Leaders to Follow

January 25, 2008
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

The easiest way to define a leader is to say that "a leader is a person that other people choose to follow." By that definition, we can certainly call Moses a leader. But this is an election year, so perhaps we should look a little more closely not at what made Moses a leader, but what made Moses a great leader, a moral leader, a leader who could command and whose commands would be respected.

Moses did not start out as a great leader. At the burning bush he was hesitant and unsure of himself. Once in Egypt, the Israelites rejected him when he negotiated with Pharaoh, because the immediate result was that Pharaoh made their labors harder. At the Sea of Reeds, Moses seemed helpless praying to God that the people be saved, but not knowing what to do to save them. Finally, God said, Moses stop praying, raise your arms, the sea will split and you can send the people across on dry land.

Even after that wonderful moment, Moses was still not a great leader. He was just too much of a detail man. People who dabble in details tend to lose sight of the large issues that make for great leadership. And the most important large issue that they forget is making room for other leaders. The lesson is taught in this week's portion, when the Israelites are parked at Mount Sinai and Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, chieftain of the Midianites, comes to pay a visit.

Jethro was already a great leader, it seems. He took a long look at what was happening in the Israelite camp and he knew at a glance what Moses was doing wrong. He saw the people lining up from morning to dusk to talk to Moses, to ask Moses to make decisions for them, to ask Moses to speak to God for them. Moses sat from morning to evening, taking care of one detail after another.

Jethro said, "This will only exhaust you. It will also make the people impatient and irritable. In the end, they will turn on you and choose someone who will find a better way to lead them." Moses was so involved in the details that he could only reply, "But I am their only conduit to God. I am the only one who can tell them what God has to say about their problems."

Later on, when Moses was a great leader, there came a time when he took all the leaders of the Israelites partway up the mountain so they could consult and worship together. Suddenly, a messenger arrived with the complaint that there were still two men in the camp who were prophesying to the people, acting as leaders in the absence of Moses. This time, Moses replied, "Would that all my people could hear the word of God and understand it."

What a difference! From, "I am the only conduit to God" to "I wish that every person could be his or her own conduit to God." Moses was no longer the detail man. Now he was a great leader, a visionary, someone who saw a greater vision for others.

It all began with Jethro, when Jethro told Moses that he should share the burden of leadership, allow new leaders to emerge in the camp of the Israelites, appoint worthy people to be heads of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands, create a chain of command and a chain of responsibility -- in short, a chain of leadership. Of course, there was one more element: Moses had to be wise enough to listen to Jethro. That was the greatness that was already in Moses. But once Moses did listen to Jethro, the rest became clear. Suddenly, he was free to look at the big picture. Suddenly, he was ready to receive the Ten Commandments.

Before this, any ten commandments that he would have received would have been called the "Ten Details." But now, these were towering commandments that called on individuals to rule themselves, to obey not Moses and not some graven image but Adonai. That is why we have the Ten Commandments and not the Ten Details. And we owe a lot to the insight of Jethro and the generous spirit of Moses who listened to good advice when he might have resisted it and remained a petty organizer.

In a survey of leadership qualities done in 1993, only four leadership characteristics scored above 50%. At 58% were those who respected competency. This is where the detail men shine, but it is not enough. More than competency, 68% thought that leaders should be inspiring. People like Mother Theresa, Dr. Martin Luther King, Albert Schweitzer, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn fall at this level on the scale. They inspire us -- we may not wish to have them govern us, but we respect them as role models. Above competency and inspiration, 71% responded that leaders should be visionaries -- a small step above inspiration. These are people whose visions can shape the world around them. We think of Buddha and Mahatma Ghandi, of Lincoln and Jefferson, of Jesus and Rabbi Yochanan, of Queen Victoria and Catherine the Great, and, of course, of Jethro and Moses. These were not only inspiring leaders, but leaders whose visions shaped their generation and many generations to come.

But the highest accolades on the scale of leadership qualities, at 87%, went to the one quality which beyond all others defines a great leader. This is the quality of honesty and integrity. It is on moral grounds that a great leader goes beyond the flock and becomes a true commander of others. According to the Torah, Moses brought down commandments that had to do with how to cure leprosy and how to slaughter a calf and how to offer a sacrifice of grain, and how to spill blood on the altar. But none of these would have brought Moses any lasting greatness and none of these were the reason that we continue to follow the commands of Moses to this day.

It is the honesty and the integrity of the Ten Commandments that place them above any single religion, and they could only have been promulgated by a leader of honesty and integrity. Moses was a visionary, he inspired us with his behavior, and he was a competent organizer. But above all he never lied to his people and he always kept his promises to them. As we go to the polls to select a new President for our country, a new Vice-President, new Senators and Representatives, new Governors, and new Judges, we can keep in mind the lessons of this portion.

Seek the honest folk, the forthright spokesmen who speak a vision you can share, the people who inspire you to follow where they lead, and those who have proven their competency to lead you well. Few, if any, will reach the heights of a Moses or even of a Martin Luther King, but remember that even these leaders succeeded only because they were open to following the advice of others. The words of God can be heard by all, but, as the prayer book reminds us, "There is no room for God in a person who is full of him or herself." So pick the candidate who has potential, the potential that comes from being open to hearing the words of others, and the word of God. Who knows? If we choose wisely, we may yet choose another Ghandi, another Ben Gurion, another Lincoln. We may even elect leaders honest enough that we would all choose to follow them. And let us say: Amen.