Leaders can get cocky. George Orwell explained the phenomenon well: “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Jonah had a lot of power. He heard God.
I remember as a child that I wanted to hear God so badly that I actually dreamt that it happened. In my dream, my mom and I were driving home, and God’s voice rang out with a deep sound that reminded me of our pastor. I was impressed.
I don’t remember what he said, but I remember the dream to this day.
Well, Jonah did better. He heard God and remembered what God said. And he relayed the message to the king of Israel. When the king of Israel was able to restore boundaries just like Jonah said he would, Jonah gained status.
He could add to his resume that he was a reliable prophet. He obviously thought he had the pipeline to God’s plans.
That’s pretty heady stuff.
Then Jonah heard God speak to him again.
But, like all of us, Jonah had biases. Jonah believed:
God only worked in Israel for his chosen people.
Jonah deserved the honor of being a prophet.
Jonah knew God’s standard for evil better than God himself did.
Ninevehites were enemies of Israel and therefore outside of God’s sphere.
Nationalism trumped God’s mercy.
The correct response to opposition is vengeance.
Jonah had it figured out, and he had no patience for God’s mercy.
We know that Jonah agreed to go to Nineveh and deliver God’s message. I’m surprised that he didn’t relish the job since, as far as he could tell, he was giving judgment.
I think Jonah had a sense that he was delivering a second chance. He didn’t approve, but he finally agreed to go.
How does this help us as leaders?
We can’t forget that we serve.
First, we serve God. Then we help his people.
God doesn’t limit himself to the projects that we prefer.
Leaders can have pet projects, but leadership isn’t limited to pet projects. Leaders need to think big. Leaders need to think worldwide as well as the community.
We should check our biases often.
We have them. Do they show God’s plans? The story about Nineveh teaches us that no one is outside God’s sphere.
Are we honest about God’s mercy?
Do we expect mercy for us in our circumstances but find it troublesome when extended to someone we don’t approve of?
Vengeance is never the right response
We may feel right about revenge, but leaders need to forgive and not retaliate. The correct answer to evil is not condemnation but compassion.
QUESTION: What biases have you met in your leadership journey? What can you do about one of them?
Have you ever watched the TV show, “The A-Team”? You can YouTube it. The episodes featured do-good mercenaries who always had a plan. Of course, things never went according to a plan. But in the end, the leader, Hannibal Smith, would poke a big cigar in his mouth and proclaim, “I love it when a plan comes together.”
We all like our plans to work.
You’d think that Jonah would be pleased that God’s warning had worked. Jonah’s warning s frightened the Ninevites. They believed that this new God could overpower any deities they had sitting on their shelves.
Amazing things that happened after Jonah’s warning:
The great city of Nineveh was frightened.
The people believed the message from Jonah.
The people believed that God was more powerful than their own deities. They hoped he was more compassionate, too.
They decided to change.
The king of this great city stepped off his throne to join his people in the effort to convince God to change his mind.
The king gave orders: “All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands.”
In other words, the king of Nineveh knew why the warning had been given, and he decided to make a change. His people agreed with him.
Who could have seen this coming? A great city within a powerful war-like nation listened to one foreign man who declared that doom and destruction are coming. Even the king believed Jonah.
I’m not sure I would have listened. Jonah probably looked like an ant shaking his fist at a human. Why listen to this guy?
Obviously, God knew something about this city that Jonah didn’t know.
Jonah had finally delivered the message of doom that God had directed him to give.
And now this: the people were making changes that might cancel the doom and destruction orders. The hail and brimstone might not fall. A fireworks display wasn’t likely.
Jonah wanted to see all those people turned to dust.
That’s an ugly trait for this leader. He could easily condemn an entire city because he decided they deserved destruction. God had already shown Jonah compassion but Jonah wasn’t ready to show mercy.
God was compassionate to a city, but Jonah didn’t approve. God knew the people were ready for a transformation and God was willing to give them a chance.
There are times when leaders have a strong opinion about what should happen next. But a leader’s strong opinion isn’t always the correct one.
[bctt tweet=”A leader’s strong opinion isn’t always the correct one.”]
We talk about leaders trusting their instincts at times, and there’s a place for that. But instincts are a gift that should be held lightly. Jonah is an excellent example of trusting his instincts over God’s plan.
He should have rejoiced over this city’s repentance. The plan wasn’t the one he approved of, and he pouted instead.
What do we do when a plan comes together? What if that plan wasn’t our plan and we predicted failure? How have you handled a situation like that?
After NFL quarterback Drew Brees set the record for total passing yardage, he was asked what play had been called for record-setting pass. He said, “Gun King Trips Right Terrapin 52 Sway All Go Special X Shallow Cross H Wide.
I am not kidding.
The coach selected the play, Brees understood it, and his team executed it.
Communication is funny. Brees didn’t need to use a language that you or I might understand. (Well, I’m assuming you couldn’t run the play either.) He spoke in a way that his team could follow.
Communication must be specific to the team we’re talking to. If I called out Brees’ play to my team, there would be laughter and a lot of guessing. “Are we shooting fish? What are terrapins anyway? Who sways 52?”
My team would have a blast if I tried to give them directions like Drew Brees. He set a record but my team would be hysterical. They certainly wouldn’t set any records.
I wouldn’t have communicated in a meaningful way for them. If my team is to make awesome strides, we need to understand each other.
Jonah didn’t really understand God. He interpreted in his own way. But there are lots of ways to communicate, and God illustrates that for us.
What happened with Jonah?
Jonah didn’t understand what God planned to do.
God could have given up on him. There were other prophets at that time. God could have picked one of them when Jonah defied his play call.
Jonah could have escaped. He would have assumed he comprehended the entire situation and made the right choice. But running from God’s presence wasn’t the right choice. Jonah didn’t understand that. Had God let Jonah run away, Jonah would have misunderstood God’s motives.
So God made things a little uncomfortable for Jonah. Being swallowed by a big fish might be more than a little uncomfortable. God got Jonah’s attention instead of letting him run. God didn’t give up on Jonah. He found another way to communicate besides words.
When words don’t work, we have to look for other responses. We can’t give up.
God wanted Jonah to understand.
God communicated to Jonah in a way Jonah could understand.
That’s the key here: we often communicate with words but sometimes we need to do more. We need strategies and empathy for those we’re trying to connect with.
When words didn’t work, God communicated with Jonah through uncomfortable situations. He sent a storm. He sent a fish. He sent a worm. He used uncomfortable times to break through. Jonah didn’t like any of them but God didn’t let him miss out on the opportunity and the lesson.
Leaders do that. We could call a play like “Gun King Trips Right Terrapin 52 Sway All Go Special X Shallow Cross H Wide.” We could expect our team to get it or get out. They’d get out because they couldn’t comprehend our goals and our instructions.
We shouldn’t do that. [bctt tweet=”Leadership isn’t about making us look smart but about helping others succeed.”]Leadership isn’t about making us look smart but about helping others succeed.
Communication is key to leadership. We have to be able to connect with people we are leading. That means learning how to express ideas and goals in ways that our people will understand.
We do that by learning how others communicate. What they value. What gets their attention. What helps them understand better.
If the goal is to communicate our intentions, we have to learn to speak in many ways.
What are some ways that you’ve changed your communication methods with your team when they didn’t understand?
A cannon has a lot of similarities with a good leader. Both are powerful and aggressive, both are able to change a situation, both stick to a plan.
Yeah, well, you may not be so sure about that. Neither am I, to be honest.
Do you ever watch an old battleship movie? All the creaks and groans of the soggy wood and thick ropes give the movie gripping texture.
When those ancient ships entered a battle, they lined up beside each other and fired cannons. After a cannon was fired, it was pulled back from the outside railing by thick ropes to the center of the ship. Then it was stuffed with gunpowder and ball for the next round.
But those creaky ropes sometimes broke.
Suddenly a 3500-lb monster on wheels was raging wildly on the ship. Every wave brought a new direction for the cannon, which could easily crush a sailor or bash through the railing of the ship.
Loose cannons were terrifying. Deadly. Uncontrollable.
So my opening analogy falls flat on its face. A leader and a cannon have little in common.
Until something changes, both a leader and a cannon look successful. Both seem to accomplish what needs to be done.
Jonah was a successful leader in ancient Israel, a counselor to the king, a man of renown.
He was a prophet, accustomed to hearing God’s message and passing it on. But, when God gave him a message he didn’t like, Jonah became a loose cannon.
He severed the ropes that held him to Israel and took off. On a ship, appropriately, just to stay with our metaphor.
Jonah believed he was so established as a leader that he could decide if a plan was good or not – even if it was God’s plan. He also thought he could escape God’s presence and not be bothered anymore by God’s idea to help someone in danger.
Jonah made some odd assumptions:
He chose to escape God’s presence on a ship manned by pagans. He wouldn’t go to pagan Nineveh but he could use a pagan crew to help him get away.
He went to the hull of the ship, as though that was even farther from God’s presence.
When the storm hit, he made no effort to comfort the terrified sailors with the power and compassion of God. Was he even aware of God’s compassion?
He was willing to be thrown overboard rather than give in to God.
What kind of leadership was this? He didn’t care any more for the sailors than he did for Nineveh.
And finally we come to it: Jonah was self-centered. He knew God was offering an escape to people but he didn’t approve. These people didn’t deserve his compassion. He assumed his status – his successes – gave him the right to serve his own ideas.
There are times when a leader looks successful. Invincible. Like a powerful cannon. Sometimes we measure leadership quality by results rather than by how we help people.
As we consider our own leadership qualities, we have to look at how much we value success. What will we sacrifice to be successful? And when could that turn us into loose cannons?
QUESTION: Why would a leader trade compassion for success?
That’s a common response but there’s more to Jonah than that big whale. In fact, the whale isn’t a major part of what we’re going to learn about leadership.
A little review:
Jonah was an ancient prophet of Israel. Israel in those days was located similarly to where it is today. It’s important to realize that Israel was called the chosen people of God in ancient times.
You can find the entire story of Jonah in the Bible. It’s only four chapters long, a quick read.
Jonah was a successful prophet who advised the king and that’s a big deal. He gave a prediction to the king and it happened just like he said. In those days, prophets were expected to speak God’s message.
That’s a pretty amazing occupation and Jonah did it well. He connected the king of Israel with the message from God. He was a huge success.
This happened before the story in the book. In the book of Jonah, another message came to Jonah from God. This one was as clear as the message that gave Jonah his fame.
This time, Jonah was told to go to a city and announce a warning. That doesn’t sound so bad until we get to the details.
This city was Nineveh, the capital of the nation of Assyria. Assyria was known for its incredible cruelty to people it conquered. Think of ISIS in its prime. Ugly stuff.
Jonah had some attitude about this new assignment. Why warn people unless you were giving them a chance to change their ways? God was giving these people a chance.
And these people were not only hated barbarians, but they were also hated enemies of Israel.
Jonah said no. He hired a boat going in the other direction ran away from God. Or at least he assumed he did.
Jonah thought God couldn’t follow him to the far end of the Mediterranean Sea. But God wasn’t limited to a geographic area (why would he have cared about Nineveh if that was true?). Instead, God sent a storm to get Jonah’s attention.
Jonah finally begged the sailors of the ship to throw him overboard, to appease the storm. That’s when he ended up inside a big fish. He spent three days there with the opportunity to contemplate what he’d done.
Contrary to common belief, he didn’t repent. He just agreed to go.
Jonah gave God’s message to the people of Nineveh and then did something that really showed what he was about. He climbed a hill outside of town, put up a little shelter, and waited for the fireworks.
He expected God to send fire from heaven, an amazing light show that he could enjoy. You wonder if he popped popcorn.
But the unexpected happened. The people in Nineveh listened and changed their ways. They begged God to relent. And he did.
Here’s the kicker: Jonah was furious. And then his pleasant shelter withered away and he was more furious. In the end, God challenged him.
Jonah cared more about his own point of view than he cared about an entire city. The story ends without resolution. Did Jonah learn compassion? Did he change his point of view?
Those make great discussion points, especially in a leadership context.
So here’s the summary of the story of Jonah. Here are some of the posts examining leadership lessons:
You know this person: they’ve been to leadership conferences, paid big bucks for one-on-one coaching, spew all the current buzzwords. But they don’t care much about the people they’re leading. Their team is there to help them climb the corporate ladder.
Somehow, in all the training, they forgot about the people.
And we can be sympathetic. Leading takes some planning, especially thinking ahead to the goal. There are mission statements, purpose statements, three top goals, daily to-do lists…. and none of this is a bad thing.
Leadership planning shouldn’t isolate the leader from the people.
When I was 12, I put together a play for my parents using younger siblings and cousins as actors. In my young mind, they were chess pieces to be manipulated.
Our stage was our family’s living room and my bedroom was backstage. There was a flurry of children rushing to and fro, through the small entrance door of my bedroom.
The inevitable happened. I rushed through the door as my younger brother came in. He was seven. His head crashed against the door frame as I pushed by.
Did I stop to see if he was hurt? I did not. I had a show to put on. When I returned backstage, he was sitting on my bed holding his head and crying.
Did I stop the show to tend to his injury? I did not. I had a show to put on.
I was focused on the production as I saw it and not on the people involved.
Let me introduce you to Jonah. You probably remember Jonah and the whale from the misty past. But let ’s pull back the veneer on a leader of his day.
What we know about Jonah:
He was successful
His full name is given, including his father’s name. That identifies him as a prophet of Israel. As a prophet, he spoke God’s word to others. He had predicted that King Jeroboam would restore the northern boundary of Israel. When that happened, he was known as a great prophet. There were other prophets int hat time but none were given the job that Jonah was given.
He was called a servant of the king
No play on words here. Jonah wasn’t called a servant of God – although he was known for that, too – but a servant of King Jeroboam. He hung out with royalty. He likely knew the inner court on a first-name basis.
He knew what God could do.
He had seen God save Israel even though King Jeroboam was a bad king. A king dedicated to other gods and not to God. But God delivered to Israel not what King Jeroboam deserved but protection out of God’ kindness and grace.
He was a nationalist.
Jonah was concerned with the things that kings and political leaders are concerned with: boundaries and good fortune for the nation of Israel. He was a blue-blood Israelite and proud of it.
Such a leader would expect to hear from God again.
And Jonah did. But God’s words were confusing, to say the least. God was sending Jonah to a hated enemy to warn them. Warn them why? So the destruction might not come?
Jonah was certain that Nineveh needed to be destroyed. Why should he warn them?
Jonah, the prophet and successful leader in Israel, examined this new assignment and he took off the other direction.
It’s clear that Jonah did not care for a group of people that God did care about. He was a successful leader who had forgotten that leadership is about people. We know there are bumps ahead for Jonah but that’s for another post.
QUESTION: Have you ever overlooked the people you were supposed to be caring for?
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We all like our plans to work.
God was compassionate to a city, but Jonah didn’t approve. God knew the people were ready for a transformation and God was willing to give them a chance.
