3 Rules to Outstanding Leadership
By: Tom Stone
Tags: Religion, Personal Growth, Christianity, Leadership, Bible Study

High drama

Warrior kings and beautiful queens. Rebellious princes and distressed princesses. Brave knights and fair maidens. Disney blockbusters or snippets from the stories of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings?

What would the Bible be like without those books? Where would Hollywood find its inspiration?! What would preachers do without the adventures of courageous King David or the wisdom of King Solomon to call upon?

But what if they didn’t exist?



What if the tale of the Israelites failed to include a king or queen?

The answer to that question is we will never know, but we can go back to a time before the kings and queens of ancient Judaism: the time of Moses.

True, Moses was their prophetic leader, and he organised his nation as a king would, but he wasn’t a king. He didn’t have a throne, a spectre or a crown (the burden on his shoulders was heavy enough without them!). He didn’t roll into a city with royal bluster and trumpet fanfare or arrange marriages with foreign royalties. He didn’t expect his subjects to bow before him, or issue coins carrying his portrait.

He was the opposite. He was as humble and as-down-to-earth as they come, in a phrase posthumously added to the end of Deuteronomy indicates. He very nearly was. Had he remained in Egypt, royal marriages, power and glory would have fallen his way. He may not have become Lord of Egypt, Son of Ra, but a close-second perhaps? Worship would have been his; he was trained in the art of kingship in the breadbasket of the ancient world.

So perhaps, given this background, we can allow the leader of a nomad, desert people to lecture the Western mind of how to lead (from Deuteronomy 17:14–20)

Lessons on national leadership

The first thing to note about this passage is that it comes after two sets of instructions on idolatry and legal judgment. It is a warning to any future king (and a prophetic intuition, given Israel wouldn’t have a king for another 400 years) before any of the do’s and don’ts of leadership, integrity comes first. Integrity reigns supreme. Before you even think about any of the nitty-gritty of kingship, get your heart and mind in the right place.

Know your God

Know your God. Know what He stands for. Journey with Him first, before you begin to lead other people. Know the destination to which God is calling you, and then you can begin to think about leading other people there too.

Don’t give way to false prophets, of any kind. Don’t entertain their advances or listen to their words. Don’t give your worship, biblical speak for your heart, to anything under the heavens. Instead, give your heart to the Maker of the Heavens and the Earth. Prayerfully align your values and decisions with those of your Creator. Pray without ceasing.

Self-Assurance

Learn how to stand firm in your faith for yourself. Be confident in your identity as a son or daughter of the true King of Heaven, and not in your own importance. Learn the price of that identity, before you insist on wearing the crown. Come through the fire for yourself, privately, with no fanfare, cheerleading or feigned modesty. If you are to lead a nation, take the throne with your identity firmly rooted in a personal history of integrity in following God, not self-importance, grandiose ideas or aristocratic patronage.

Learn the voice of Yahweh

See verses 8–13. Before your words carry national gravitas, learn to obey the voice of the One who created gravity in the first place. Live the statutes and commands of the Most High honourably and take their aims to heart. Adopt them in your family and with your friends. Carry them with you. Learn to obey them, even when things are difficult and the decisions seem uncomfortably selfless.

The law

Respect the rule of law and the judges trained in their righteous positions. Don’t question them or dishonour them. Remember that you, whether your garments glitter with gold or sparkle with sweat, are a citizen under the rule of your nation’s law. You are as responsible for your actions as your neighbour. God knows you are not exempt, and, even when you’re King, your crimes will be accounted for. No resplendent palace will save you. The same God of justice created you in His image too.

So once you’ve ticked off all those pre-requisites, you can begin to think about the practicalities of kingship!

In this context, Moses utters verse 14:

When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,” you may indeed set over you a king whom the Lord your God will choose. (Deuteronomy 17: 14–15, NRSV)

№1 rule of National Leadership:

Remember that God didn’t want you to rule.

When He set out the plan for His beloved nation, it didn’t involve your crown. Your very position is evidence that the people have begun to fall out of love with the Father. You are evidence that spiritually, and most likely socially and economically, the Israelite nation has become less set apart and more similar to everyone else. You are the result of idolatry; of human hearts looking for identity in their fellow creation rather than their Creation.

Your role is evidence that the people desire to be less like God’s chosen, planet-redeeming nation and more like their neighbours. More down-to-earth and less Heaven-on-Earth. More homogenous and less holy. More regular and less restorative.

So even though God instituted laws to stop this from happening, it has happened, and now you are the final stop gap. You are the final checkpoint, before national failure. Before the story of Israel as God’s sanctified people, set apart to be the world’s example of Heaven-on-Earth and the demonstration of the Father’s true character ends. It is up to you!

Don’t lose it!

Don’t give in!

№2 Rule of National Leadership:

Don’t become another Pharaoh.

Remember the self-centred, arrogant leadership that enslaved your people centuries before and be aware of your own sinful tendencies. Discipline yourself to say no to excess. Just because you have access to unimaginable wealth, don’t lose yourself in it.

Remember the integrity you had before you became king and live from that place, not your pride. Remember that one self-centred action leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to another. Your pride and self-worth will quickly become rooted in your accomplishments as king, and your attention will, inevitably, turn to commodities.

At first, you may be satisfied with a small percentage of the riches of your nation, but with time, and a heart that is quick to forget, the taxation you impose will steadily increase. Before long, filling your palace with showboating trophies and international competition will overwhelm you and you’ll begin to treat your people as slaves, who no longer work with you but for you. Subjects become servants who become slaves. As your power over others increases so does your wealth, so the cycle becomes entrenched, and a new Pharaoh is born. An ancient Jewish dictator.

You begin to call yourself the Son of the Morning.

Human self-centredness incarnate.

Rule no. 2 in short, don’t do that! Don’t be that person. Don’t be a self-righteous, self-important, dictator. Act with self-discipline and prayer-founded integrity, with the Kingdom values of Yahweh on your lips.

№3 Rule of National Kingship:

Don’t take it all for yourself.

Similar to rule 2. Don’t tax the people for your own gain. Remember your roots as a humble citizen and act with your neighbours' interests at heart. Lead in the fight against selfishness and tightfistedness. Stand up to people who worship you and suck up to you because of your crown.

Even if the person admiring you is a beautiful woman who happens to the daughter of a neighbouring King, hold firm to your principles and your God. Be a different kind of king. Be a national talking point, not because of your fame, riches or wives, but because of your generosity, open-handedness and principled stance against power-grabbing marriages.

Don’t let your heart be seduced by the love of anything other than your Father.

Whilst your barns may constantly be full, remember that may not be the case for every citizen whom you rule over as their stop gap. Be the king who ends poverty. Be the king who shares his wealth. Be the king who ends slavery. Be the king who brings in the Kingdom of an even greater King, the True King.

Be the king or queen who works themselves out of a job!

In summary

At home, at work, or wherever you may be a king or queen, follow the uncomfortable calling to lead your “nation” out of the shadow of the Pyramids, and into the freedom of God’s Kingdom:

Rule no.1:

Keep the larger vision of God’s Kingdom in focus; don’t narrow it to your own worldview.

Rule no. 2:

Don’t become a dictator (“my way or the highway”). Be enthusiastically generous to your “nation.” Share. Give. Liberate.

Rule no. 3:

Share the profits and the recognition. Be honest; the one who sows should be the one who reaps the rewards. Uplift everyone you with your words, time, actions (whatever is at your disposal). Build. Regularly say, “I’m here for you….I’m proud of you… I love you.”