Three Key Ingredients To Effective Leadership: A Lesson From King David’s Fall
King David, the greatest king of Israel, was an amazing leader. A player-coach, he was in the middle of the action, always staying true to his center, the God of Israel who had given him victory time and time again. Shortly after defeating Goliath, David’s leadership allows him to form a small army of about 600 men, who are instrumental in defeating Israel’s enemies. Samuel writes “And the Lord gave victory to David wherever he went. And David administered justice and equity to all his people.” (1 Chronicles 18:4). Yet for all his victories and success in life, David’s story takes a dramatic turn. In one single sequence of events, he commits adultery and murder and then tries to cover it up. In one single chapter, he betrays himself and those around him. He goes from being a fearless warrior to staying at home. One who had married honorably but then commits adultery. One who had valued others’ lives above his and then plots the murder of one of his faithful men. How can a leader of this caliber fall so fast and so far? We see signs in David’s life that lead up to him committing adultery and later attempts to cover up his mistake. These signs are common to many leaders that find themselves embroiled in a scandal: complacency, unaccountability, and lack of self-awareness.
“…the time when kings go out to battle…David remained at Jerusalem.”
Chapter 11 of the first book of Samuel opens with “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel…But David remained at Jerusalem.” (2 Samuel 11:1). This opening verse gives a subtle piece of information that might be easily missed. For the first time in David’s life, we see complacency. David, the player-coach, who was always in the middle of the action stays home when his men go to battle. This, in many respects, is the beginning of the end. We see a David unlike before, idle and aimless. Throughout his life, David had a mission in front of him. He was always on the move, always seeking God’s guidance, always intentional, building his team, protecting the vulnerable, and fighting against Israel’s enemies. But there seems to have been a slow drift in his life. David finds no mission in front of him. His team is out fighting and he is at home. They can handle it; they don’t need him. David finds himself in a new situation. As the king, he should be with his men fighting, yet he remains at home. That is not where he was supposed to be. Having allowed himself where he should not have been, he allows himself to do what he should not have done. He allows himself to do the unthinkable and sleeps with the wife of one of his men. He betrays himself, his God, and those who trusted him the most.
David was the king. What he said was followed without questioning. But as a leader, he has nobody to hold him accountable. There were messengers, taking the message from David’s palace to Bathsheba asking her to come visit. People saw her arrive and enter David’s chamber, yet nobody said anything. Then messengers took the message from David’s palace to the battlefield to Joab, David’s general, to have Bathsheba’s husband Uriah, placed in the front lines, only to be intentionally left alone to be killed by the enemy. Did no one feel they could hold David accountable? A leader with incredible power and no accountability is in dangerous territory. The more power, the more accountability a leader needs to have.
Having fallen prey to complacency while remaining unaccountable, David’s story ends with self-sabotage. He sacrifices his relationship with God and the trust and credibility of others for a moment of pleasure. Once the story is in motion, David’s train of thought seems to be going in one direction: damage control. He engages in a cover-up to minimize the consequences of his actions. In the end, we see a defeated David. Uriah is dead, the baby is dead, and his new wife Bathsheba is heartbroken because, throughout this ordeal, she lost her husband and newborn.
There are a number of lessons to be learned from David’s story. There are three key components David failed to foster and develop in his life which led to his downfall. These are purpose, accountability, and introspection.
Leadership = Purpose + Accountability + Introspection
When David found himself without a mission, complacency kicked in and that cost him dearly. In Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink says “The temptation to take the easy road is always there. It is as easy as staying in bed in the morning and sleeping in.” Do not give in to the temptation that you can slack off and run on the fumes of past victories. This is poison for your future. David’s entire life purpose as he subdued Israel’s enemies was to follow God’s purpose. There comes a time in his life, that for some reason he allows himself to take the easy road and have his general lead his army when it should have been David leading. This cost him dearly. Have a mission in front of you, set goals constantly, never stop learning, and avoid brain bubble gum. This is not busyness for busyness’s sake; it is understanding that growth is not natural and does not happen without intentionality. Just as muscles that are not used atrophy over time, the moment you stop growing is the moment you begin to die.
Bring people into your life that can see your day-to-day and give them permission to hold you accountable. This has to be intentional. It needs to be someone with whom you have already developed a healthy level of trust that also sees you frequently. Seek someone that sees you interacting with your wife, with your kids, in your workplace, with your co-workers, etc. It might be hard to find one person to fulfill all that, so build a team of people in your life that will hold you accountable in all those areas. At work, seek out those whom you admire who care for you enough to tell you when you are walking around with the proverbial toilet paper on your shoe. This will not happen naturally you have to be intentional about it. Make a list, talk to them individually and ask them to hold you accountable. Set up regular touchpoints where they can ask you point-blank questions about how your life is going. John Maxwell says “Great leaders never walk alone”. If you want to lead yourself, your family, and your organization effectively, you need to walk alongside others that will care enough for you to hold you accountable. If you are a leader and you lack this key ingredient, you are not a good leader at all. If you want to be a great leader, you cannot walk alone.
Sometimes the pace of life gets so fast that it is challenging to react to what is coming at us, let alone remember what we did last week. In times like this, it is very easy to hit a wall, to stop growing, and you all of a sudden ask yourself “How did I get here?”. This is when introspection comes in. Be intentional by engaging in daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly touchpoints where you assess the state of your life. This is where you take stock of where your life is, your relationships, your health, etc, all the aspects in your life that make up who you are. These personal retrospectives allow you to look back at manageable intervals and play them back to identify areas to work on. Socrates once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The introspective mind is the mind that leads a life worth living. For me, introspection means spending daily time with God and engaging in a conversation with my Creator. It means being humble enough to let Him show me the areas I need to change and to allow Him to change me from the inside out. Whatever your worldview, you have to run through your day, week, month, etc, and assess it against your value system. Without introspection, you are flying blind. A leader with an introspective mind is a better leader who makes those around him better, all the time.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Great leaders know what their current mission is. They are intentional about having people around them that hold them accountable and engage in introspection enough to course-correct as needed. Do you know your mission? Do you have people around you that hold you accountable? Do you actively engage in introspection? The result is that you are always growing, leading yourself better. To lead others effectively, you have to lead yourself first.
