our lives so that it will work like those security systems. We do this by developing values and establishing a code of ethics that will alert us to, and protect us from, the negative effects of various outside influences—such as life’s pressures, difficulties, and temptations. These negative influences can threaten our leadership by invading our lives and stealing our willpower, common sense, and better judgment. Values and ethics also safeguard us from internal “intruders”—our own human frailties that cause us to rationalize immoral behavior and take ethical shortcuts.
True leadership has always been built on strong character. That is why we need a new respect for this essential leadership quality. Not only that, but we must immediately begin to promote its restoration. Many leaders today are attempting, unsuccessfully, to separate the ethics of their personal lives from the responsibilities of their public lives. That approach might seem legitimate on face value. Yet below the surface is this crucial reality: Leadership is not just a role one plays; it is a life one leads.
A Foundation of Character
Some people have a cavalier attitude toward ethics and morals—aware of them but essentially disregarding them. However, other people have never really been trained in the principles of character, so they make unwise decisions that lead to their downfall. We can all think of people who were admirable in many ways but fell because they lacked the discretion or discipline that comes from cultivating good character. For example, they may have started associating with “friends” who weren’t looking out for their welfare and drew them into illegal activity. Or, they may have begun experimenting with drugs or alcohol because it seemed “fun” or provided a release from life’s pressures, only to fall into the snare of addiction.
A failure in character can happen to anyone, in any vocation or stratum of life. For example, there was the case of two elementary school cafeteria workers from Pennsylvania who were described as “sweet, hard working lunch ladies” but who stole more than ninety thousand dollars of lunch money over a period of eight years to feed their gambling addictions.3 Similar stories have unfolded in communities across the globe.
I recognize that addictions to gambling or to alcohol, drugs, or other substances can be the result of physical predispositions or deep emotional issues. These often require the assistance of a professional counselor. Yet character training is an essential part of the healing process in these cases. As we will see, the development of character in an individual begins with the realization of his value as a human being and an understanding of what he was born to accomplish. With that awareness, he can gain a new sense of self-worth, internal strength, and hope for the future.
No matter what type of leader you are or how widespread your influence, you face personal temptations, challenges, and stresses. And only a foundation of character will sustain you and your leadership.
Leadership is not just a role one plays; it is a life one leads.
“Easier Kept than Recovered”
Thomas Paine wrote, “Character is much easier kept than recovered.” Character is like preventive medicine—it keeps you morally healthy so that you won’t develop maladies as a result of ethical flaws. One of the most serious of these disorders is untrustworthiness. Once you lose the trust of your family, your friends, or your colleagues, it is very difficult to win it back.
Imagine you owned a business and had been using a particular supplier for many years. Then, the supplier was exposed as having been repeatedly dishonest in his billing practices. Assuming he wasn’t put in jail, would you continue to do business with him?
Or, suppose you had supported a particular politician but found out that he had been taking bribes for years, living a lavish lifestyle. Would you continue to support him?
Chances are, no.
We can easily understand why leaders who have ethical defects lose the trust of their followers, because we have all experienced some type of betrayal, as well as the pain and anger it generates. Perhaps you have been overcharged for repair services, had your house broken into and robbed, been blindsided by the unfaithfulness of a spouse, or had a colleague gossip about confidential information you shared. You understand what it means to be a victim of someone who is operating with a character deficit. As leaders, we must ask ourselves, “Am I, in any way, violating the trust of those who have placed their faith in me? What impact am I having on those who are influenced or affected by my behavior?”
Once you lose the trust of others, it is very difficult to win it back.
The Courage to Identify and Root Out Weaknesses
It is not just the Bernie Madoffs of this world who have character flaws. And it is not only “big” ethical issues like fraud and infidelity that erode our integrity, injure our credibility, and wrong others, damaging the quality of our leadership. Character has many practical, everyday implications.
For example, how would you rate your consistency? If you are always delinquent in paying your bills due to carelessness, it can, among other things, affect your credit standing and that of your family or business. One result is that you could miss out on opportunities to acquire loans to expand your company, thereby limiting the growth of your business. In a similar way, if you are regularly late for appointments and meetings, you can erode others’ confidence in you and prompt them to decline future collaborations that would have been advantageous for you.
Or, could a lack of self-discipline be undermining your strengths? For instance, do negative emotions such as anger control you? If you hold on to grudges, you may lose out on beneficial relationships, as well as sacrifice your own peace of mind as you waste unnecessary energy dwelling on bitter thoughts. Or, if you allow yourself to abuse alcohol or drugs, you will not only do harm to your health but also put yourself at serious risk of losing the respect of people you value and who can support your leadership (not to mention the ramifications of any legal violations).
All of our negative attitudes and careless behaviors weaken our leadership. The effects of our unaddressed character flaws inevitably cause us damage. Whenever we fail to pay attention to issues of character, we will experience some kind of loss.
The fallen leaders whom we know personally or read about in the headlines are warnings to us. We must recognize that every decision we make adds a sentence to our life story. Will the complete story of your life and leadership add up to something positive and honorable? There is only one way to ensure this outcome—through the intentional development of character.
A leader who desires to be strong and effective will summon the courage to identify and root out his weaknesses.
Most people have certain positive character traits and certain negative character traits. Picture a continuum where some people have moved toward the positive side of character, while some have moved toward the negative side. Where are you on that measure? Are you on the positive side, with conviction and integrity—or on the negative side, with duplicity and moral compromise? Your answer will require some introspection, including an examination of your personal motives. It is easy for us to overlook areas of ethical weakness in our lives, and to remain unaware of how these weaknesses affect the quality of our leadership.
A leader who desires to be strong and effective will summon the courage to identify and root out his weaknesses, preventing them from growing into larger, more damaging issues.
The Priority of Character
There are many components to leadership, but I consider the following three areas to be indispensable: (1) purpose and vision; (2) potential and ability; and (3) values, ethics, and principles. Of these three areas, the most important is the third, because values, ethics, and principles protect a leader’s purpose from being sidelined or destroyed.
Purpose and vision show a leader what direction he is meant to go in life. All leaders live by a sense of meaning. They believe they are here on earth to do something important for humanity. The knowledge of their purpose is a catalyst, giving them internal motivation.
Potential is a leader’s innate gifts and qualities, while ability includes all the skills, expertise, education, knowledge, wisdom, and insights a leader has developed and acquired, as well as all the other resources at his disposal that will enable him to accomplish his purpose. Leaders must believe in their own capacity to fulfill the vision that resides in their mind and heart.
Values, ethics, and principles relate to a leader’s character. They are the standards that a leader establishes for himself—and lives according to—in the process of exercising his potential and ability for the accomplishment of his vision. Consequently, the leader has a sense of responsibility toward himself and others.
“The price of greatness is responsibility.” —Winston Churchill
Let’s shorten the titles of these three components of leadership and simply refer to them as purpose, potential, and principles. Many leaders do not see principles as being more important than—or even equally as important as— the other two areas. Yet purpose, potential, and principles must all be in balance for leadership to work—they are a trinity of leadership success.
To sum up, leaders need (1) a guiding purpose that generates a passion to accomplish a vision; (2) a recognition of their innate gifts and a commitment to develop them, as well as to gather available resources; and (3) the formulation of values, ethics, and principles that order their conduct and guide the process by which they exercise their leadership. Purpose and potential are never more important than principles, because a lack of principles can nullify them.
Today we are walking in: Character Matters
Today we look to the word-LEADER- H5057 nagiyd-- leader, ruler, captain, prince; excellent thing, (chief) governor, leader, noble, prince, (chief) ruler.
The Torah Testifies.............................
*****
The prophets proclaim...............
Isaiah 55:4 - Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader H5057 and commander to the people.
The writings bear witness.............
2Chronicles 32:21 - And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders H5057 and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword
CHAPTER 1
Character Matters
“A man’s character is his fate.” —Heraclitus, Greek philosopher
On the day that former business magnate Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for his massive Ponzi scheme—which cost his clients billions of dollars—the judge made some striking comments about Madoff’s life and leadership:
In terms of mitigating factors in a white-collar fraud case such as this, I would expect to see letters from family and friends and colleagues. But not a single letter has been submitted attesting to Mr. Madoff’s good deeds or good character or civic or charitable activities. The absence of such support is telling.1
Remarkably—and significantly—not one friend, family member, neighbor, colleague, or acquaintance came forward to offer a positive statement about Madoff’s character or deeds. Such a statement might have helped to commute his sentence, allowing him the possibility of being released on bail some time before the end of his life.
“Better than Gold”
An ancient proverb declares, “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.”2 Many fallen leaders could affirm the truth of this proverb. While some have fallen from higher and more public places than others, they have all suffered losses. These losses were avoidable, but they came about because the leaders lacked “a good name,” or integrity.
Starting Strong Then Self-destructing
I have been training leaders for more than thirty years, in more than seventy nations. It has been a true joy to see men and women throughout the world discover who they were born to be, and subsequently make an impact on their homes, communities, businesses, and nations through their personal leadership.
There’s nothing I want more than for leaders to be successful—fulfilling their purpose and vision in life. Specifically, I want you, as a leader, to succeed.
Yet I have observed a troubling development in our world. Too many leaders start strong but then fail or self-destruct because of defects in their moral compass. As a result, they lose much—or all—they have worked for. They nullify their potential, so that they are unable to make future contributions to their generation. And every leader’s contribution is needed today as we face a myriad of complicated issues and crises across the globe that need the influence of strong leadership. This is a critical time in our world when the future of leadership is at stake.
The Greatest Obstacle to Leadership Success
As a leadership consultant, I have witnessed the frustrations of national leaders and their cabinet ministers as they have tried to deal with the complex political, economic, and social challenges confronting their nations. I have worked with corporate executives who were determined to discover a more principled and effective leadership approach for themselves and their staff members. I have observed the string of fallen leaders in a variety of fields whose ethical failings have been shouted to the world almost daily via news headlines and talk show programs.
Everywhere, people are struggling with the idea of what it means to be a leader and on what foundation they can build true leadership.
This is a critical time in our world when the future of leadership is at stake.
Certainly, there are times when a leader fails because his knowledge and skills aren’t right for the particular business, organization, or government for which he works. Or, the timing may not be right for him—perhaps he was promoted too soon and isn’t able to handle the responsibility. It could be that his lack of training in the essential principles of leadership keeps him from pursuing his purpose and potential, or from recognizing the right time to move to the next level of leadership. In such cases, the person’s position is not one that can—or should—be preserved. He needs to step back and reevaluate his true place as a leader.
Yet I have concluded that the greatest obstacle to a leader’s success is a deficit of character. If I could teach a leader one thing that I believe would preserve his leadership, and even his very life, it would be the priority of character—internal values and principles that one is committed to and that manifest in one’s life as ethical conduct.
What Kind of Character?
Throughout this series, we will be examining various definitions of character so that we may have a full picture of its meanings and applications. We’ll begin with one of the most universal. Character is:
• the complex of mental and ethical traits marking and often individualizing a person, group, or nation.
In the sense of this definition, everyone has “character.” We are each identified by the sum of our mental and ethical traits.
But the question we are asking is this: As we exercise leadership, of what kind, or quality, are our mental and ethical traits? Are they positive or negative? Do they build up or tear down? As we talk about character, therefore, we will focus on what it means to develop and manifest honorable principles and ethics that will distinguish our lives.
In the world of leadership training, there is an abundance of seminars and workshops that offer instruction on the leader’s purpose, vision, and passion. There are also many academic courses available on leadership principles, business management, team building, and so forth. While important, they focus mainly on the mechanics of leadership.
How many courses or training sessions do you see offered on the topic of character formation and the establishment of strong values? On how to live according to one’s conscience, not compromising one’s standards? Not many. This vital aspect of leadership is being overlooked—to our own detriment.
Moral deficits frequently lead people to negative or ruinous consequences— such as missing out on promotions and advancements, being fired from their jobs, losing their life savings, betraying their families, surrendering their lifelong dreams, and going to prison. A leader must know how to establish a solid foundation for living that will sustain him and keep him on the right path in times of uncertainty, temptation, and crisis.
“Convicted” for Good Character
The judge’s comments about Bernie Madoff’s character lead us to ask ourselves some probing questions about our own lives:
If my family, friends, and colleagues were asked to give a statement under oath in court about the strength of my character, what would they say? Would they be able to talk about my good values and the positive contributions I have made to society?
Changing the analogy around, would their testimony be strong enough to “convict” me for my good character? If so, would their assessment be true in light of what I know about myself?
How much importance have I placed on having a good name—and the character to back it up?
What difference would it make to my family, my business, or my organization for me to be acknowledged as a person of genuine integrity?
Am I living ethically in all areas of my life—such as the ways I work with others, meet my responsibilities, and treat others in the world?
Your Personal Security System
Good character is like a personal security system for your life. Many people install security devices in their homes and places of business to protect them from outside forces—such as thieves who would steal from them and intruders who would do harm to their family members or employees.
Suppose a would-be thief tried to open a window of a home that was electronically “armed” by the security system. An alarm would sound, exposing the intruder, with the goal of scaring him off, while alerting the security company. Or, what if a trespasser managed to sneak into an office building during working hours and lie low until everyone had left for the day? If the security system has been installed properly, the moment he came out of hiding to steal or ransack, the system would detect his movement and set off a signal, alerting security and/or law enforcement officials to his presence.
Good character, or moral force, is like a personal security system for your life.
We can “install” character in our lives so that it will work like those security systems. We do this by developing values and establishing a code of ethics that will alert us to, and protect us from, the negative effects of various outside influences—such as life’s pressures, difficulties, and temptations. These negative influences can threaten our leadership by invading our lives and stealing our willpower, common sense, and better judgment. Values and ethics also safeguard us from internal “intruders”—our own human frailties that cause us to rationalize immoral behavior and take ethical shortcuts.
True leadership has always been built on strong character. That is why we need a new respect for this essential leadership quality. Not only that, but we must immediately begin to promote its restoration. Many leaders today are attempting, unsuccessfully, to separate the ethics of their personal lives from the responsibilities of their public lives. That approach might seem legitimate on face value. Yet below the surface is this crucial reality: Leadership is not just a role one plays; it is a life one leads.
A Foundation of Character
Some people have a cavalier attitude toward ethics and morals—aware of them but essentially disregarding them. However, other people have never really been trained in the principles of character, so they make unwise decisions that lead to their downfall. We can all think of people who were admirable in many ways but fell because they lacked the discretion or discipline that comes from cultivating good character. For example, they may have started associating with “friends” who weren’t looking out for their welfare and drew them into illegal activity. Or, they may have begun experimenting with drugs or alcohol because it seemed “fun” or provided a release from life’s pressures, only to fall into the snare of addiction.
A failure in character can happen to anyone, in any vocation or stratum of life. For example, there was the case of two elementary school cafeteria workers from Pennsylvania who were described as “sweet, hard working lunch ladies” but who stole more than ninety thousand dollars of lunch money over a period of eight years to feed their gambling addictions.3 Similar stories have unfolded in communities across the globe.
I recognize that addictions to gambling or to alcohol, drugs, or other substances can be the result of physical predispositions or deep emotional issues. These often require the assistance of a professional counselor. Yet character training is an essential part of the healing process in these cases. As we will see, the development of character in an individual begins with the realization of his value as a human being and an understanding of what he was born to accomplish. With that awareness, he can gain a new sense of self-worth, internal strength, and hope for the future.
No matter what type of leader you are or how widespread your influence, you face personal temptations, challenges, and stresses. And only a foundation of character will sustain you and your leadership.
Leadership is not just a role one plays; it is a life one leads.
“Easier Kept than Recovered”
Thomas Paine wrote, “Character is much easier kept than recovered.” Character is like preventive medicine—it keeps you morally healthy so that you won’t develop maladies as a result of ethical flaws. One of the most serious of these disorders is untrustworthiness. Once you lose the trust of your family, your friends, or your colleagues, it is very difficult to win it back.
Imagine you owned a business and had been using a particular supplier for many years. Then, the supplier was exposed as having been repeatedly dishonest in his billing practices. Assuming he wasn’t put in jail, would you continue to do business with him?
Or, suppose you had supported a particular politician but found out that he had been taking bribes for years, living a lavish lifestyle. Would you continue to support him?
Chances are, no.
We can easily understand why leaders who have ethical defects lose the trust of their followers, because we have all experienced some type of betrayal, as well as the pain and anger it generates. Perhaps you have been overcharged for repair services, had your house broken into and robbed, been blindsided by the unfaithfulness of a spouse, or had a colleague gossip about confidential information you shared. You understand what it means to be a victim of someone who is operating with a character deficit. As leaders, we must ask ourselves, “Am I, in any way, violating the trust of those who have placed their faith in me? What impact am I having on those who are influenced or affected by my behavior?”
Once you lose the trust of others, it is very difficult to win it back.
The Courage to Identify and Root Out Weaknesses
It is not just the Bernie Madoffs of this world who have character flaws. And it is not only “big” ethical issues like fraud and infidelity that erode our integrity, injure our credibility, and wrong others, damaging the quality of our leadership. Character has many practical, everyday implications.
For example, how would you rate your consistency? If you are always delinquent in paying your bills due to carelessness, it can, among other things, affect your credit standing and that of your family or business. One result is that you could miss out on opportunities to acquire loans to expand your company, thereby limiting the growth of your business. In a similar way, if you are regularly late for appointments and meetings, you can erode others’ confidence in you and prompt them to decline future collaborations that would have been advantageous for you.
Or, could a lack of self-discipline be undermining your strengths? For instance, do negative emotions such as anger control you? If you hold on to grudges, you may lose out on beneficial relationships, as well as sacrifice your own peace of mind as you waste unnecessary energy dwelling on bitter thoughts. Or, if you allow yourself to abuse alcohol or drugs, you will not only do harm to your health but also put yourself at serious risk of losing the respect of people you value and who can support your leadership (not to mention the ramifications of any legal violations).
All of our negative attitudes and careless behaviors weaken our leadership. The effects of our unaddressed character flaws inevitably cause us damage. Whenever we fail to pay attention to issues of character, we will experience some kind of loss.
The fallen leaders whom we know personally or read about in the headlines are warnings to us. We must recognize that every decision we make adds a sentence to our life story. Will the complete story of your life and leadership add up to something positive and honorable? There is only one way to ensure this outcome—through the intentional development of character.
A leader who desires to be strong and effective will summon the courage to identify and root out his weaknesses.
Most people have certain positive character traits and certain negative character traits. Picture a continuum where some people have moved toward the positive side of character, while some have moved toward the negative side. Where are you on that measure? Are you on the positive side, with conviction and integrity—or on the negative side, with duplicity and moral compromise? Your answer will require some introspection, including an examination of your personal motives. It is easy for us to overlook areas of ethical weakness in our lives, and to remain unaware of how these weaknesses affect the quality of our leadership.
A leader who desires to be strong and effective will summon the courage to identify and root out his weaknesses, preventing them from growing into larger, more damaging issues.
The Priority of Character
There are many components to leadership, but I consider the following three areas to be indispensable: (1) purpose and vision; (2) potential and ability; and (3) values, ethics, and principles. Of these three areas, the most important is the third, because values, ethics, and principles protect a leader’s purpose from being sidelined or destroyed.
Purpose and vision show a leader what direction he is meant to go in life. All leaders live by a sense of meaning. They believe they are here on earth to do something important for humanity. The knowledge of their purpose is a catalyst, giving them internal motivation.
Potential is a leader’s innate gifts and qualities, while ability includes all the skills, expertise, education, knowledge, wisdom, and insights a leader has developed and acquired, as well as all the other resources at his disposal that will enable him to accomplish his purpose. Leaders must believe in their own capacity to fulfill the vision that resides in their mind and heart.
Values, ethics, and principles relate to a leader’s character. They are the standards that a leader establishes for himself—and lives according to—in the process of exercising his potential and ability for the accomplishment of his vision. Consequently, the leader has a sense of responsibility toward himself and others.
“The price of greatness is responsibility.” —Winston Churchill
Let’s shorten the titles of these three components of leadership and simply refer to them as purpose, potential, and principles. Many leaders do not see principles as being more important than—or even equally as important as— the other two areas. Yet purpose, potential, and principles must all be in balance for leadership to work—they are a trinity of leadership success.
To sum up, leaders need (1) a guiding purpose that generates a passion to accomplish a vision; (2) a recognition of their innate gifts and a commitment to develop them, as well as to gather available resources; and (3) the formulation of values, ethics, and principles that order their conduct and guide the process by which they exercise their leadership. Purpose and potential are never more important than principles, because a lack of principles can nullify them.
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
INTRODUCTION: CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP AND THE CRISIS OF CHARACTER
Genesis chapter 1
Today we are walking in: Contemporary Leadership and the Crisis of Character
Today we look to the word-LEADER- H5057 nagiyd-- leader, ruler, captain, prince; excellent thing, (chief) governor, leader, noble, prince, (chief) ruler.
The Torah Testifies.............................
*****
The prophets proclaim...............
Isaiah 55:4 - Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader H5057 and commander to the people.
The writings bear witness.............
2Chronicles 32:21 - And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders H5057 and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword
Introduction
Contemporary Leadership and the Crisis of Character
“Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in public and private life have been the consequences of action without thought.”
—Bernard Baruch, businessman and advisor to U.S. presidents
In the dynamic drama of contemporary leadership playing on the world stage today, there are many “characters” who lack character. Moreover, the trail of history is littered with many would-be great men and women who harnessed the reins of power in various fields—political, social, economic, corporate, athletic, spiritual, and more. They wielded great influence and/or control over the lives of others; many felt the weight of material wealth and fame—only to have it all disintegrate and blow away like dust in the wind because of their tragic deficiencies of character.
A lack of strong leadership has made a mess of our world. Every country on earth is challenged by an absence of resolute leadership as it struggles under precarious times. Politically, economically, and socially, our nations are experiencing turmoil and moral decay—characterized by crime, religious conflicts, economic uncertainty, the unequal distribution of resources, political corruption, civil unrest, the disintegration of the family, cybercrime, poverty, disease, famine, sexual abuse, greed, racial clashes, ethnic “cleansing,” global terrorism, and war.
Our twenty-first century world seems to be an experiment in global self- destruction. We need strong leaders who have the courage to grapple with perplexing issues and seemingly overwhelming problems, as well as the ability to discover and implement workable solutions. More than anything else, what we require today are competent, effective, visionary leaders in all walks of life.
The Missing Element: “Moral Force”
The leaders who have emerged today seem to believe that the primary qualities needed to address our troubled, demanding times are the following: great vision; academic and intellectual superiority; dynamic oratory and other communications skills that have the power to persuade; management expertise; and the ability to control others. However, time and again, history has shown that the most important quality a true leader should and must possess is the moral force of a noble and stable character.
There are about two hundred countries in the world today, and each one has leaders on the national, regional, and local level. Many nations also have aspiring leaders who run for public office each year. In addition, corporations and businesses, religious institutions, nonprofit organizations and community groups, and other enterprises in society all have leaders. Many people, in a variety of fields—economics, government, law, business, education, medicine, science, entertainment, sports, and so forth—are leaders or are training to be leaders.
We have all these skilled people in positions of power, with an ample supply of potential leaders. Yet the leaders who are trying to keep their nations, companies, organizations, and families from sinking are either lacking, or deficient in, that vital element of character.
Across the globe, we have seen leaders fall apart, ethically and morally. Many leaders start strong (or appear to), only to end up “crashing and burning.” A number of leaders have operated under a reputation of integrity that was only a façade. While they appeared competent and well-adjusted on the outside, they lacked real substance within. They were missing the element of moral force, and their ethical poverty eventually became evident. The public didn’t know who these leaders really were—until the leaders became enmeshed in scandal due to their reckless conduct, often finding themselves facing legal consequences for unlawful financial practices, theft, extortion, cheating, perjury...and the like.
The public didn’t know who their leaders really were—until the leaders became enmeshed in scandal.
Meanwhile, other people in positions of power have been hindered by incompetence because they have never learned solid leadership principles and how to implement them. Others are capable, but they still aren’t helping to address the needs of their society because they would rather destroy a corporate competitor or nullify a political opponent than work together with other leaders to address serious problems and find solutions.
Leadership Is Central in Our World
The contemporary crisis of character in leadership is alarming because, to a great extent, leaders determine the direction, security, and prosperity of cultures, societies, and nations. The following concepts demonstrate the central role of leadership in human society.
Nothing happens without leadership. Leaders establish governments, start businesses, make scientific discoveries and advances, disseminate religious and philosophical ideas, and otherwise foster human culture.
Nothing succeeds without leadership. Leaders develop ideas, carry out endeavors, and keep projects going.
Nothing is altered or transformed without leadership. Unless an individual or a group of people begin to think differently or act differently, circumstances usually remain the same—or become worse.
Nothing develops without leadership. Leaders take initiative to implement innovations, build on what has come before, and expand on prior successes.
Nothing advances without leadership. Leaders are enterprising and forward-looking. They are often eager to enhance a society’s quality of life through improved efficiency, greater convenience, and the introduction of new products and services.
Nothing improves without leadership. Leaders see potential in situations and conditions where others see no hope and have no vision of the way things could be.
Nothing is corrected without leadership. To fix errors and solve problems, someone has to take responsibility to see that adjustments are made. Leaders help societies to make a course correction when they have veered onto a destructive path.
Leadership is therefore key to human preservation, growth, and change. No matter what condition a society or nation finds itself in, it didn’t arrive there by accident. Someone led them there.
Every person on earth is being guided, influenced, or manipulated by someone. Directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, we are continually being led by those who are our “official” leaders, as well as those who have become our de facto leaders by their influence over us. That is why our current problems won’t be solved without a renewed emphasis on the foundational elements of positive and effective leadership. Countries, corporations, institutions, organizations, departments, and so forth will be effective and successful only insofar as their leaders are effective and successful. When leaders in all realms of life make a commitment to strengthen their leadership, they will enable their society to improve, survive, and progress.
“We know that leadership is very much related to change. As the pace of change accelerates, there is naturally a greater need for effective leadership.”
—John Kotter, renowned businessman, professor, and author
Who Has Been Leading Us?
I have spoken at universities where I’ve met administrators, professors, and students. I have been a consultant to corporate gurus and government leaders. I have been interviewed on hundreds of television shows. In the process, I have met many well-known leaders. Yet, with a few exceptions, the famous and influential people I have encountered have not impressed me with their leadership because it did not appear to include the essential ingredient of character.
Who has been leading our nations? Unfortunately, we have been influenced by many leaders and institutions that lack the quality of moral force—and their attitudes and actions are being absorbed by the culture at large.
Below is a sampling of leaders and organizations in various realms of life that, at the time of the writing of this manuscript, have been associated with ethical controversies, sexual and financial scandals, or criminal activity. In essence, they were victims of our society’s crisis of defective character. Many leaders on the world and national stage who should be about the business of building up their nations are instead violating the public trust, breaking the law, and committing crimes against humanity. They are finding themselves in the headlines—and appearing before judges and other tribunals.
Some of the issues represented in this list are complex, while others are straightforward. At the time this book went to press, the outcomes of several of these situations were yet to be resolved—either by legislatures or courts. In some cases, not all the facts have been made public to allow for a full assessment. Yet these examples from the last several decades illustrate the range of ethical and moral crises in leadership with which the United States and nations around the world are being confronted.
Government and Politics
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is dealing with several controversial ethical issues. Mr. Obama was admonished by the press, members of the U.S. Congress, and the public regarding the Justice Department’s subpoenas of the phone records of reporters from the Associated Press while the department gathered intelligence related to a leak about a terrorist threat. A similar controversy flared in relation to phone records from Fox News in regard to Justice’s investigation into a leak about North Korea.1 Likewise, the president came under fire for the National Security Agency’s ongoing practice of monitoring the phone records of ordinary Americans while looking for possible terrorist activity.2 In addition, the White House was criticized after revelations that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) gave certain conservative groups extra scrutiny when they applied for tax- exempt status. All of these issues are ongoing.
Anthony Weiner of New York resigned his seat in the U.S. Congress after it was disclosed that the married congressman had sent sexually explicit text messages and photographs to women. He then ran for mayor of New York City, refusing to drop out of the primary race, even after a subsequent “sexting” scandal, despite political pressure to do so.
President Bill Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for perjury and obstruction of justice related to his testimony about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He remained in office when the impeachment votes for both charges failed in the Senate.
Ronald Reagan’s presidency was tainted by the Iran-Contra affair, in which the National Security Agency sold arms to Iran in exchange for American hostages, even though an embargo against Iran was in effect. Some of the money from the sale then went to Nicaraguan “Contras” to support their fight against the Sandinista government. This was in violation of the Boland Amendment, which was passed by Congress to prohibit military aid to the Contras. National Security Advisor Rear Admiral John Poindexter resigned, and charges were filed against fourteen people, though six were later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush.3
Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign his office in the wake of his participation in a cover-up of illegal activities authorized by members of his staff during his reelection campaign. The year prior to Nixon’s resignation, his vice president resigned his office due to political corruption involving bribery and extortion, as well as tax evasion.
The former president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is being investigated for his alleged role in a scheme to buy votes from members of the Brazilian Congress during the time he was in office.4
The newly elected president of Kenya and his deputy president, William Ruto, face trial by the International Criminal Court for “crimes against humanity, including murder and rape.”5 The Wall Street Journal reported, “The court alleges Mr. Kenyatta and his deputy president, William Ruto, incited gang violence that left more than 1,000 people dead following his predecessor’s disputed election in 2007. Both men deny the charges.”6
The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal of the United Nations “convicted six Bosnian Croat political and military leaders...of persecuting, expelling, and murdering Muslims during Bosnia’s war.” The convictions may be appealed.7
Manuel Noriega, the former dictator of Panama, served a prison sentence of almost two decades in the United States for drug trafficking. He then served a brief time in jail in France for money laundering and was required to surrender nearly three million dollars held in his French bank accounts. France then permitted that he be extradited to Panama to serve prison time there for murder.8
Business and Economics
JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to pay $410 million in response to charges of price manipulation: “The bank’s energy unit, JP Morgan Venture Energy Corporation, was accused of raising electricity rates in [California and Midwest] markets between September 2010 and November 2012 through ‘manipulative bidding strategies,’ according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.”9 Previously, the company lost $7 billion after it “engaged in risky trades (derivatives).” This loss had led to various investigations into the company’s practices and procedures.10
Employees at Halliburton, the contractor for British Petroleum (BP) in the Deepwater Horizon oil well project, destroyed evidence concerning the 2010 explosion and massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that killed eleven people. Under a plea bargain, the U.S. Department of Justice charged the company with a misdemeanor, fined it $200,000, gave it three years’ probation, and required that the company cooperate with the department’s ongoing investigation of the Deepwater incident.11 Halliburton has been involved in other ethical controversies, including the charge by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the subsidiary of a company owned by Halliburton “bribed Nigerian government officials over a 10-year period, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).”12
In the Deepwater incident, “BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion in penalties and pleaded guilty to 14 criminal charges related to the explosion.”13 The company apparently ignored advice from the Halliburton engineer to install a safer pipe and failed to test the cement sealing to see if it had been successful.14
Former Wall Street mogul Bernie Madoff operated “the biggest Ponzi scheme in history... [he] bilked his clients of billions of dollars and fooled regulators for decades....”15 Madoff was convicted of securities fraud, investment advisor fraud, wire and mail fraud, money laundering, filing false documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission, making false statements, perjury, and theft from employee benefit funds. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison.16
Over the course of decades, the Vatican Bank has been decried and investigated for functioning according to an internal culture of corruption, including alleged money laundering and ties with the Mafia. In 2013, there was a shakeup of leadership at the bank after a new money laundering scandal.17
The former chairman of the mammoth Hong Kong-based Carrian Group received a three-year sentence for bribing bank officials to obtain loans the equivalent of $238 million in U.S. dollars.18
The German company Siemons agreed to a settlement of €330 million with the Greek government for alleged bribery in connection with contract bids for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.19
Among other companies involved in child labor scandals, the clothing company GAP released a report in 2004 in which they acknowledged breaches of child labor laws and workplace safety.20
Sports
Through revelations by former tobacco executive and whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, it was disclosed that cigarette companies like Brown & Williamson had been intentionally attempting to addict consumers to nicotine.21
The spotless public image of golf champion Tiger Woods was tarnished when his multiple extramarital affairs became public. His wife divorced him, and he lost several lucrative endorsement deals worth $100 million. Woods received therapy for sexual addiction and returned to the sport.22
In 2007, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 and the team was fined $250,000 in the so-called Spygate scandal involving the videotaping of opposing teams’ coaching signals. The Patriots also had to forgo a potential first-round draft pick.
Champion cyclist Lance Armstrong and Olympic sprinter Marion Jones are among many athletes who have admitted to using illegal performance- enhancing drugs. Armstrong’s seven Tour de France titles were taken away, and he was banned from professional cycling for life.23 Jones was stripped of her three Olympic gold medals and Religion sentenced to six months in prison, two years’ probation, and community service for lying about her drug use to a federal agent, as well as for her participation in a check fraud operation.24
Jerry Sandusky, former assistant football coach at Penn State University, received a thirty- to sixty- year prison sentence after being convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse.25
Baseball star Pete Rose, a former Cincinnati Reds player and manager, was indicted for repeated gambling on baseball games and was banned from baseball for life. He also served five months of jail time and community service for income tax evasion.26
Numerous sexual abuse allegations have been lodged against Catholic priests in nations around the world. Charges have been filed in various cases, and there has been fallout over cover-ups and inaction by Church officials.27
Atlanta megachurch pastor Bishop Eddie Long was accused of sexually abusing four teens. Bishop Long has stated that he is innocent, and he settled out of court with the plaintiffs.28 Concerning a separate case, twelve former church members filed a lawsuit against Long and financial adviser Ephren W. Taylor for losses in an alleged Ponzi scheme.29 The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a lawsuit over the scheme in U.S. District Court against Taylor, his company, and his former chief operating officer.30
Once-prominent televangelist Jimmy Swaggart lost credibility and influence when he became enmeshed in a sex scandal involving a prostitute.31 Televangelist Jim Bakker was also caught up in a scandal due to his adulterous relationship with a former church secretary. In addition, he spent time in prison for mail and wire fraud and conspiracy in relation to his ministry’s fund-raising.32
Ted Haggard resigned as pastor of his church in Colorado and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after a homosexual affair with a male prostitute, as well as illegal drug use.33
Arts, Entertainment, and Media
Mel Gibson, formerly one of Hollywood’s most popular and influential actors, was divorced by his wife after more than thirty years of marriage and seven children, for “irreconcilable differences,” though infidelity may have played a role; his wife was awarded half his fortune.34 Gibson was also convicted of hitting his girlfriend, resulting in a sentence of three years’ probation, counseling, and community service.35
New York Times reporter Jayson Blair was fired for unethical reporting. The Times’ public editor, Margaret Sullivan, stated that Blair “lied and faked and cheated his way through story after story—scores of them, for years. He fabricated sources, plagiarized material from other publications, and pretended to be places he never went.” The reporter’s conduct hurt the Times’ reputation for accuracy and honesty.36
Author James Frey admitted to fabricating facts in his best-selling memoir A Million Little Pieces, setting off a controversy about what constitutes memoir and the line between fact and fiction.37
Singing superstar Whitney Houston died tragically of accidental drowning when she was in the midst of a professional comeback, with “the effects of heart disease and cocaine found in her system...contributing factors.”38
Charity/Nonprofit
Greg Mortenson, coauthor of the best-selling book
Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time, was cited for mismanagement of his charity Central Asia Institute, as well as the misuse of funds. The attorney general of Montana, where the charity is located, stated, “Mr. Mortenson may not have intentionally deceived the board or his employees, but his disregard for and attitude about basic record keeping and accounting for his activities essentially had the same effect.” Mortenson was not charged with any criminal activity, and he agreed to repay $1 million to the charity.39
Three Cups of Tea describes Mortenson’s humanitarian work in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The book was coauthored by David Oliver Relin. In a controversy unrelated to the charity mismanagement, there were allegations that Mortenson had included fabrications in his book, while Mortenson asserted only some literary license was taken. Coauthor Relin, whose integrity was effectively never in question in the matter, had acknowledged in his introduction to the book that there might be unavoidable inaccuracies in relating Mortenson’s experiences. He wrote, “His fluid sense of time made pinning down the exact sequence of many events in this book almost impossible.”40 The controversy placed stress on Relin vocationally, as well as financially, as he defended himself in a civil lawsuit over the book that was brought against Mortenson and himself. A judge dismissed the suit. Relin committed suicide in 2012; his family stated that he had “suffered from depression.”41
The former head of the United Way, William Aramony, spent six years in prison for his part in embezzling between $600,000 and $1.2 million from the charitable agency. He used the money to support a “lavish lifestyle” and a young mistress.42 Aramony was convicted of “among other things, conspiracy to defraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, transportation of fraudulently acquired property, engaging in monetary transactions in unlawful activity, filing false tax returns, and aiding in the filing of false tax returns.”43
The charitable organization Feed the Children fired its founder and director, Larry Jones, for alleged misconduct. Jones filed a wrongful- termination lawsuit, and the organization filed a countersuit, “accus[ing] Jones of taking bribes, hoarding hardcore pornography...using a charity employee as a personal nanny...misspending charity funds, pocketing travel money, and keeping gifts from appearances.”44 Jones maintains his innocence. He and Feed the Children reached an out-of-court settlement in which Jones apparently received some compensation but was not reinstated as head of the organization.45
These are some examples of public figures, companies, and government agencies that have been associated with issues and scandals involving character, ethics, and the violation of the law. Many more examples could be cited. Revelations of such scandals have become commonplace—they are reported almost every day in newspapers, on broadcast and cable news, on the Internet, on Facebook, and via Twitter.
From a leadership standpoint, these situations illustrate several realities: (1) Character problems are widespread among leaders in many fields of endeavor. (2) A leader’s character flaws often end up hurting innocent people. (3) No matter how many accomplishments a leader achieves, no matter how much money he makes, and no matter how high he goes up the ladder of success, if he is deficient in character, his talent and skill are no guarantee he will stay on top, or that he won’t pay a great price.
Ask Bill Clinton. Ask Bernie Madoff. Ask Lance Armstrong. Ask Jim Bakker. Ask Mel Gibson. Ask Greg Mortenson. Their character flaws caught up with them. For some, it tainted their reputations. For others, it virtually destroyed their lives, as well as the lives of others. For this reason, the critical issue of character must be addressed, as nations, regions, and local communities; businesses and corporations; civic organizations; religious groups; political parties; armed forces; educational institutions; and families continue to search for quality and qualified leaders to take the helm of responsibility and guide them to a better life and a promising future.
Though the above are high-profile cases that became national and global scandals, the disintegration of character today is found in every type of leadership and on every level of society—including the local level and “ordinary” people’s lives. It is found in our homes, with leaders (spouses and parents) who have extramarital affairs, use illegal drugs, abuse alcohol, rack up gambling debts, enter into risky financial investments in hopes of finding a fast track to wealth, abuse family members, and engage in other destructive actions. It is found in our local companies, with workers who embezzle money, steal equipment, or are lazy on the job. It is found in our schools, with teachers who engage in sexual relations with their students, or with students who cheat on exams and engage in bullying through social networks —and sometimes even bring guns to school and shoot their classmates and teachers. It is found in our universities, with professors who plagiarize scholarly works and undergraduates who pay other students to write their term papers.
No one should think he is too smart or too safe to avoid consequences of a lack of character.
Perhaps you are thinking, I’m not in danger of losing my job or being sentenced to prison. However, if we as leaders ignore the necessity of character development—if we allow character defects to influence us—we risk failure in our personal lives, our leadership, and our future. No one should think he is too smart or too safe to avoid consequences of a lack of character.
A Psyche of Distrust
One disturbing result of the crisis of character in leadership is that it has created a psyche of distrust among the general public. There are, of course, many earnest, hardworking people of integrity in all walks of life who strive to do the right thing and are helping to uphold the society in which they live. But while the nations of the world desperately need strong, authentic leaders, too many people in positions of authority are self-absorbed. They operate according to misplaced priorities or opportunistic motives. They fail to offer anything of lasting value to their families, associates, clients, customers, or fellow citizens. Instead, they abuse and misuse them. Ethically deficient leaders are leaving a legacy of fear, skepticism, and confusion among those who follow them or are otherwise affected by their leadership.
For example, will the time come when we can watch a race at a track-and- field meet or a cycling event and not secretly ask ourselves if the champion won because he used performance-enhancing drugs? We often harbor the notion that the winner must have cheated somehow. Or, even though we may make allowance for some unintended memory lapses, when will we be able to read a memoir and not have to wonder if some or most of it has been fabricated? Sadly, we have become wary of the validity of such accounts. Or again, when a large corporation is successful, when will we be rid of lingering suspicions about its business practices and how it turned a profit? We question whether big corporations can make money and still be ethical.
What Happened to Character in Leadership?
Why are today’s leaders so deficient in character? A major reason is that, across the globe, much of leadership training—both formal and informal— fails to emphasize or even include the concept of character as an essential element of leadership. In addition, many governmental and corporate leaders, along with supervisors, bosses, and others in authority, are not mentoring their colleagues and employees in important principles of character development (though they still expect honesty and integrity from them). Instead, as we will see, other elements of leadership have been given priority —titles, position, power, intelligence, skills, gifts, talents, educational qualifications, knowledge, competence, and charisma or other personality traits.
In the process, we have produced...
charismatic leaders without character
gifted leaders without convictions
powerful leaders without principles
intellectual leaders without morality
visionary leaders without values
spiritual leaders without conscience
The nations of the world do not lack people in leadership positions. They lack genuine leadership in their leaders. The result is that we have no shortage of individuals running our countries and businesses and organizations who have titles and high-level positions. They are well-dressed and well-groomed. They are excellent communicators. They are highly skilled in their fields. Yet, as we have noted, these qualities haven’t prevented an epidemic of “character fallout” among leaders of various categories— whether presidents and prime ministers, CEOs and directors, priests and pastors, or spouses and parents.
The nations of the world do not lack people in leadership positions. They lack genuine leadership in their leaders.
Telltale Signs
What great leaders can you name who are alive today? (If you weren’t able to answer that question without giving it a lot of thought, you’re not alone.)
As I write this, Nelson Mandela has been in the hospital for two months due to a lung infection. Mandela was the first democratically elected leader of South Africa and was instrumental in dismantling apartheid. He is now in his mid-nineties. Over the past few years, I have noticed that every time he is admitted to the hospital, people around the world hold their breaths, because no one knows how much longer he will be with us.
What is it about our image of this man that makes us afraid to lose him, even though we understand he is at an advanced age? Could it be that we do not want Mr. Mandela to die because he may be one of the last remaining bastions of true leadership—a man who stands as the definition of character, which we all personally long for and want to see evidenced in the leaders we desire to follow? Is he among the last in a line of historical figures who possessed a vital leadership quality that has very little to do with standard ideas of “power” but nevertheless has the ability to change the world?
I believe that Nelson Mandela’s strong convictions about human dignity and equality among the races are the reason people all over the world want him to live forever. Perhaps South Africans are afraid their country might fall apart after he passes. To me, people’s anxious reactions to the health of Mr. Mandela, aside from being expressions of human compassion and respect, are telltale signs that character in leadership is so rare that people feel we can’t afford to let go of one great leader.
The Future of Leadership
What will be the future of leadership in our world? A familiar but significant truth applies to our present leadership crisis: You can lead people only as far as you have gone yourself. And many of our leaders have not stepped up to the starting line of character development, let alone crossed over it.
Many well-known people who have failed ethically have issued apologies through the media. Even though admitting you were wrong (or that you “made a mistake”) and saying you are sorry is a good start, if it is heartfelt, it doesn’t necessarily indicate a resolve to change your behavior and act responsibly in the future. You have to make a personal commitment to do that. You have to allow it to become an internal conviction—part of your
personal code of ethics.
A future that includes strong, ethical leaders in our governments, businesses, educational institutions, civil organizations, and homes will be secured only by a return to character training and personal character development as our priority. Leaders must embrace this challenge and actively seek to change their ways if our nations are to move from a mind-set of corruption and compromise to an outlook of conviction and character. Instead of seeking political power or economic power or entertainment power or sports power, leaders should pursue political character or economic character or entertainment character or sports character.
A future that includes strong, ethical leaders will be secured only by a return to character training and personal character development as our priority.
A new type of leader must begin to emerge within our governing institutions, our communities, our businesses, our places of employment, our families—and ourselves. Leadership that is weak in ethics and values has allowed our nations to fall apart. It has also initiated many of the problems we grapple with in the world. A return to character in leadership will enable us to begin to address these problems from a position of strength, resolve, and honor.
I have given talks on the power of character in leadership in various halls of government across the globe. Some leaders have literally wept as they’ve explained that no one has ever taught them about the part character plays in leadership. They were instructed on how to manage resources, but they were never taught how to manage their own lives—and how their application of such knowledge was crucial for effective and successful leadership.
Each of us must not only understand and implement the principles of leadership but also make a commitment to become established in character, adhering to a strong code of ethics. Then we must continually grow in the development of our character, so that we can have a positive and lasting impact on our generation and generations to come.
“A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.”46 —C. S. Lewis
Today we are walking in: Contemporary Leadership and the Crisis of Character
Today we look to the word-LEADER- H5057 nagiyd-- leader, ruler, captain, prince; excellent thing, (chief) governor, leader, noble, prince, (chief) ruler.
The Torah Testifies.............................
*****
The prophets proclaim...............
Isaiah 55:4 - Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader H5057 and commander to the people.
The writings bear witness.............
2Chronicles 32:21 - And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders H5057 and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword
Introduction
Contemporary Leadership and the Crisis of Character
“Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in public and private life have been the consequences of action without thought.”
—Bernard Baruch, businessman and advisor to U.S. presidents
In the dynamic drama of contemporary leadership playing on the world stage today, there are many “characters” who lack character. Moreover, the trail of history is littered with many would-be great men and women who harnessed the reins of power in various fields—political, social, economic, corporate, athletic, spiritual, and more. They wielded great influence and/or control over the lives of others; many felt the weight of material wealth and fame—only to have it all disintegrate and blow away like dust in the wind because of their tragic deficiencies of character.
A lack of strong leadership has made a mess of our world. Every country on earth is challenged by an absence of resolute leadership as it struggles under precarious times. Politically, economically, and socially, our nations are experiencing turmoil and moral decay—characterized by crime, religious conflicts, economic uncertainty, the unequal distribution of resources, political corruption, civil unrest, the disintegration of the family, cybercrime, poverty, disease, famine, sexual abuse, greed, racial clashes, ethnic “cleansing,” global terrorism, and war.
Our twenty-first century world seems to be an experiment in global self- destruction. We need strong leaders who have the courage to grapple with perplexing issues and seemingly overwhelming problems, as well as the ability to discover and implement workable solutions. More than anything else, what we require today are competent, effective, visionary leaders in all walks of life.
The Missing Element: “Moral Force”
The leaders who have emerged today seem to believe that the primary qualities needed to address our troubled, demanding times are the following: great vision; academic and intellectual superiority; dynamic oratory and other communications skills that have the power to persuade; management expertise; and the ability to control others. However, time and again, history has shown that the most important quality a true leader should and must possess is the moral force of a noble and stable character.
There are about two hundred countries in the world today, and each one has leaders on the national, regional, and local level. Many nations also have aspiring leaders who run for public office each year. In addition, corporations and businesses, religious institutions, nonprofit organizations and community groups, and other enterprises in society all have leaders. Many people, in a variety of fields—economics, government, law, business, education, medicine, science, entertainment, sports, and so forth—are leaders or are training to be leaders.
We have all these skilled people in positions of power, with an ample supply of potential leaders. Yet the leaders who are trying to keep their nations, companies, organizations, and families from sinking are either lacking, or deficient in, that vital element of character.
Across the globe, we have seen leaders fall apart, ethically and morally. Many leaders start strong (or appear to), only to end up “crashing and burning.” A number of leaders have operated under a reputation of integrity that was only a façade. While they appeared competent and well-adjusted on the outside, they lacked real substance within. They were missing the element of moral force, and their ethical poverty eventually became evident. The public didn’t know who these leaders really were—until the leaders became enmeshed in scandal due to their reckless conduct, often finding themselves facing legal consequences for unlawful financial practices, theft, extortion, cheating, perjury...and the like.
The public didn’t know who their leaders really were—until the leaders became enmeshed in scandal.
Meanwhile, other people in positions of power have been hindered by incompetence because they have never learned solid leadership principles and how to implement them. Others are capable, but they still aren’t helping to address the needs of their society because they would rather destroy a corporate competitor or nullify a political opponent than work together with other leaders to address serious problems and find solutions.
Leadership Is Central in Our World
The contemporary crisis of character in leadership is alarming because, to a great extent, leaders determine the direction, security, and prosperity of cultures, societies, and nations. The following concepts demonstrate the central role of leadership in human society.
Nothing happens without leadership. Leaders establish governments, start businesses, make scientific discoveries and advances, disseminate religious and philosophical ideas, and otherwise foster human culture.
Nothing succeeds without leadership. Leaders develop ideas, carry out endeavors, and keep projects going.
Nothing is altered or transformed without leadership. Unless an individual or a group of people begin to think differently or act differently, circumstances usually remain the same—or become worse.
Nothing develops without leadership. Leaders take initiative to implement innovations, build on what has come before, and expand on prior successes.
Nothing advances without leadership. Leaders are enterprising and forward-looking. They are often eager to enhance a society’s quality of life through improved efficiency, greater convenience, and the introduction of new products and services.
Nothing improves without leadership. Leaders see potential in situations and conditions where others see no hope and have no vision of the way things could be.
Nothing is corrected without leadership. To fix errors and solve problems, someone has to take responsibility to see that adjustments are made. Leaders help societies to make a course correction when they have veered onto a destructive path.
Leadership is therefore key to human preservation, growth, and change. No matter what condition a society or nation finds itself in, it didn’t arrive there by accident. Someone led them there.
Every person on earth is being guided, influenced, or manipulated by someone. Directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, we are continually being led by those who are our “official” leaders, as well as those who have become our de facto leaders by their influence over us. That is why our current problems won’t be solved without a renewed emphasis on the foundational elements of positive and effective leadership. Countries, corporations, institutions, organizations, departments, and so forth will be effective and successful only insofar as their leaders are effective and successful. When leaders in all realms of life make a commitment to strengthen their leadership, they will enable their society to improve, survive, and progress.
“We know that leadership is very much related to change. As the pace of change accelerates, there is naturally a greater need for effective leadership.”
—John Kotter, renowned businessman, professor, and author
Who Has Been Leading Us?
I have spoken at universities where I’ve met administrators, professors, and students. I have been a consultant to corporate gurus and government leaders. I have been interviewed on hundreds of television shows. In the process, I have met many well-known leaders. Yet, with a few exceptions, the famous and influential people I have encountered have not impressed me with their leadership because it did not appear to include the essential ingredient of character.
Who has been leading our nations? Unfortunately, we have been influenced by many leaders and institutions that lack the quality of moral force—and their attitudes and actions are being absorbed by the culture at large.
Below is a sampling of leaders and organizations in various realms of life that, at the time of the writing of this manuscript, have been associated with ethical controversies, sexual and financial scandals, or criminal activity. In essence, they were victims of our society’s crisis of defective character. Many leaders on the world and national stage who should be about the business of building up their nations are instead violating the public trust, breaking the law, and committing crimes against humanity. They are finding themselves in the headlines—and appearing before judges and other tribunals.
Some of the issues represented in this list are complex, while others are straightforward. At the time this book went to press, the outcomes of several of these situations were yet to be resolved—either by legislatures or courts. In some cases, not all the facts have been made public to allow for a full assessment. Yet these examples from the last several decades illustrate the range of ethical and moral crises in leadership with which the United States and nations around the world are being confronted.
Government and Politics
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is dealing with several controversial ethical issues. Mr. Obama was admonished by the press, members of the U.S. Congress, and the public regarding the Justice Department’s subpoenas of the phone records of reporters from the Associated Press while the department gathered intelligence related to a leak about a terrorist threat. A similar controversy flared in relation to phone records from Fox News in regard to Justice’s investigation into a leak about North Korea.1 Likewise, the president came under fire for the National Security Agency’s ongoing practice of monitoring the phone records of ordinary Americans while looking for possible terrorist activity.2 In addition, the White House was criticized after revelations that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) gave certain conservative groups extra scrutiny when they applied for tax- exempt status. All of these issues are ongoing.
Anthony Weiner of New York resigned his seat in the U.S. Congress after it was disclosed that the married congressman had sent sexually explicit text messages and photographs to women. He then ran for mayor of New York City, refusing to drop out of the primary race, even after a subsequent “sexting” scandal, despite political pressure to do so.
President Bill Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for perjury and obstruction of justice related to his testimony about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He remained in office when the impeachment votes for both charges failed in the Senate.
Ronald Reagan’s presidency was tainted by the Iran-Contra affair, in which the National Security Agency sold arms to Iran in exchange for American hostages, even though an embargo against Iran was in effect. Some of the money from the sale then went to Nicaraguan “Contras” to support their fight against the Sandinista government. This was in violation of the Boland Amendment, which was passed by Congress to prohibit military aid to the Contras. National Security Advisor Rear Admiral John Poindexter resigned, and charges were filed against fourteen people, though six were later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush.3
Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign his office in the wake of his participation in a cover-up of illegal activities authorized by members of his staff during his reelection campaign. The year prior to Nixon’s resignation, his vice president resigned his office due to political corruption involving bribery and extortion, as well as tax evasion.
The former president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is being investigated for his alleged role in a scheme to buy votes from members of the Brazilian Congress during the time he was in office.4
The newly elected president of Kenya and his deputy president, William Ruto, face trial by the International Criminal Court for “crimes against humanity, including murder and rape.”5 The Wall Street Journal reported, “The court alleges Mr. Kenyatta and his deputy president, William Ruto, incited gang violence that left more than 1,000 people dead following his predecessor’s disputed election in 2007. Both men deny the charges.”6
The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal of the United Nations “convicted six Bosnian Croat political and military leaders...of persecuting, expelling, and murdering Muslims during Bosnia’s war.” The convictions may be appealed.7
Manuel Noriega, the former dictator of Panama, served a prison sentence of almost two decades in the United States for drug trafficking. He then served a brief time in jail in France for money laundering and was required to surrender nearly three million dollars held in his French bank accounts. France then permitted that he be extradited to Panama to serve prison time there for murder.8
Business and Economics
JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to pay $410 million in response to charges of price manipulation: “The bank’s energy unit, JP Morgan Venture Energy Corporation, was accused of raising electricity rates in [California and Midwest] markets between September 2010 and November 2012 through ‘manipulative bidding strategies,’ according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.”9 Previously, the company lost $7 billion after it “engaged in risky trades (derivatives).” This loss had led to various investigations into the company’s practices and procedures.10
Employees at Halliburton, the contractor for British Petroleum (BP) in the Deepwater Horizon oil well project, destroyed evidence concerning the 2010 explosion and massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that killed eleven people. Under a plea bargain, the U.S. Department of Justice charged the company with a misdemeanor, fined it $200,000, gave it three years’ probation, and required that the company cooperate with the department’s ongoing investigation of the Deepwater incident.11 Halliburton has been involved in other ethical controversies, including the charge by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the subsidiary of a company owned by Halliburton “bribed Nigerian government officials over a 10-year period, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).”12
In the Deepwater incident, “BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion in penalties and pleaded guilty to 14 criminal charges related to the explosion.”13 The company apparently ignored advice from the Halliburton engineer to install a safer pipe and failed to test the cement sealing to see if it had been successful.14
Former Wall Street mogul Bernie Madoff operated “the biggest Ponzi scheme in history... [he] bilked his clients of billions of dollars and fooled regulators for decades....”15 Madoff was convicted of securities fraud, investment advisor fraud, wire and mail fraud, money laundering, filing false documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission, making false statements, perjury, and theft from employee benefit funds. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison.16
Over the course of decades, the Vatican Bank has been decried and investigated for functioning according to an internal culture of corruption, including alleged money laundering and ties with the Mafia. In 2013, there was a shakeup of leadership at the bank after a new money laundering scandal.17
The former chairman of the mammoth Hong Kong-based Carrian Group received a three-year sentence for bribing bank officials to obtain loans the equivalent of $238 million in U.S. dollars.18
The German company Siemons agreed to a settlement of €330 million with the Greek government for alleged bribery in connection with contract bids for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.19
Among other companies involved in child labor scandals, the clothing company GAP released a report in 2004 in which they acknowledged breaches of child labor laws and workplace safety.20
Sports
Through revelations by former tobacco executive and whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, it was disclosed that cigarette companies like Brown & Williamson had been intentionally attempting to addict consumers to nicotine.21
The spotless public image of golf champion Tiger Woods was tarnished when his multiple extramarital affairs became public. His wife divorced him, and he lost several lucrative endorsement deals worth $100 million. Woods received therapy for sexual addiction and returned to the sport.22
In 2007, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 and the team was fined $250,000 in the so-called Spygate scandal involving the videotaping of opposing teams’ coaching signals. The Patriots also had to forgo a potential first-round draft pick.
Champion cyclist Lance Armstrong and Olympic sprinter Marion Jones are among many athletes who have admitted to using illegal performance- enhancing drugs. Armstrong’s seven Tour de France titles were taken away, and he was banned from professional cycling for life.23 Jones was stripped of her three Olympic gold medals and Religion sentenced to six months in prison, two years’ probation, and community service for lying about her drug use to a federal agent, as well as for her participation in a check fraud operation.24
Jerry Sandusky, former assistant football coach at Penn State University, received a thirty- to sixty- year prison sentence after being convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse.25
Baseball star Pete Rose, a former Cincinnati Reds player and manager, was indicted for repeated gambling on baseball games and was banned from baseball for life. He also served five months of jail time and community service for income tax evasion.26
Numerous sexual abuse allegations have been lodged against Catholic priests in nations around the world. Charges have been filed in various cases, and there has been fallout over cover-ups and inaction by Church officials.27
Atlanta megachurch pastor Bishop Eddie Long was accused of sexually abusing four teens. Bishop Long has stated that he is innocent, and he settled out of court with the plaintiffs.28 Concerning a separate case, twelve former church members filed a lawsuit against Long and financial adviser Ephren W. Taylor for losses in an alleged Ponzi scheme.29 The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a lawsuit over the scheme in U.S. District Court against Taylor, his company, and his former chief operating officer.30
Once-prominent televangelist Jimmy Swaggart lost credibility and influence when he became enmeshed in a sex scandal involving a prostitute.31 Televangelist Jim Bakker was also caught up in a scandal due to his adulterous relationship with a former church secretary. In addition, he spent time in prison for mail and wire fraud and conspiracy in relation to his ministry’s fund-raising.32
Ted Haggard resigned as pastor of his church in Colorado and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after a homosexual affair with a male prostitute, as well as illegal drug use.33
Arts, Entertainment, and Media
Mel Gibson, formerly one of Hollywood’s most popular and influential actors, was divorced by his wife after more than thirty years of marriage and seven children, for “irreconcilable differences,” though infidelity may have played a role; his wife was awarded half his fortune.34 Gibson was also convicted of hitting his girlfriend, resulting in a sentence of three years’ probation, counseling, and community service.35
New York Times reporter Jayson Blair was fired for unethical reporting. The Times’ public editor, Margaret Sullivan, stated that Blair “lied and faked and cheated his way through story after story—scores of them, for years. He fabricated sources, plagiarized material from other publications, and pretended to be places he never went.” The reporter’s conduct hurt the Times’ reputation for accuracy and honesty.36
Author James Frey admitted to fabricating facts in his best-selling memoir A Million Little Pieces, setting off a controversy about what constitutes memoir and the line between fact and fiction.37
Singing superstar Whitney Houston died tragically of accidental drowning when she was in the midst of a professional comeback, with “the effects of heart disease and cocaine found in her system...contributing factors.”38
Charity/Nonprofit
Greg Mortenson, coauthor of the best-selling book
Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time, was cited for mismanagement of his charity Central Asia Institute, as well as the misuse of funds. The attorney general of Montana, where the charity is located, stated, “Mr. Mortenson may not have intentionally deceived the board or his employees, but his disregard for and attitude about basic record keeping and accounting for his activities essentially had the same effect.” Mortenson was not charged with any criminal activity, and he agreed to repay $1 million to the charity.39
Three Cups of Tea describes Mortenson’s humanitarian work in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The book was coauthored by David Oliver Relin. In a controversy unrelated to the charity mismanagement, there were allegations that Mortenson had included fabrications in his book, while Mortenson asserted only some literary license was taken. Coauthor Relin, whose integrity was effectively never in question in the matter, had acknowledged in his introduction to the book that there might be unavoidable inaccuracies in relating Mortenson’s experiences. He wrote, “His fluid sense of time made pinning down the exact sequence of many events in this book almost impossible.”40 The controversy placed stress on Relin vocationally, as well as financially, as he defended himself in a civil lawsuit over the book that was brought against Mortenson and himself. A judge dismissed the suit. Relin committed suicide in 2012; his family stated that he had “suffered from depression.”41
The former head of the United Way, William Aramony, spent six years in prison for his part in embezzling between $600,000 and $1.2 million from the charitable agency. He used the money to support a “lavish lifestyle” and a young mistress.42 Aramony was convicted of “among other things, conspiracy to defraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, transportation of fraudulently acquired property, engaging in monetary transactions in unlawful activity, filing false tax returns, and aiding in the filing of false tax returns.”43
The charitable organization Feed the Children fired its founder and director, Larry Jones, for alleged misconduct. Jones filed a wrongful- termination lawsuit, and the organization filed a countersuit, “accus[ing] Jones of taking bribes, hoarding hardcore pornography...using a charity employee as a personal nanny...misspending charity funds, pocketing travel money, and keeping gifts from appearances.”44 Jones maintains his innocence. He and Feed the Children reached an out-of-court settlement in which Jones apparently received some compensation but was not reinstated as head of the organization.45
These are some examples of public figures, companies, and government agencies that have been associated with issues and scandals involving character, ethics, and the violation of the law. Many more examples could be cited. Revelations of such scandals have become commonplace—they are reported almost every day in newspapers, on broadcast and cable news, on the Internet, on Facebook, and via Twitter.
From a leadership standpoint, these situations illustrate several realities: (1) Character problems are widespread among leaders in many fields of endeavor. (2) A leader’s character flaws often end up hurting innocent people. (3) No matter how many accomplishments a leader achieves, no matter how much money he makes, and no matter how high he goes up the ladder of success, if he is deficient in character, his talent and skill are no guarantee he will stay on top, or that he won’t pay a great price.
Ask Bill Clinton. Ask Bernie Madoff. Ask Lance Armstrong. Ask Jim Bakker. Ask Mel Gibson. Ask Greg Mortenson. Their character flaws caught up with them. For some, it tainted their reputations. For others, it virtually destroyed their lives, as well as the lives of others. For this reason, the critical issue of character must be addressed, as nations, regions, and local communities; businesses and corporations; civic organizations; religious groups; political parties; armed forces; educational institutions; and families continue to search for quality and qualified leaders to take the helm of responsibility and guide them to a better life and a promising future.
Though the above are high-profile cases that became national and global scandals, the disintegration of character today is found in every type of leadership and on every level of society—including the local level and “ordinary” people’s lives. It is found in our homes, with leaders (spouses and parents) who have extramarital affairs, use illegal drugs, abuse alcohol, rack up gambling debts, enter into risky financial investments in hopes of finding a fast track to wealth, abuse family members, and engage in other destructive actions. It is found in our local companies, with workers who embezzle money, steal equipment, or are lazy on the job. It is found in our schools, with teachers who engage in sexual relations with their students, or with students who cheat on exams and engage in bullying through social networks —and sometimes even bring guns to school and shoot their classmates and teachers. It is found in our universities, with professors who plagiarize scholarly works and undergraduates who pay other students to write their term papers.
No one should think he is too smart or too safe to avoid consequences of a lack of character.
Perhaps you are thinking, I’m not in danger of losing my job or being sentenced to prison. However, if we as leaders ignore the necessity of character development—if we allow character defects to influence us—we risk failure in our personal lives, our leadership, and our future. No one should think he is too smart or too safe to avoid consequences of a lack of character.
A Psyche of Distrust
One disturbing result of the crisis of character in leadership is that it has created a psyche of distrust among the general public. There are, of course, many earnest, hardworking people of integrity in all walks of life who strive to do the right thing and are helping to uphold the society in which they live. But while the nations of the world desperately need strong, authentic leaders, too many people in positions of authority are self-absorbed. They operate according to misplaced priorities or opportunistic motives. They fail to offer anything of lasting value to their families, associates, clients, customers, or fellow citizens. Instead, they abuse and misuse them. Ethically deficient leaders are leaving a legacy of fear, skepticism, and confusion among those who follow them or are otherwise affected by their leadership.
For example, will the time come when we can watch a race at a track-and- field meet or a cycling event and not secretly ask ourselves if the champion won because he used performance-enhancing drugs? We often harbor the notion that the winner must have cheated somehow. Or, even though we may make allowance for some unintended memory lapses, when will we be able to read a memoir and not have to wonder if some or most of it has been fabricated? Sadly, we have become wary of the validity of such accounts. Or again, when a large corporation is successful, when will we be rid of lingering suspicions about its business practices and how it turned a profit? We question whether big corporations can make money and still be ethical.
What Happened to Character in Leadership?
Why are today’s leaders so deficient in character? A major reason is that, across the globe, much of leadership training—both formal and informal— fails to emphasize or even include the concept of character as an essential element of leadership. In addition, many governmental and corporate leaders, along with supervisors, bosses, and others in authority, are not mentoring their colleagues and employees in important principles of character development (though they still expect honesty and integrity from them). Instead, as we will see, other elements of leadership have been given priority —titles, position, power, intelligence, skills, gifts, talents, educational qualifications, knowledge, competence, and charisma or other personality traits.
In the process, we have produced...
charismatic leaders without character
gifted leaders without convictions
powerful leaders without principles
intellectual leaders without morality
visionary leaders without values
spiritual leaders without conscience
The nations of the world do not lack people in leadership positions. They lack genuine leadership in their leaders. The result is that we have no shortage of individuals running our countries and businesses and organizations who have titles and high-level positions. They are well-dressed and well-groomed. They are excellent communicators. They are highly skilled in their fields. Yet, as we have noted, these qualities haven’t prevented an epidemic of “character fallout” among leaders of various categories— whether presidents and prime ministers, CEOs and directors, priests and pastors, or spouses and parents.
The nations of the world do not lack people in leadership positions. They lack genuine leadership in their leaders.
Telltale Signs
What great leaders can you name who are alive today? (If you weren’t able to answer that question without giving it a lot of thought, you’re not alone.)
As I write this, Nelson Mandela has been in the hospital for two months due to a lung infection. Mandela was the first democratically elected leader of South Africa and was instrumental in dismantling apartheid. He is now in his mid-nineties. Over the past few years, I have noticed that every time he is admitted to the hospital, people around the world hold their breaths, because no one knows how much longer he will be with us.
What is it about our image of this man that makes us afraid to lose him, even though we understand he is at an advanced age? Could it be that we do not want Mr. Mandela to die because he may be one of the last remaining bastions of true leadership—a man who stands as the definition of character, which we all personally long for and want to see evidenced in the leaders we desire to follow? Is he among the last in a line of historical figures who possessed a vital leadership quality that has very little to do with standard ideas of “power” but nevertheless has the ability to change the world?
I believe that Nelson Mandela’s strong convictions about human dignity and equality among the races are the reason people all over the world want him to live forever. Perhaps South Africans are afraid their country might fall apart after he passes. To me, people’s anxious reactions to the health of Mr. Mandela, aside from being expressions of human compassion and respect, are telltale signs that character in leadership is so rare that people feel we can’t afford to let go of one great leader.
The Future of Leadership
What will be the future of leadership in our world? A familiar but significant truth applies to our present leadership crisis: You can lead people only as far as you have gone yourself. And many of our leaders have not stepped up to the starting line of character development, let alone crossed over it.
Many well-known people who have failed ethically have issued apologies through the media. Even though admitting you were wrong (or that you “made a mistake”) and saying you are sorry is a good start, if it is heartfelt, it doesn’t necessarily indicate a resolve to change your behavior and act responsibly in the future. You have to make a personal commitment to do that. You have to allow it to become an internal conviction—part of your
personal code of ethics.
A future that includes strong, ethical leaders in our governments, businesses, educational institutions, civil organizations, and homes will be secured only by a return to character training and personal character development as our priority. Leaders must embrace this challenge and actively seek to change their ways if our nations are to move from a mind-set of corruption and compromise to an outlook of conviction and character. Instead of seeking political power or economic power or entertainment power or sports power, leaders should pursue political character or economic character or entertainment character or sports character.
A future that includes strong, ethical leaders will be secured only by a return to character training and personal character development as our priority.
A new type of leader must begin to emerge within our governing institutions, our communities, our businesses, our places of employment, our families—and ourselves. Leadership that is weak in ethics and values has allowed our nations to fall apart. It has also initiated many of the problems we grapple with in the world. A return to character in leadership will enable us to begin to address these problems from a position of strength, resolve, and honor.
I have given talks on the power of character in leadership in various halls of government across the globe. Some leaders have literally wept as they’ve explained that no one has ever taught them about the part character plays in leadership. They were instructed on how to manage resources, but they were never taught how to manage their own lives—and how their application of such knowledge was crucial for effective and successful leadership.
Each of us must not only understand and implement the principles of leadership but also make a commitment to become established in character, adhering to a strong code of ethics. Then we must continually grow in the development of our character, so that we can have a positive and lasting impact on our generation and generations to come.
“A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.”46 —C. S. Lewis
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
PREFACE: THE POWER OF CHARACTER IN LEADERSHIP
Genesis chapter 1
Today we are walking in: The Power of Character In Leadership
Today we look to the word-LEADER- H5057 nagiyd-- leader, ruler, captain, prince; excellent thing, (chief) governor, leader, noble, prince, (chief) ruler.
The Torah Testifies.............................
*****
The prophets proclaim...............
Isaiah 55:4 - Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader H5057 and commander to the people.
The writings bear witness.............
2Chronicles 32:21 - And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders H5057 and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword
THE POWER OF CHARACTER IN LEADERSHIP
Preface
The most valuable component of leadership is not power, position,
influence, notoriety, fame, talent, gifting, dynamic oratory, persuasiveness, intellectual superiority, academic achievement, or management skills. It is character. Character is the cradle of credibility for the leader. Without the element of strong, noble, honorable character, leadership and all its potential achievements are in danger of cancellation. Every leader is only as safe and secure as his character.
I offer this series as a resource on this often-neglected aspect of leadership, which is personal but also extremely practical. Having a foundation of ethics is central to the success and longevity of one’s leadership.
Many leadership training seminars and academic programs focus on vision, skills, management, organization, teamwork, and many other helpful subjects. Yet few of these courses address the topic of the leader’s character. The subject is either downplayed or never covered at all. This oversight is tragic. Not only has it permitted the encroachment of an unhealthy atmosphere of negative attitudes and practices among leaders, but it has also led to destructive consequences for individuals, societies, and nations.
Character is the most powerful force a leader can cultivate because it protects leadership. It will enable you to be a success, personally and professionally, as you carry out your purpose, vision, and goals in life.
The Power of Character in Leadership is for...
Leaders who are currently pursuing a vocational calling and desire to be the very best they can be. You will learn how to establish yourself solidly as a leader and reach your goals as you cultivate enduring influence.
Those who are emerging leaders or who aspire to lead. You will discover how ethics and values free you to carry out your singular purpose in life.
Leaders who have failed—perhaps in a major way—due to a character flaw of some kind. You are probably asking yourself, “How did I get to this place? What do I do now? Do I still have a future as a leader?” You will see how to rebuild the foundation of your life. Ethically, you may be on shaky ground right now, but you can begin the process of developing a renewed mind-set and a solid code of ethics that will lead to sound moral character. If you’ve fallen, this series explains how to “fall up” by making changes that will transform you from the inside out.
Anyone who is concerned about the lack of moral force in leadership today. Having leaders of character on the local, national, and global levels is the key to solving a myriad of problems in our world. This series reveals a process for rebuilding our leaders so they can tackle the issues of our day.
People who don’t yet understand that they are leaders. If you believe that leadership is for only a select few, you have accepted a false idea about leaders. Every person on earth is a leader in a particular area of gifting—and character development provides the foundation for discovering how you were born to lead.
In relation to the last point, the focus of my leadership training has always been the transformation of followers into leaders, and leaders into agents of change. There are millions of people who have tremendous potential for leadership, but no one has ever encouraged them to express it and develop it. In fact, many people are being told that they are “nothing.” Eventually, they believe it, so they do not fulfill their purpose in life.
If that has been your perspective, this book will help you to understand what it means to be a genuine leader and how to develop your leadership potential.
Regardless of your background, I invite you to discover the remarkable power of character in leadership—and how values, morals, ethics, and principles affect both the development and the outcome of your personal leadership success.
Today we are walking in: The Power of Character In Leadership
Today we look to the word-LEADER- H5057 nagiyd-- leader, ruler, captain, prince; excellent thing, (chief) governor, leader, noble, prince, (chief) ruler.
The Torah Testifies.............................
*****
The prophets proclaim...............
Isaiah 55:4 - Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader H5057 and commander to the people.
The writings bear witness.............
2Chronicles 32:21 - And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders H5057 and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword
THE POWER OF CHARACTER IN LEADERSHIP
Preface
The most valuable component of leadership is not power, position,
influence, notoriety, fame, talent, gifting, dynamic oratory, persuasiveness, intellectual superiority, academic achievement, or management skills. It is character. Character is the cradle of credibility for the leader. Without the element of strong, noble, honorable character, leadership and all its potential achievements are in danger of cancellation. Every leader is only as safe and secure as his character.
I offer this series as a resource on this often-neglected aspect of leadership, which is personal but also extremely practical. Having a foundation of ethics is central to the success and longevity of one’s leadership.
Many leadership training seminars and academic programs focus on vision, skills, management, organization, teamwork, and many other helpful subjects. Yet few of these courses address the topic of the leader’s character. The subject is either downplayed or never covered at all. This oversight is tragic. Not only has it permitted the encroachment of an unhealthy atmosphere of negative attitudes and practices among leaders, but it has also led to destructive consequences for individuals, societies, and nations.
Character is the most powerful force a leader can cultivate because it protects leadership. It will enable you to be a success, personally and professionally, as you carry out your purpose, vision, and goals in life.
The Power of Character in Leadership is for...
Leaders who are currently pursuing a vocational calling and desire to be the very best they can be. You will learn how to establish yourself solidly as a leader and reach your goals as you cultivate enduring influence.
Those who are emerging leaders or who aspire to lead. You will discover how ethics and values free you to carry out your singular purpose in life.
Leaders who have failed—perhaps in a major way—due to a character flaw of some kind. You are probably asking yourself, “How did I get to this place? What do I do now? Do I still have a future as a leader?” You will see how to rebuild the foundation of your life. Ethically, you may be on shaky ground right now, but you can begin the process of developing a renewed mind-set and a solid code of ethics that will lead to sound moral character. If you’ve fallen, this series explains how to “fall up” by making changes that will transform you from the inside out.
Anyone who is concerned about the lack of moral force in leadership today. Having leaders of character on the local, national, and global levels is the key to solving a myriad of problems in our world. This series reveals a process for rebuilding our leaders so they can tackle the issues of our day.
People who don’t yet understand that they are leaders. If you believe that leadership is for only a select few, you have accepted a false idea about leaders. Every person on earth is a leader in a particular area of gifting—and character development provides the foundation for discovering how you were born to lead.
In relation to the last point, the focus of my leadership training has always been the transformation of followers into leaders, and leaders into agents of change. There are millions of people who have tremendous potential for leadership, but no one has ever encouraged them to express it and develop it. In fact, many people are being told that they are “nothing.” Eventually, they believe it, so they do not fulfill their purpose in life.
If that has been your perspective, this book will help you to understand what it means to be a genuine leader and how to develop your leadership potential.
Regardless of your background, I invite you to discover the remarkable power of character in leadership—and how values, morals, ethics, and principles affect both the development and the outcome of your personal leadership success.
Monday, November 25, 2024
TRANSFER THE VISION
Luke chapter 8
Today we are walking in: Now You Go” TRANSFER THE VISION
Habakkuk 2:2
And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.
VISION
Today we look to the word VISION- H2377 chazown- vision(in ecstatic state), visions (in night), oracle, prophecy (divine communication), vision (as title of book of prophecy) from H2372; a sight (mentally), i.e. a dream, revelation, or oracle:—vision. to see, perceive, look, behold, prophesy, provide, to see, behold, to see as a seer in the ecstatic state, to see, perceive with the intelligence, to see (by experience), to provide
The Torah testifies........
Numbers 24:4
He hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision H2377 of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:
Numbers 24:16
He hath said, which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, which saw the vision H2377 of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:
The prophets proclaim.........
1 Samuel 3:1
And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days;there was no open vision H2377.
Jeremiah 14:14
Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision H2377 and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.
The writings bear witness.........
1 Chronicles 17:15
According to all these words, and according to all this vision H2377, so did Nathan speak unto David.
Psalm 89:19
Then thou spakest in vision H2377 to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people.
Chapter 23
“Now You Go”
TRANSFER THE VISION
MY FIRST MENTOR was my father. He taught me how to love work as he provided for all of his eleven children. He demonstrated the manhood necessary to lead a home both spiritually and emotionally. He mentored me by letting me observe him as he prepared sermons. I watched him minister publicly to crowds. From my early teens, I watched how he dealt with stress. He even taught me how to be married to a woman, setting an example as he was married to my mother for fifty years until her death. For these and other reasons, he was my most important mentor as a man.
My mother was my second mentor. I was able to observe how she had a hunger for the word of Yah. My mother taught me how to read the Bible. My father taught me how to preach the Bible, but my mother taught me how to
read it. She taught me how to love people. I do not think I ever have seen anyone who loved the poor as much as my mother did. While raising eleven children, she would practically take food off our table and give it to poor people. She mentored me in caring for people who are less fortunate.
Mother also mentored me in the act of prayer. I used to hear and watch her pray, even though she did not know I was observing her. This is true mentoring—when people can see the spiritual act of a person. Her example left a great mark on my life, and I pray daily as she did.
In addition to this great experience of my parents, I had two powerful mentors in college at Oral Roberts University. One was a professor in the school of theology who taught a class in New Testament studies, Dr. Jerry
Horner. I took that class and instantly realized this man knew so much that I wanted to learn. I submitted myself to him. Today Dr. Horner is on my board of trustees and still is one of my chief mentors. He has been with me for more than thirty-five years. I have been able to observe him closely during the years, visit his home, and see his family. Jerry sleeps in my home every time he comes to the Bahamas to speak at one of our conferences. It is important to note that he is white, and I am of African descent. The people I mentor come from many different ethnic groups.
“Just as I received the gift of mentorship, I have a duty to pass it on.”
Another great mentor of mine, Oral Roberts, died recently. I vividly recall one time I was on a television show as a student. As soon as I saw those cameras, I began to shake visibly as he was interviewing me. I was petrified because I had never been on television before. This commanding orator who had preached before thousands in live appearances and to the world through the airwaves acted instinctively to calm my fears. With one hand holding the microphone, he reached over with the other one and gently patted my knee as he was talking to me. His touch melted all the fear. He knew what he was doing. He was calming a frightened mentee, and I never forgot that. It has been more than thirty-five years since that day, but I can still remember the touch. The affirming power of a mentor’s touch will last you a lifetime.
When I first came back to the Bahamas in 1980 after college and graduate school, I began this ministry. Some people said I was a cult. They would talk negatively about me on the radio and television, and ministers used to preach against me. I used to be sermon material. One of the highest compliments they ever paid me was, “He thinks he is Oral Roberts.” That was flattery. At least I was not associated with some preacher who was not doing anything or who was misleading people. I was glad to be associated with somebody who was doing something.
Still another of my mentors, Dr. Fuchsia Pickett, taught me how to have a zeal for the things of Yah. She taught me how to pursue Yah with a passion, how to fast, and how to sacrifice for greatness. She also affirmed me in my desire to train leaders. She actually told me I should proceed with my global passion for developing leaders in Third-World countries.
As I matured as a leader, I had access to all of these people. I could call them at any time. They could rebuke me, correct me, or instruct me. Many times they would caution me in certain areas of my life. That was and still is
important to me. I am still being mentored, even though I mentor thousands of people at a distance and hundreds of people directly.
Consider the Lion
In the introduction to this book, I talked about the lion. We consider this creature the most successful in the animal kingdom. The lion’s effectiveness in survival and its ability to face down other creatures regardless of their size,
weight, or power impresses us. The lion is a perfect example of a creature with the qualities necessary for effective leadership. That includes its courage, grace, and strength, but the most important is the way the lion mentors its offspring.
First, lions do not associate with any other animal. This is interesting
because if you want to be a leader or maintain your leadership, you must first
be mindful of the associations you form. You want to be with people who
think as you do, people who walk and talk as leaders should, people who
have leadership experience. You want to learn from them.
The second thing about the lion is that it travels in a pride. That is a family
of lions who live, hunt and work together. In this way, lions have created an
environment for mentoring their offspring.
That is what I find most interesting about the lion. At the beginning of the book, I spoke of our safari in South Africa, where I had the privilege of watching the lions hunt. I noticed little cubs around, and I saw the mother
lion pick up the cubs by the back of the neck with her mouth, take them over to a shady bush near a tree, and drop them down one at a time. She came back, picked up another one, took him over to the tree, and left him there.
Then I saw something strange. She walked away, and they perked up looking at her but never moved. Four other female lions joined her. They all began to crouch toward their prey. The cubs never moved, and they watched their mothers. I was intrigued as I saw those lions strategize as they crept along in the grass, moving toward the target—one to the left, one to the right,
one over to the side, and one stayed back. They were all in position, working toward the attack.
Still, the cubs never strayed, but they perked up, watching every move. Suddenly, I realized this was mentorship in action. This was an opportunity to preserve the future of the pride. Then I realized that the lioness had not just placed her young ones near the bush under a tree, but had set them up on a little mound where they had a perfect view of all the action. The mother chose a high place so that they could observe every move.
No wonder the lion is still the king of the jungle. The lion does not leave leadership training to experimentation. They do not risk mistakes or let the next generation learn by trial and error. They intentionally train.
What I also find interesting is that the lionesses are the real hunters in the lions’ pride. In the lion kingdom, the father does not do the kill. The women go out and get the meat. Lionesses take the young ones with them on a hunt
and find a safe place for them to observe how, when, where, and what to kill. The cubs can see the lionesses’ movements, their strategies, their systems, their attack modes. This is mentorship by observation. This is the reason the lion is so successful. They continue to reproduce leadership.
You are responsible for creating a “pride of lions” mentality around you for those you mentor. Let them see how you do things. Many times leaders in our day hide what we do from the people around us. We do not want them to observe what we do because we are insecure. We believe that if they learn what we do, we will lose our position. However, we forget that the entire purpose for leadership is to reproduce leaders and that the greatest measure of success for a leader is to mentor a potential replacement. For this, the lions are a great inspiration.
Just as I received the gift of mentorship, I have a duty to pass it on. The greatest obligation of a true leader is to transfer a deposit into the next generation. As a leader you were given a gift, you developed a vision, and
you carried it out to the best of your abilities during your tenure. Perhaps you exceeded your own expectations, or you did not finish. Either way, as part of the mentoring process, you have tried to instill your values and your vision into the next generation of leaders. If you have done things right, they “caught” your vision. Time is up. You must relinquish control, pass the baton, and trust that your successors will succeed.
Your successor will not always do things just as you might have done and may not think,“I wonder what he would have done now?” Even as a parent, you might have to accept that your children will not always think, “What would Mama or Daddy do?” Fifty years from now, your ministry members will not say,“Reverend Jones always said…”
Some of us do ask,“What would Yahusha do?” as the popular saying goes. Often, however, we know very well what He would do because Scripture clearly outlines His vision for us. His parables prescribed what to do in many
key situations that we can apply to what we do today. The principles, His rules for living and leading, tend to work whether you aspire to be a Hebrew or not, whether you are in the ministry or the boardroom or in the streets.
Similarly, public leaders often like to read about their predecessors, and we encourage our youth to read about national heroes, hoping their lives hold clues for our own—that the vision will rub off.
The Advanced Class
The gospels leave us many clues about how Yahusha mentored His disciples. I find it interesting that among the twelve trainees or students, He chose from among the group three to mentor at a different level. Peter, James, and John received more intimate mentoring than the other nine. You will observe that on many occasions in Scripture, Yahusha would take those three to certain environments and leave the other nine out of it. He did it because He wanted them to experience certain things. Their knowledge of Him grew to a deeper level. Their leadership positions in the ministry in Jerusalem were at a higher level. Their work and teaching of doctrine was at a different level. Earlier, I emphasized that a mentor must devote time to the people he or she mentors.
Yahusha spent extra time with these three. You will find that Yahusha often chose to expose these three priority mentees
to different events and did not take the other disciples. In one example, when He wanted to raise the little dead girl, Scripture says He left everyone outside except those three and proceeded to raise her from the dead. That was an opportunity Yahusha provided for the three that He had singled out for close attention.
Luke 8:51–56 When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child’s father and mother. Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. “Stop wailing,” Yahusha said.“She is not dead but asleep.” They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But
he took her by the hand and said,“My child, get up!” Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Yahusha told them to give her something to eat. Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened.
These same three were with Him at the Transfiguration.
Matthew 17:1 After six days Yahusha took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. Only they were with Yahusha as He prayed at Gethsemane on the eve of His death.
Mark 14:33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. These examples show how Yahusha shared time and set the stage for transferring His knowledge and spirit to these three in particular. He would imply, “Look, I only want you three to come.” What is Yahusha doing? He is taking them into an environment in which He did not want the other nine. He wanted to mentor these three at a different level and allow them to see things He did not
let others witness. He would tell them not to tell anyone what they had seen. He was testing them.
Yahusha also exposed His vulnerabilities. Mentoring requires that you expose your vulnerabilities when the occasion calls for it so the mentee can understand your heart. When Yahusha asked,“Could you not keep watch for one hour?” (Mark 14:37), He showed His fear or anxiety to those closest to Him.
Do you have people in your organization you can take into some of the private parts in your heart?
You would normally entrust succession to those who know your strengths and your weaknesses. For the protégé to get past those obstructions in your life to understand your vision, you have to expose yourself. You have to convey your passion, and encourage the mentee to fall in love with what you love. Your successor must love you, your passion—what wakes you up in the
morning. If the mentee never captures that, then he or she will never be successful as your successor.
Let Them All Prophesy
At times, Yahusha shared lessons with all the disciples and He gave all of them His authority. When He sent them all out two by two to go into the whole world to bring the message of the kingdom, He was sharing an opportunity
with them. The Bible says He gave them authority to go, which means Yahusha wanted them to experience that environment, go out, and carry a message, dealing with people. Moses transferred his spirit in a similar fashion. When Yah told Moses that he needed some help to do the work, He told him to call seventy people from the group so Yah could transfer Moses’ spirit to them.
Numbers 11:16–17 The Most High said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them.
They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone.”
The people who should be in your ministry or close to you in your business should be the people of your spirit. They should have the right attitude. They should think what you think, believe what you believe, and want what you
want. The Bible says that once these seventy got the spirit, they began to speak. The word the Scripture uses is “prophesied.” They began to speak what Moses was speaking. In other words, they sounded just like Moses.
This transfer of the anointing of Moses also leaked over to people who were not even present. They were in the camp, and they too began to talk and sound like Moses. Joshua became a little nervous. That was when he urged Moses to stop them. “They are all going to take your job!” That in a way was what he was saying. Look at the answer Moses gave. “But Moses replied, ‘Are you jealous for my sake?’ ” (Num. 11:29). That is an important statement.
Again, the person who is jealous for you should succeed you. Joshua was defending Moses. This is when Moses shows his leadership maturity, when he suggests in so many words,n“I want everyone to be a leader. I want everybody to be a prophet.”
Is that how you think? Do you wish everybody in the office could have your job? Are you saying, “I wish all of you could do this job. I am going to train all of you to have my abilities”? True leaders are never married to a position. Leaders walk around with a smile debt they owe to humanity.
“I am going to pay my debt and continue paying
by mentoring and choosing the right successor.
” That is how I feel every day. I owe all of you what I am teaching. I have to do this. I owe you this. This is
not a job for me. This is an obligation. Moses was authentic. He was secure in his position—just as Joshua was secure in his. He was the servant, the aide—in other words, the one who was there to do anything and everything the leader needs. In fact, an aide outthinks you, always watches to see what you are thinking of doing next and does it for you. The aide thinks,
“He is going to be thirsty, so let me get some
water. He is going to need someone to rub his feet. He is tired. He is going to need someone to bring him food now. He is going to need someone to change his coat.
” The aide anticipates these needs and fills them. An aide is totally committed to the comfort of the leader. All Joshua wanted to do was to aid Moses since his youth, the Bible says. Joshua did not show up looking for power. He grew up serving. That is what qualified him to be Moses’ successor. If you are the boss, look around you. Who in your company, school, or ministry is like that? If you are a leader in training, are you a willing aide as
Joshua was?
At the Eleventh Hour
Perhaps you have read this far in the book only to realize that you do not have a successor in mind. You have not mentored anyone. Time is running out, and no one is waiting in the wings fully prepared to succeed you. You
need to go to work, make some changes, and find someone you can embrace as a potential successor while there is still a little time left. If you are the CEO of a company or a manager of a department, your first
responsibility to the board is to fulfill the mission and the expectation to the company. Your first obligation to yourself, even at this late hour, should be to identify an individual that you want to mentor to take your place. You might not have authority to choose your successor, but you want at least to mentor someone to take your place.
Given the circumstances, this does not have to be someone who loves you as I defined it earlier in this book. If you have not mentored anyone, chances
are you have not attracted that kind of love or loyalty yet. Chances are that during the years you turned away those who pursued you, begging you to be their mentor. You never acknowledged how talented, eager, and willing they
were. Many of them left for other opportunities. A few stayed, but you never groomed them for greater things, and most of them stalled or burned out. Now you have no one in the pipeline who is fully prepared, and your options
are limited. You will have to seek out someone you believe has great visionary potential, aspirations, or great intellectual capacity. Once you have identified the person, you might have to woo them. Initiate the discussion. Invite him or her into your office to explain your desire to mentor, and solicit that individual’s interest. Say to them,
“If you are willing to be developed, I am willing to develop you. I agree to help you. Do you agree to let me?”
People may be surprised when you approach them in this way, but the gesture will show that you care for them. I believe that very invitation to mentor them, the fact that you reached out, can be the basis of a caring relationship. Once the individual agrees, then proceed to mentor based on the principles outlined in this book.
Eventually that can lead to the kind of “love” you need in a successor, or at least respect.
Yes, you may be mentoring late in the game, but now is better than never. Advise your superiors that you are mentoring this person. Now you are opening up the possibility of succession. If you answer to a board, they will respect you for thinking beyond your time with the company. The board will also feel secure in knowing that because you are mentoring someone, they will not need to go outside the organization to recruit a potential successor. The board might even decide to pay you more for fear that you are planning to leave. The fact that you are being sensitive to the company’s needs for succession makes you the kind of person they want to keep around for a while. As a manager, you have a win on all sides. You have someone in training to replace you, you have a board that might feel more committed to
you, and you have an increase in salary. Just one act of demonstrating that you want to mentor can improve your relationship to the company, as well as your bank account.
Cast a Wide Net
If you are not the principal of the organization, you can mentor a successor for your position, but not necessarily for the whole organization. If you are the principal of the organization, you have more authority over mentoring and succession. Everyone can mentor someone, however. You do not need to be the president or owner. The minute you have a position of authority, your
first act is to choose someone to mentor.
If possible, choose more than one individual to mentor and make them all aware that everyone will have the opportunity to advance and grow under the
mentoring program. Let them know you are not responsible for the future, nor can you guarantee any position. You can promise that you will position
them for any opportunity that will be available. This reduces the possibility of jealousy and infighting once your choice is clear.
I mentor hundreds of people from around the world. I also mentor twenty- two people within my organization. One of them is the one I chose as successor. Because I mentored all of them, none became jealous. Yahusha mentored twelve, but had three who were His favorites. Of course, we do have a record of James and John asking for a special place, and Yahusha had to correct them that everyone has a spot (see Matt. 20:20–23 and Mark
10:40). I think this shows that His interest in mentoring all twelve of them reduced the tension and the spirit of competition among them.
Put your eyes on one individual who may be a potential successor, but open up mentorship to a broader circle to encourage development of all the gifts that are under your influence. Encourage those you mentor to mentor. It
reduces the spirit of competition and anxiety when you require persons you are helping to help someone else. You will find that they all will develop aspirit of care and respect for one another.
The Greatest Failure
The worst mistake a leader can make is to mentor no one, choose no successor, and leave no legacy. The first example of this in the Scripture is the first created human, Adam. He died without any strong successor. The Bible does not indicate that he mentored anyone, not even his wife. He was so poor in his mentorship of her that his wife was subject to persuasion by a satanic force, and it destroyed his whole family. One son killed his own
brother. This is the worst form of lack of mentorship.
The next one would be Joshua, who despite having had effective mentoring, appears to have left no strong successor. So Joshua failed as a leader. After the death of Joshua, the Bible says it happened that the children
of Israel asked the Most High, “Who shall lead us now?”
Judges 1:1 After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked the Most High, “Who will be the first to go up and fight for us against the Canaanites?”
The book of Joshua mentions no specific person he mentored—no aide to Joshua as he was to Moses. We ended up with a scattering of people with no organization. Israel never fully recovered. If we do not mentor, we create chaos. Another example of weak mentoring is Solomon, who did not groom anyone to follow him. David
mentored Solomon, but after Solomon died, the kingdom was divided and destroyed. In the New Testament, the trend continues. Yahusha chose Peter, but Peter failed to appoint someone, so there was chaos. Paul appointed Timothy, but Timothy failed to appoint someone.
The constant principle flows through history that where there is no mentoring, there is no successor. Where there is no successor, there is no order. Where there is no order, there is chaos. Whenever a void occurs in the succession of leadership, scattering and decentralization follow. Yah has to start all over again with the next
generation, saying essentially, “Let me find someone who understands this.”
Yah has to find someone new who can start fresh, carry out the obligation to mentor, and choose a successor before time runs out.
Can you accept the challenge to lead as if the future depends on it? Are your successors in place, trained and ready to go? Then step back, give them full authority, and send them forth to do greater things. Your supervision is
no longer needed here, and you too have better things to do.
You have conveyed your vision, you have produced leaders, and you have given them opportunities to apply their skills to practical situations, to practice the performance of miracles. Now trust that they will carry out—not necessarily your exact vision as you would have it—but a vision inspired by, shaped by, and formed from yours. You will have a legacy. This will be the ultimate test of your leadership. Can your successors perpetuate your
purpose, carry on your vision, preserve your legacy, and go on to do greater things?
When it is time for you to go, you will be able to say,
“I have transferred all I have, my grand vision, to my successors. I lived up to the mentoring agreement. I have trained them well. It is up to them to run on.” Your segment of the relay race is over. It is finished.
The Apostle Paul put it this way:
2 Timothy 4:6–7 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Points to remember:
The greatest obligation of a true leader is to transfer a deposit into the next Ok generation.
The worst mistake a leader can make is to mentor no one, choose no successor, and leave no legacy
Today we are walking in: Now You Go” TRANSFER THE VISION
Habakkuk 2:2
And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.
VISION
Today we look to the word VISION- H2377 chazown- vision(in ecstatic state), visions (in night), oracle, prophecy (divine communication), vision (as title of book of prophecy) from H2372; a sight (mentally), i.e. a dream, revelation, or oracle:—vision. to see, perceive, look, behold, prophesy, provide, to see, behold, to see as a seer in the ecstatic state, to see, perceive with the intelligence, to see (by experience), to provide
The Torah testifies........
Numbers 24:4
He hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision H2377 of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:
Numbers 24:16
He hath said, which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, which saw the vision H2377 of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:
The prophets proclaim.........
1 Samuel 3:1
And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days;there was no open vision H2377.
Jeremiah 14:14
Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision H2377 and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.
The writings bear witness.........
1 Chronicles 17:15
According to all these words, and according to all this vision H2377, so did Nathan speak unto David.
Psalm 89:19
Then thou spakest in vision H2377 to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people.
Chapter 23
“Now You Go”
TRANSFER THE VISION
MY FIRST MENTOR was my father. He taught me how to love work as he provided for all of his eleven children. He demonstrated the manhood necessary to lead a home both spiritually and emotionally. He mentored me by letting me observe him as he prepared sermons. I watched him minister publicly to crowds. From my early teens, I watched how he dealt with stress. He even taught me how to be married to a woman, setting an example as he was married to my mother for fifty years until her death. For these and other reasons, he was my most important mentor as a man.
My mother was my second mentor. I was able to observe how she had a hunger for the word of Yah. My mother taught me how to read the Bible. My father taught me how to preach the Bible, but my mother taught me how to
read it. She taught me how to love people. I do not think I ever have seen anyone who loved the poor as much as my mother did. While raising eleven children, she would practically take food off our table and give it to poor people. She mentored me in caring for people who are less fortunate.
Mother also mentored me in the act of prayer. I used to hear and watch her pray, even though she did not know I was observing her. This is true mentoring—when people can see the spiritual act of a person. Her example left a great mark on my life, and I pray daily as she did.
In addition to this great experience of my parents, I had two powerful mentors in college at Oral Roberts University. One was a professor in the school of theology who taught a class in New Testament studies, Dr. Jerry
Horner. I took that class and instantly realized this man knew so much that I wanted to learn. I submitted myself to him. Today Dr. Horner is on my board of trustees and still is one of my chief mentors. He has been with me for more than thirty-five years. I have been able to observe him closely during the years, visit his home, and see his family. Jerry sleeps in my home every time he comes to the Bahamas to speak at one of our conferences. It is important to note that he is white, and I am of African descent. The people I mentor come from many different ethnic groups.
“Just as I received the gift of mentorship, I have a duty to pass it on.”
Another great mentor of mine, Oral Roberts, died recently. I vividly recall one time I was on a television show as a student. As soon as I saw those cameras, I began to shake visibly as he was interviewing me. I was petrified because I had never been on television before. This commanding orator who had preached before thousands in live appearances and to the world through the airwaves acted instinctively to calm my fears. With one hand holding the microphone, he reached over with the other one and gently patted my knee as he was talking to me. His touch melted all the fear. He knew what he was doing. He was calming a frightened mentee, and I never forgot that. It has been more than thirty-five years since that day, but I can still remember the touch. The affirming power of a mentor’s touch will last you a lifetime.
When I first came back to the Bahamas in 1980 after college and graduate school, I began this ministry. Some people said I was a cult. They would talk negatively about me on the radio and television, and ministers used to preach against me. I used to be sermon material. One of the highest compliments they ever paid me was, “He thinks he is Oral Roberts.” That was flattery. At least I was not associated with some preacher who was not doing anything or who was misleading people. I was glad to be associated with somebody who was doing something.
Still another of my mentors, Dr. Fuchsia Pickett, taught me how to have a zeal for the things of Yah. She taught me how to pursue Yah with a passion, how to fast, and how to sacrifice for greatness. She also affirmed me in my desire to train leaders. She actually told me I should proceed with my global passion for developing leaders in Third-World countries.
As I matured as a leader, I had access to all of these people. I could call them at any time. They could rebuke me, correct me, or instruct me. Many times they would caution me in certain areas of my life. That was and still is
important to me. I am still being mentored, even though I mentor thousands of people at a distance and hundreds of people directly.
Consider the Lion
In the introduction to this book, I talked about the lion. We consider this creature the most successful in the animal kingdom. The lion’s effectiveness in survival and its ability to face down other creatures regardless of their size,
weight, or power impresses us. The lion is a perfect example of a creature with the qualities necessary for effective leadership. That includes its courage, grace, and strength, but the most important is the way the lion mentors its offspring.
First, lions do not associate with any other animal. This is interesting
because if you want to be a leader or maintain your leadership, you must first
be mindful of the associations you form. You want to be with people who
think as you do, people who walk and talk as leaders should, people who
have leadership experience. You want to learn from them.
The second thing about the lion is that it travels in a pride. That is a family
of lions who live, hunt and work together. In this way, lions have created an
environment for mentoring their offspring.
That is what I find most interesting about the lion. At the beginning of the book, I spoke of our safari in South Africa, where I had the privilege of watching the lions hunt. I noticed little cubs around, and I saw the mother
lion pick up the cubs by the back of the neck with her mouth, take them over to a shady bush near a tree, and drop them down one at a time. She came back, picked up another one, took him over to the tree, and left him there.
Then I saw something strange. She walked away, and they perked up looking at her but never moved. Four other female lions joined her. They all began to crouch toward their prey. The cubs never moved, and they watched their mothers. I was intrigued as I saw those lions strategize as they crept along in the grass, moving toward the target—one to the left, one to the right,
one over to the side, and one stayed back. They were all in position, working toward the attack.
Still, the cubs never strayed, but they perked up, watching every move. Suddenly, I realized this was mentorship in action. This was an opportunity to preserve the future of the pride. Then I realized that the lioness had not just placed her young ones near the bush under a tree, but had set them up on a little mound where they had a perfect view of all the action. The mother chose a high place so that they could observe every move.
No wonder the lion is still the king of the jungle. The lion does not leave leadership training to experimentation. They do not risk mistakes or let the next generation learn by trial and error. They intentionally train.
What I also find interesting is that the lionesses are the real hunters in the lions’ pride. In the lion kingdom, the father does not do the kill. The women go out and get the meat. Lionesses take the young ones with them on a hunt
and find a safe place for them to observe how, when, where, and what to kill. The cubs can see the lionesses’ movements, their strategies, their systems, their attack modes. This is mentorship by observation. This is the reason the lion is so successful. They continue to reproduce leadership.
You are responsible for creating a “pride of lions” mentality around you for those you mentor. Let them see how you do things. Many times leaders in our day hide what we do from the people around us. We do not want them to observe what we do because we are insecure. We believe that if they learn what we do, we will lose our position. However, we forget that the entire purpose for leadership is to reproduce leaders and that the greatest measure of success for a leader is to mentor a potential replacement. For this, the lions are a great inspiration.
Just as I received the gift of mentorship, I have a duty to pass it on. The greatest obligation of a true leader is to transfer a deposit into the next generation. As a leader you were given a gift, you developed a vision, and
you carried it out to the best of your abilities during your tenure. Perhaps you exceeded your own expectations, or you did not finish. Either way, as part of the mentoring process, you have tried to instill your values and your vision into the next generation of leaders. If you have done things right, they “caught” your vision. Time is up. You must relinquish control, pass the baton, and trust that your successors will succeed.
Your successor will not always do things just as you might have done and may not think,“I wonder what he would have done now?” Even as a parent, you might have to accept that your children will not always think, “What would Mama or Daddy do?” Fifty years from now, your ministry members will not say,“Reverend Jones always said…”
Some of us do ask,“What would Yahusha do?” as the popular saying goes. Often, however, we know very well what He would do because Scripture clearly outlines His vision for us. His parables prescribed what to do in many
key situations that we can apply to what we do today. The principles, His rules for living and leading, tend to work whether you aspire to be a Hebrew or not, whether you are in the ministry or the boardroom or in the streets.
Similarly, public leaders often like to read about their predecessors, and we encourage our youth to read about national heroes, hoping their lives hold clues for our own—that the vision will rub off.
The Advanced Class
The gospels leave us many clues about how Yahusha mentored His disciples. I find it interesting that among the twelve trainees or students, He chose from among the group three to mentor at a different level. Peter, James, and John received more intimate mentoring than the other nine. You will observe that on many occasions in Scripture, Yahusha would take those three to certain environments and leave the other nine out of it. He did it because He wanted them to experience certain things. Their knowledge of Him grew to a deeper level. Their leadership positions in the ministry in Jerusalem were at a higher level. Their work and teaching of doctrine was at a different level. Earlier, I emphasized that a mentor must devote time to the people he or she mentors.
Yahusha spent extra time with these three. You will find that Yahusha often chose to expose these three priority mentees
to different events and did not take the other disciples. In one example, when He wanted to raise the little dead girl, Scripture says He left everyone outside except those three and proceeded to raise her from the dead. That was an opportunity Yahusha provided for the three that He had singled out for close attention.
Luke 8:51–56 When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child’s father and mother. Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. “Stop wailing,” Yahusha said.“She is not dead but asleep.” They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But
he took her by the hand and said,“My child, get up!” Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Yahusha told them to give her something to eat. Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened.
These same three were with Him at the Transfiguration.
Matthew 17:1 After six days Yahusha took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. Only they were with Yahusha as He prayed at Gethsemane on the eve of His death.
Mark 14:33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. These examples show how Yahusha shared time and set the stage for transferring His knowledge and spirit to these three in particular. He would imply, “Look, I only want you three to come.” What is Yahusha doing? He is taking them into an environment in which He did not want the other nine. He wanted to mentor these three at a different level and allow them to see things He did not
let others witness. He would tell them not to tell anyone what they had seen. He was testing them.
Yahusha also exposed His vulnerabilities. Mentoring requires that you expose your vulnerabilities when the occasion calls for it so the mentee can understand your heart. When Yahusha asked,“Could you not keep watch for one hour?” (Mark 14:37), He showed His fear or anxiety to those closest to Him.
Do you have people in your organization you can take into some of the private parts in your heart?
You would normally entrust succession to those who know your strengths and your weaknesses. For the protégé to get past those obstructions in your life to understand your vision, you have to expose yourself. You have to convey your passion, and encourage the mentee to fall in love with what you love. Your successor must love you, your passion—what wakes you up in the
morning. If the mentee never captures that, then he or she will never be successful as your successor.
Let Them All Prophesy
At times, Yahusha shared lessons with all the disciples and He gave all of them His authority. When He sent them all out two by two to go into the whole world to bring the message of the kingdom, He was sharing an opportunity
with them. The Bible says He gave them authority to go, which means Yahusha wanted them to experience that environment, go out, and carry a message, dealing with people. Moses transferred his spirit in a similar fashion. When Yah told Moses that he needed some help to do the work, He told him to call seventy people from the group so Yah could transfer Moses’ spirit to them.
Numbers 11:16–17 The Most High said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them.
They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone.”
The people who should be in your ministry or close to you in your business should be the people of your spirit. They should have the right attitude. They should think what you think, believe what you believe, and want what you
want. The Bible says that once these seventy got the spirit, they began to speak. The word the Scripture uses is “prophesied.” They began to speak what Moses was speaking. In other words, they sounded just like Moses.
This transfer of the anointing of Moses also leaked over to people who were not even present. They were in the camp, and they too began to talk and sound like Moses. Joshua became a little nervous. That was when he urged Moses to stop them. “They are all going to take your job!” That in a way was what he was saying. Look at the answer Moses gave. “But Moses replied, ‘Are you jealous for my sake?’ ” (Num. 11:29). That is an important statement.
Again, the person who is jealous for you should succeed you. Joshua was defending Moses. This is when Moses shows his leadership maturity, when he suggests in so many words,n“I want everyone to be a leader. I want everybody to be a prophet.”
Is that how you think? Do you wish everybody in the office could have your job? Are you saying, “I wish all of you could do this job. I am going to train all of you to have my abilities”? True leaders are never married to a position. Leaders walk around with a smile debt they owe to humanity.
“I am going to pay my debt and continue paying
by mentoring and choosing the right successor.
” That is how I feel every day. I owe all of you what I am teaching. I have to do this. I owe you this. This is
not a job for me. This is an obligation. Moses was authentic. He was secure in his position—just as Joshua was secure in his. He was the servant, the aide—in other words, the one who was there to do anything and everything the leader needs. In fact, an aide outthinks you, always watches to see what you are thinking of doing next and does it for you. The aide thinks,
“He is going to be thirsty, so let me get some
water. He is going to need someone to rub his feet. He is tired. He is going to need someone to bring him food now. He is going to need someone to change his coat.
” The aide anticipates these needs and fills them. An aide is totally committed to the comfort of the leader. All Joshua wanted to do was to aid Moses since his youth, the Bible says. Joshua did not show up looking for power. He grew up serving. That is what qualified him to be Moses’ successor. If you are the boss, look around you. Who in your company, school, or ministry is like that? If you are a leader in training, are you a willing aide as
Joshua was?
At the Eleventh Hour
Perhaps you have read this far in the book only to realize that you do not have a successor in mind. You have not mentored anyone. Time is running out, and no one is waiting in the wings fully prepared to succeed you. You
need to go to work, make some changes, and find someone you can embrace as a potential successor while there is still a little time left. If you are the CEO of a company or a manager of a department, your first
responsibility to the board is to fulfill the mission and the expectation to the company. Your first obligation to yourself, even at this late hour, should be to identify an individual that you want to mentor to take your place. You might not have authority to choose your successor, but you want at least to mentor someone to take your place.
Given the circumstances, this does not have to be someone who loves you as I defined it earlier in this book. If you have not mentored anyone, chances
are you have not attracted that kind of love or loyalty yet. Chances are that during the years you turned away those who pursued you, begging you to be their mentor. You never acknowledged how talented, eager, and willing they
were. Many of them left for other opportunities. A few stayed, but you never groomed them for greater things, and most of them stalled or burned out. Now you have no one in the pipeline who is fully prepared, and your options
are limited. You will have to seek out someone you believe has great visionary potential, aspirations, or great intellectual capacity. Once you have identified the person, you might have to woo them. Initiate the discussion. Invite him or her into your office to explain your desire to mentor, and solicit that individual’s interest. Say to them,
“If you are willing to be developed, I am willing to develop you. I agree to help you. Do you agree to let me?”
People may be surprised when you approach them in this way, but the gesture will show that you care for them. I believe that very invitation to mentor them, the fact that you reached out, can be the basis of a caring relationship. Once the individual agrees, then proceed to mentor based on the principles outlined in this book.
Eventually that can lead to the kind of “love” you need in a successor, or at least respect.
Yes, you may be mentoring late in the game, but now is better than never. Advise your superiors that you are mentoring this person. Now you are opening up the possibility of succession. If you answer to a board, they will respect you for thinking beyond your time with the company. The board will also feel secure in knowing that because you are mentoring someone, they will not need to go outside the organization to recruit a potential successor. The board might even decide to pay you more for fear that you are planning to leave. The fact that you are being sensitive to the company’s needs for succession makes you the kind of person they want to keep around for a while. As a manager, you have a win on all sides. You have someone in training to replace you, you have a board that might feel more committed to
you, and you have an increase in salary. Just one act of demonstrating that you want to mentor can improve your relationship to the company, as well as your bank account.
Cast a Wide Net
If you are not the principal of the organization, you can mentor a successor for your position, but not necessarily for the whole organization. If you are the principal of the organization, you have more authority over mentoring and succession. Everyone can mentor someone, however. You do not need to be the president or owner. The minute you have a position of authority, your
first act is to choose someone to mentor.
If possible, choose more than one individual to mentor and make them all aware that everyone will have the opportunity to advance and grow under the
mentoring program. Let them know you are not responsible for the future, nor can you guarantee any position. You can promise that you will position
them for any opportunity that will be available. This reduces the possibility of jealousy and infighting once your choice is clear.
I mentor hundreds of people from around the world. I also mentor twenty- two people within my organization. One of them is the one I chose as successor. Because I mentored all of them, none became jealous. Yahusha mentored twelve, but had three who were His favorites. Of course, we do have a record of James and John asking for a special place, and Yahusha had to correct them that everyone has a spot (see Matt. 20:20–23 and Mark
10:40). I think this shows that His interest in mentoring all twelve of them reduced the tension and the spirit of competition among them.
Put your eyes on one individual who may be a potential successor, but open up mentorship to a broader circle to encourage development of all the gifts that are under your influence. Encourage those you mentor to mentor. It
reduces the spirit of competition and anxiety when you require persons you are helping to help someone else. You will find that they all will develop aspirit of care and respect for one another.
The Greatest Failure
The worst mistake a leader can make is to mentor no one, choose no successor, and leave no legacy. The first example of this in the Scripture is the first created human, Adam. He died without any strong successor. The Bible does not indicate that he mentored anyone, not even his wife. He was so poor in his mentorship of her that his wife was subject to persuasion by a satanic force, and it destroyed his whole family. One son killed his own
brother. This is the worst form of lack of mentorship.
The next one would be Joshua, who despite having had effective mentoring, appears to have left no strong successor. So Joshua failed as a leader. After the death of Joshua, the Bible says it happened that the children
of Israel asked the Most High, “Who shall lead us now?”
Judges 1:1 After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked the Most High, “Who will be the first to go up and fight for us against the Canaanites?”
The book of Joshua mentions no specific person he mentored—no aide to Joshua as he was to Moses. We ended up with a scattering of people with no organization. Israel never fully recovered. If we do not mentor, we create chaos. Another example of weak mentoring is Solomon, who did not groom anyone to follow him. David
mentored Solomon, but after Solomon died, the kingdom was divided and destroyed. In the New Testament, the trend continues. Yahusha chose Peter, but Peter failed to appoint someone, so there was chaos. Paul appointed Timothy, but Timothy failed to appoint someone.
The constant principle flows through history that where there is no mentoring, there is no successor. Where there is no successor, there is no order. Where there is no order, there is chaos. Whenever a void occurs in the succession of leadership, scattering and decentralization follow. Yah has to start all over again with the next
generation, saying essentially, “Let me find someone who understands this.”
Yah has to find someone new who can start fresh, carry out the obligation to mentor, and choose a successor before time runs out.
Can you accept the challenge to lead as if the future depends on it? Are your successors in place, trained and ready to go? Then step back, give them full authority, and send them forth to do greater things. Your supervision is
no longer needed here, and you too have better things to do.
You have conveyed your vision, you have produced leaders, and you have given them opportunities to apply their skills to practical situations, to practice the performance of miracles. Now trust that they will carry out—not necessarily your exact vision as you would have it—but a vision inspired by, shaped by, and formed from yours. You will have a legacy. This will be the ultimate test of your leadership. Can your successors perpetuate your
purpose, carry on your vision, preserve your legacy, and go on to do greater things?
When it is time for you to go, you will be able to say,
“I have transferred all I have, my grand vision, to my successors. I lived up to the mentoring agreement. I have trained them well. It is up to them to run on.” Your segment of the relay race is over. It is finished.
The Apostle Paul put it this way:
2 Timothy 4:6–7 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Points to remember:
The greatest obligation of a true leader is to transfer a deposit into the next Ok generation.
The worst mistake a leader can make is to mentor no one, choose no successor, and leave no legacy
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