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In this week’s edition of Leaderview, I want to share with us something that I believe is going to help us in our leadership and something that I believe is one of the cores of our leadership. I want to talk about something that is titled Courageous Leadership. And I want to read a story to us in the Bible, from the book of Judges, chapter four, that story is going to form the bedrock of what we’re going to be talking to ourselves on courageous leadership. The story is about a leader of Israel, who happens to be a judge and a prophetess at the same time, when she was the leader of Israel. Judges 4:1-9. Now, the Bible says in that particular place:
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When Ehud was dead, the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. 2 So the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who dwelt in Harosheth Hagoyim. 3 And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord; for Jabin had nine hundred chariots of iron, and for twenty years he had harshly oppressed the children of Israel. 4 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time. 5 And she would sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the mountains of Ephraim. And the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. 6 Then she sent and called for Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, “Has not the Lord God of Israel commanded, ‘Go and deploy troops at Mount Tabor; take with you ten thousand men of the sons of Naphtali and of the sons of Zebulun; 7 and against you I will deploy Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude at the River Kishon; and I will deliver him into your hand’?” 8 And Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go!” 9 So she said, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.
Now, that’s an interesting story that we just considered in that particular story of the Bible. Now, don’t forget, we are looking at courageous leadership. Now, there is nothing great, that can take place in leadership outside of courage. There is nothing that can ever, nothing meaningful, nothing interesting, that can ever take place in our leadership, outside of courage. Now, to be able to lead effectively, I discover has so much to do with courage than any other thing that a leader can possess. For example, a leader may have the best of education, a leader may have the best of exposure, a leader may even possess the most important skillset that you can ever think of or imagine.
But if the leader lacks courage, then every other thing become irrelevant as far as leadership is concerned. So, whether you are leading an organization or you are leading a nation, irrespective of your leadership level or the sphere of leadership that you are currently occupying, every leader must be courageous in order to lead effectively and that is why we are looking at courageous leadership in today’s Leaderview so that we can see one or two things that you and I can begin to do as leaders when it comes to courage in leadership.
Now, the story we read above, you know, was the story of one of the finest leaders Israel had at some point in their history. And the name of the leader was Devorah, she was a woman. And the Bible showed us that Deborah was a judge and also a prophetess in Israel at the time. But one of the interesting things that we are considering in her story and in her leadership today is the courageous aspect of her leadership. Now, from the story, one of the things we can see is that Deborah was never afraid to stand up for her people and for what was right.
You see, many leaders today, I have discovered, find it so hard to be able to defend the cause of justice, to be able to defend the cause of their organization, and to be able to defend the cause of the people that they are leading. Now the reason is not because they are not leaders. The reason is because they simply lack the courage to do so. So, your education is important, your skillset is important as a leader, your level of experience is important as a leader, but if at all, you still lack courage, then every other thing that you think you already have as a leader will become irrelevant because courage is very important in defending the cause of our organization and in defending the cause of the leadership that has been given unto us to oversee.
Now, part of the responsibility in our leadership is that we defend the cause of our organization. Now, not just the cause of our organization, we also defend the cause of the people of our organization. Recently, something happened, a particular celebrity in Nigeria, you know, slapped a police officer in uniform. And one of the things that happened afterwards, is that the Inspector General of Police ordered for the arrest of the celebrity. Now, this is an example of what it means as a leader to defend the cause of your leadership and the cause of the organization and the people that are working in your organization.
Every leader must be able to possess this boldness, the man ordered for his arrest, not that the man in question slapped the Inspector General of the police, he simply slapped one of the employees of the police force, and his arrest was immediately ordered. Now what am I saying in essence? It takes courage as a leader to be able to defend the cause of our leadership, of our organization, and of our people. And that’s exactly is the very first thing we are going to see in the story of Deborah that we read. She was a judge in Israel, and she was able to rise up with courage to defend the cause of the people of Israel at the time. So, it shows us the place of courage and the importance of courage in our leadership, as leaders.
Another thing I want to show us in that Bible passage is that the Deborah also had a clear vision of what must be done in order to eradicate the oppressors of Israel at the time. Now, if you go back to verse 6, you know, the Bible showed us that: “Then she sent and called for Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, “Has not the Lord God of Israel commanded…” Now, that is the vision. The LORD God of Israel has commanded, but those who were supposed to execute it at the time, who were the soldiers and all of that they lacked the courage until Deborah stepped in to execute that vision. Now it says: ‘Go and deploy troops at Mount Tabor; take with you ten thousand men of the sons of Naphtali and of the sons of Zebulun…” And that was the beginning of the deliverance of the children of Israel.
You see, every leader must have a clear-cut vision. Now, it does not just end in having a clear-cut vision. You see, it takes courage to be able to execute the vision of the organization, the vision that the Lord has given to the leader for the entity that he or she is leading per time. Now, if you want to look at a clear-cut example in this case, you will discover that if you look at our contemporary times, many politicians or many political leaders, so to say, have so much vision. Many of them come to say, “well, this is my vision. If I become your leader, I am going to do this. I’m going to do that.” But at the end of the day, you will discover that many of them come, occupy the position of leadership, and at the end of the day, do little or nothing about the vision that they’ve said to the people that they were going to carry out.
Now the problem is not because they do not have the vision, many of them simply lacked the courage to be able to execute the vision that they cast. So, it tells us something as leaders, that it is not just enough to say, well I have a vision, I’m going to turn the mountain into the valley when I become your leader, or I’m going to take the organization from zero to the zenith of the organization when I become the leader. The point is, do you have the courage? Do you have the courage to pursue the vision for the organization? And this is exactly what we saw in the leadership of Deborah. Even though she was a woman, even though she was not a military person, so to say, she was a judge, she was a prophetess, but she was able to execute the vision of the Lord for the children of Israel. And when the soldiers, the real people who were supposed to defend the cause of the children of Israel, when they saw her courage, everybody aligned and they began to follow her leadership.
When you have courage as a leader, what it simply means is that everyone that you are leading within the sphere of your leadership will align and pursue and follow your courage simply because you’ve been able to display that courage for everyone to see. And that is why we are looking at courageous leadership, that it is important that you have vision as a leader, and not just having vision, also, you must be able to show or display the courage that is required and needed in order to execute that courage. And one more thing that I quickly want to show us in that story of the Deborah is that she was a decisive leader.
Deborah was a decisive leader who made tough decisions when it matters. Many of us as leaders, we find it very hard and difficult to make tough decisions when it matters. The reason is because we are lacking in courage. You see, it takes some level of courage for leaders to be able to make certain tough decisions when the time demands it or when the time requires it. You see, sometimes making tough decisions does not come easy. There is never a time that any leader wants to make any tough decision that is always easy. That is why it is called tough decisions. You don’t just make it. And you, see what drives making tough decision for any leader anywhere in the world is the place of courage.
So, we must never forget that as leaders, the task of our leadership, on many occasions, will require us to make certain decisions and this is why courage is of necessity for us in our leadership. Now, if you read verse nine, you know, you may be wondering where exactly did Deborah make that type of decision. The Bible says: “So she said, “I will surely go with you…” Now you know that it is not necessary and important that she goes to the battle with them to fight the battle. But because the military man said, “I will not go to this battle except you go with us.” And she made that tough decision and then she followed them. So as leaders, it is required in our leadership, that when we are making tough decisions in the time that it requires us to make tough decisions, we are able to surmount our courage for us to be able to take that necessary step as it demands of our leadership.
Now, let us conclude on this subject matter of courageous leadership in this manner. Now, while I was thinking, I discovered that the world that we live in today is becoming increasingly more sophisticated with advancement in science, in information and communication technology. And whatever you can begin to imagine around the sophistication of the world, we are having it in our contemporary time as leaders. But as beautiful as this may appear. all these advancements in science and technology and what have you cannot replace the importance of courage in leadership. So as a leader, whether you have access to the most sophisticated technology in the world for leadership, or whether you are the most effective communicator or orator as a leader, all these things will not replace the place of courage in your leadership.
Now, courage is an innate thing. Courage is something that happens inside of you as a leader, whether you’re going to be strong as a leader, whether you’re going to be timid as a leader, whether you will be effective or ineffective as a leader, it all boils down to this courage that we are talking about. This is the only way through which we can succeed in our leadership endeavors in the 21st century. So, don’t trade your courage for anything in your leadership. If there is one thing that you need and that you will need all the time, in the cause of your leadership as a leader, it is your courage. And I don’t want us to trade our courage for anything as leaders, because this is how we can advance the cause of our leadership and our leadership assignments.
I believe we have gotten a few points from what we have shared with ourselves on Leaderview, this is where we are going to be stopping today. I want to believe that if there is anything you are taking away from this piece, it is the fact that your courage as a leader, must be intact.
God bless you.
[Centre for New Dimension Leadership]
