Examining the Leadership of Moses

The Fortitude of Moses’ Leadership: An Examination
Moses exhibited marked leadership, as he existed within the uncertainty and constant gloom of the world of the Old Testament. As a leader Moses was best known for helping to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, a treacherous endeavor laden with many challenges. However, among the many leadership qualities that Moses possessed—courage, being a good listener, persistence and taking risks—his faith was the strongest aspect of his leadership abilities. This paper will examine how the bulk of Moses’ leadership abilities manifested and why he was such a capable leader.
One of the most compelling ways that Moses demonstrated his inherent level of leadership was via the fact that he asked so many questions. Many people remember the words of leaders: for Moses he only has a small number of lines in the Bible. It is important to note that many of these lines are questions. This is significant because, “Despite the fact that many of us associate leadership with decisiveness, leadership is more accurately about discovery. A leader must determine the best way forward for his or her followers, which requires the curiosity and courage to discover the uncharted” (Knopf, 2016). Many people associate true leadership with decisiveness and a firm plan of actions. Moses role ultimately was to help free the Israelites and in order to achieve that goal, Moses needed to know how to best navigate such an objective—by asking questions.
One of the most compelling objections Moses has to leadership is posed very blatantly to God in Exodus 3:11, as he says, “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?” Moses viewed himself as an ordinary person, and hence not worthy of leadership. However, if anything, this demonstrates what a fitting and appropriate leader he was in fact, as some of the best leaders are ordinary people, and have the best type of humility needed to lead. This connects to the issues that Moses faced: he had to lead the Israelites out of Egypt to safety, in the midst of a harsh unforgiving climate, not to mention other threats to everyone’s personal safety. This endeavor was a massive undertaking, and yet one which Moses was able to execute by leaning on his faith. For example, in Exodus 15:22-25 Moses leads the people of Israel through the desert and for three days there was no adequate access to water, until they arrived at a place called Marah, where the water was too bitter to drink. This was a problem the people complained about bitterly, as they were dehydrated and had been hiking for days. Moses listened to their complaints, even though they were well out of the realm of his expertise and out of his control. He could not simply create potable water out of thin air. So Moses leaned on his faith and trusted that God would take care of everything. God instructed him to throw a piece of wood into the water, with the help of God’s power, made it suddenly drinkable. This example demonstrates that any good leader has a strong sense of faith and a good relationship with god, or at the very least, a higher power (Assmann, 1998).
Moses was under much stress, uncertainty or duress. So much of the leadership he demonstrated was manifestations of good principles of leading others. For example, in Exodus 18:17-24, Moses listens keenly when his father in law gives him unbridled advice regarding the achievement of the goals on the table and the things at stake. Jethro brings up some very relevant concerns about the burdens on the people and how Moses might best handle it. During this long monologue of advice, Moses listens quietly without interrupting. The best leaders take in and absorb the best advice being presented to them. They do the same when the advice is bad: they quietly assess it, pinpoint its weaknesses, and then discard it. After listening quietly, Moses then followed his father in law’s advice, something that a weaker leader would not have been able to do, as his ego would have been too big and prevented him from doing so. Strong leaders can follow good advice without fear.
Another quality of undeniable leadership that Moses presented was that he was able to persist, despite of his lowly background and humble present. For example, when Moses first asked the Pharaoh to let his people go, the Pharaoh laughed in his face: this happened on more than one occasion. A lesser person, less capable of leadership would have given up—after all, Moses was just a shepherd at the time and the Pharaoh was the most powerful leader on the planet (Woolfe, 2002). However, yet again, Moses demonstrated that he had one undeniable leadership quality: he was able to depend on God and lean on his faith, with utter trust in God’s mission for him.
Aside from the challenges of leading the Israelites out of Egypt and the host of obstacles he faced as their leader, Moses was also presented with the challenge of an Old Testament God, meaning one who was much more fiery and emotional. One very clear example of this was one God becomes enraged at the Israelites after they built a golden calf, as God is furious at these people for what he considers to be an act of extreme blasphemy. Like a true leader, Moses goes out on a limb in order to defend the people, arguing that while they had sinned, they can repent (Wildavsky, 1984). This obviously took a tremendous amount of courage, as Moses was essentially asking God to reconsider the situation at hand. This is yet another demonstration of Moses’ undeniable leadership qualities: he took risks when it was necessary. The willingness to take risks is a quality of many great leaders. Yet Moses demonstrates again that he is able to lean on his faith in God and God’s generosity in order to realize the bulk of his leadership qualities.





















References
Assmann, J. (1998). Moses the Egyptian. Harvard University Press.
Wildavsky, A. B. (1984). The nursing father: Moses as a political leader (Vol. 13). Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
Woolfe, L. (2002). The Bible on Leadership: From Moses to Matthew--Management Lessons for Contemporary Leaders. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.