Unmanaged Leadership Moments
Jim Collins, famous for several books, including the groundbreaking Good to Great, once wrote, “Bad decisions made with good intentions are still bad decisions.” Weighty words and apropos of our time today as we look at the life of my favourite leader. Moses' life and leadership are the stuff of legend. Though he initially recoiled at the Lord's “invitation” to lead, no human being has led a larger, more disgruntled group of people in the rest of history. No one has led better. He even showed such humility that he is called the most humble man on earth.
So how did he end up on this list? I am still reeling from the discovery, but it gave me an even greater appreciation for the difficulty of leadership, the kindness of the Lord, and the danger of one unmanaged moment.
According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, public speaking is the greatest human fear—more so than death. I contend that if public speaking is the greatest fear—even more significant than death—leading people must be a very close second! In twenty years of leadership, time has proved this to be true from my vantage point, but nothing has been like these last few years. Author, former pastor, and leadership expert John C. Maxwell said that the past three years have been the most challenging season to be a leader he has seen in fifty years of leadership.
Founder and outgoing pastor of Saddleback Church, Rick Warren, recently named five storms that the world has weathered in the last few years: global infirmity, social instability, racial inequality, financial insecurity, and political incivility. Amid all of those storms, culturally, much of what used to be understood norms for leadership has largely vanished. In today's new world:
Direction is seen as dominance
Clarity is equated with control
Expectations are viewed as burdens
Accountability is called abuse
Of course, domineering, controlling, overburdening, abusive leaders have and do exist—and that's unacceptable—but the cultural conception of leadership itself is now often cast in those categories whether deserved or not.
I share all of this with you for two reasons:
If you are leading in any arena, which most, if not all, of you are, you are facing these storms and circumstances.
To share a universal principle… Leadership is hard, and if you do not guard your heart as a leader, things can grow in there that are dangerous to you and the people you lead.
Trust me, I have been guilty of significant failure as a leader, and as I look back, it was an unguarded heart that ultimately cost the people I had the privilege of leading and me. It is that last part, the fungal-like growth of unsuspecting things in the heart of a person, a leader, to which I want to draw our attention. Yes, leadership is hard. Yes, it has been particularly challenging in the last few years. But, the challenge does not excuse the necessity to guard our hearts against subtle destructions—especially as leaders.
But this challenge is not to leaders alone, though most essential for them. Every one of us is susceptible. We can let subtle things invade good intentions and lead us astray. Even the best of us are in danger. Even the most humble man on earth. Do you mind if I share part of Moses' story and invite you to see where it might resonate with your own?
Picture Moses in his final forty years. Forty years have passed since God's people left the bonds of Egypt for the Freedom of the Promised Land. After four decades of desert misery, they are almost ready to take a run at the Promised Land again. Suddenly, a problem arises. There is no water. No water must mean Moses has led poorly. All eyes and fingers turn to Moses. The people accuse Moses and his brother Aaron of treating them like livestock. They lament that they should have died off with the previous generation. Just as their parents did, the people long for Egypt, where they were enslaved. It seems we sometimes prefer comfortable bondage to uncomfortable freedom. Moses and Aaron respond as they always have. They turn from the people and toward God. God replies, "Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and your brother Aaron, and command the rock before their eyes to yield its water."
The Scriptures tell us that “...Moses did as he was told. He took the staff from the place where it was kept before the Lord. Then he and Aaron summoned the people to come and gather at the rock. Moses said to the people, "Listen, you rebels!” “Must we bring you water from this rock?” “Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with the staff, and water gushed out. So the entire community and their livestock drank their fill.” God did not say to strike the rock, and He did not say to address the people, but this is precisely what Moses does. We see the difficulty of leadership. We see one unmanaged moment. "Must we bring water from this rock?" With one word, we, Moses, committed the ultimate infraction. He put himself in place of God. The issue at hand? We cannot be God and obey God at the same time. When Moses, in frustration, exclaimed to the people that he and his brother—we—would be the ones to bring forth water from the rock, he substituted himself for God.
When I saw that substitution, God's rebuke to Moses—you broke faith with me and failed to uphold my holiness—suddenly made sense. Moses never worked a single miracle. God did. Moses was afraid to speak, but God made a way. Moses was out of answers at the Red Sea. God parted it. Moses could not provide food in the wilderness, but God did.
In one unmanaged moment, Moses grasped for God's glory and took credit for God's work.
A few weeks ago, I flew up to D.C. and back in a day. I went up to preach at a pastor's conference for an organisation called Exponential. The circumstances of my going are important. I had preached at one of their other regional events in Nashville earlier this year, and when I got up to speak, God's Spirit was heavy on me. It caused me to alter my message significantly and abandon my notes completely. The Spirit moved that day so powerfully that the president of Exponential called me a week later and asked me to preach that message again in D.C. if I could come. I said yes.
So there I was on stage in D.C. I opened my message by telling them the whole truth about everything, how it went in Nashville, how I had been asked to preach the same message. The Lord met me at that moment and gave me a new message again. Notes abandoned. And the Spirit moved even more powerfully in D.C. than He has in Nashville—at least visibly.
When I got settled on the plane heading back to Atlanta, I was processing that moment, and how powerful it was, and as if God was anticipating any inkling of pride rising in me, I heard so clearly in my soul, “don't you grasp for my glory… I did that, not you.” It shook me. It immediately brought this passage to mind. It reminded me that I… all of us, in one unmanaged moment, can let subtle things creep into our hearts that can lead us astray. God's warning to me was not a punishment but the mercy of God. Moses placed himself in the place of God, which greatly cost him. Take heed, lest we ever do the same as people and leaders.
Once we understand how severe Moses's sin and how subtle was its entrance into his heart, therein is a lesson for all listening—but especially for you leaders. How did this happen? Moses has been fighting for survival and sustenance for more than forty years amid some of the world's most challenging terrain while navigating dangerous tribes and kingdoms while leading hundreds or thousands of unruly and ungrateful people. After meeting all of these challenges—after the great escape from Egypt and his adopted family, mind you—there is yet another community challenge, no water, with another group of challenging and complaining people, the children and grandchildren of the first fools to leave Egypt.
Crises make you stronger, but they also take their toll.
Imagine being Moses, leading at one point upwards of a million people over forty years. Although he has made it this far, being responsible for that many lives had to have created tremendous stress and pressure. And the people… oh, the people. They do not just complain. They blame. They hound Moses with accusatory questions. The new generation attacks Moses, and the former one almost stones him. Community difficulty, personal attack, unappreciated service and unacknowledged fatigue subtly erode Moses' perspective. He got angry at Meribah. It got under his skin that he had given so much—forty years—and sacrificed for so long, and led so well… and now the people turn on him? They would not listen to him. They did not honour him. So he, in turn, lashed out at them.
As I noted earlier, this has been my most challenging profile. Moses was, and remains, my leadership hero. He led well. He led humbly. And yet, one unmanaged moment cost him the whole fruit of his labour. If we are not the sum of the last worst thing we did, how do we reconcile God's decision regarding Moses with God's love and kindness toward us in our failing?
We understand that God's mercy for our failures, especially as leaders, does not mean there will not be a cost to bad decisions, even when made with good intentions. So what is your best next step? Where and how will you apply this to your life and your leadership?
If nothing else, let us all examine the places where—subtly—we might be putting ourselves in God's place as Godly leaders. Take it to Him to receive His mercy, and lead again from a place of joy and humility.
God will do remarkable things in and through you, but you have to be willing to take your next step.
If you want to hear more about this incredible leader’s life and failings, check out The Magnificent 7 | The Murderer on our Youtube Channel or our Podcast.