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"Choose for each of your tribes individuals who are wise, discerning, and reputable to be your leaders.” You answered me, “The plan you have proposed is a good one.” So I took the leaders of your tribes, wise and reputable individuals, and installed them as leaders over you … I charged your judges at that time: “Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien. You must not be partial in judging: hear out the small and the great alike; you shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God's." –– Deuteronomy 1:13-15a, 16
While I am thankful for the breadth of the abilities that a smartphone places into my hands, I am grateful the technology was not available in 1974 when I was running for student council president at Louisiana Middle School. My campaign tagline was pitiable –– Bat for Matt; and my campaign speech before the school assembly was pathetic. Fitted out in the regrettable haute couture of the era –– platform shoes, flared pink slacks, burgundy sport coat, paisley shirt, massive velvet bow tie, helmet hair, and acne –– I looked like some dorky, pimpled younger cousin of The Bee Gees.
I don’t recall what I said in my speech, but I am fairly sure it was crammed with the cliched impractical promises typical of most student elections –– longer recesses, Michelin-starred lunches, vending machines, and water fountains that dispensed Mountain Dew. I had no plan for fulfilling these promises, and honestly, I had no real interest in pursuing these promises. This election wasn’t about service or leadership, it was about popularity and prestige, pure and simple. I had seen the “cool kids” in that role before me, and decided I wanted to be that guy. I don’t even remember what I did once elected, other than emcee student assemblies and get my photo in the local paper.
Concepts of wisdom, repute, and discernment were at best still in the incubator stage. Yes, my parents had provided the requisite lessons on decorum, appearances, and maybe even honesty and perseverance, yet staying out of trouble was more about the fear of consequences and embarrassment than possession of a finely tuned moral compass.
“Choose for each of your tribes individuals who are wise, discerning, and reputable to be your leaders.” In addressing a people on the cusp of becoming a nation, Moses identifies characteristics necessary for leadership which include wisdom; a capacity to perceive nuance in all matters (i.e. discernment); the integrity to pursue not what is expedient, but what is good, just, and fair. I have no clarity on how the “nature vs. nurture” argument influences these characteristics, but I am fairly certain nurture plays a significant role. Our character evolves as we observe and seek to mirror the characteristics demonstrated in others. As Paul said to the Philippians, “Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”
I can claim no authority or expertise on the topic of leadership, and have probably never been much of a leader, but it seems to me that our society looks to polling, popularity, and agenda far more than it values character when selecting those who would lead us. I believe such an ethos to be ineffective and even self-destructive. Rather than an agenda-fueled litmus test, wouldn’t the good be better served by discerning the qualities encouraged by Paul to the Philippians? “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
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