Adrian Rogers in a sermon told of Canada Geese who fly in their V formation with one leg of the V formation longer than the other leg. Why do they fly in the V formation? The lead goose is making it easier for the other geese to follow his lead. He is moving the wind resistance of the other geese following him. The rest are cruising. But the lead goose gets tired after a while and the next goose moves up. Engineers in the wind tunnel experiments have discovered that geese flying in the V formation can fly 72% further than by themselves flying alone. Geese flying in the V formation illustrate the necessity and advantages of practicing both leadership and followership.
Cyril Barber, in his commentary on Nehemiah, transfers this principle into all of life; “Middle management involves being able to translate the ideals of one’s superiors into practice and, at the same time, knowing how to motivate one’s subordinates. It necessitates keeping corporate goals in mind while encouraging individuals to strive for personal achievement” (Cyril J. Barber, Nehemiah and the Dynamics of Effective Leadership, page 26).
Most of us live in a middle management role of some kind. Most of us have superiors who lead us and subordinates whom we lead. We are all accountable to someone.
Middle managers lead line workers and follow their senior management.
Executive pastors lead a congregation and follow their senior pastors.
Teachers instruct students and follow their principals.
Wives train their children and follow their husbands.
Nehemiah teaches us the third mark of leadership: The leader follows his leader.
Here are Six Marks of Leadership in Nehemiah:
1. The Leader shows concern for God’s work (Nehemiah 1:1-4)
2. The Leader Prays for God’s People (Nehemiah 1:5-11)
3. The Leader Follows his Leader (Nehemiah 1:11-2:8)
4. The Leader Motivates his Followers (Nehemiah 2:9-20)
5. The Leader Organizes his Work (Nehemiah 3:1-32)
6. The Leader Handles his Opposition (Nehemiah 4-6)
How can we practice followership to exert leadership?
1. By Praying for our Leader (2:1)
Nehemiah prayed for four months for his unbelieving leader. Nehemiah prayed from December (1:1) to March (2:1) with no results. Notice there is a time change to help us identify the beginning of a new scene.[1] There were no answers entered in his prayer journal for four months. We know from his model prayer in 1:5-11, that he used promises from Scripture in his prayers. Maybe he also used Proverbs 21:1: “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turns it wherever he will.” Chuck Swindoll develops this verse in light of Nehemiah's crisis with his superior. The word "rivers" means channels and refers to irrigation canals carrying water. The king's heart is not a river randomly flowing with no direction or purpose. But the heart of the king and your superior is a divinely directed canal under the sovereign control of the God to whom we pray (Hand Me Another Brick, page 44).
Nehemiah talked to his Divine King before he negotiated with his human king.
This principle is also taught in the New Testament (1 Tim 2:1-2; Rom 15:30). These verses should be seriously studied and applied. Do we pray for our President and members of Congress? Sometimes we say if someone has not registered and voted then he has no right to criticize the current state of affairs. The same applies to praying for our leaders. If we have not prayed for them then we should not criticize them. Do we pray for our pastors? These verses command us to pray for these leaders in our lives.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon is one of the most influential and most quoted pastors of all time. Yet Spurgeon gave credit for the success of his ministry to his praying church. Spurgeon would take visitors to the basement prayer room where a significant group of his members was on their knees praying for him. Spurgeon called that prayer room the powerhouse of his church.
Here is how Spurgeon described the importance of his people praying for him: "I always give all the glory to God, but I do not forget that He gave me the privilege of ministering from the first to a praying people. We had prayer meetings that moved our very souls, each one appeared determined to storm the Celestial City by the might of intercession" (C.H. Spurgeon Autobiography (ed. Banner of Truth, 1962). Spurgeon’s Monday evening prayer meetings nearly filled the Metropolitan sanctuary and had a worldwide testimony. I recently preached for one of my former students on a Sunday morning. He also has members praying each Sunday for their pastor while he preaches.
Maybe more churches would produce more Spurgeons if more churches prayed like Spurgeon’s church. In addition to praying for your leader, you should practice loyalty to your superior.
2. By Practicing Loyalty (2:1-4)
Paul Osterman, professor of human resources and management at M.I.T.'s Sloan School of Management and author of The Truth About Middle Managers (Harvard Business Press), believes middle managers are integral to any organization's success.
In an interview with Fortune (click to open), Osterman discussed two different views of middle managers: the victim and villain middle managers. "The victim view is the Organization Man perspective, in which they're conforming to a larger organization and have very little identity of their own. The villain view is the one in which they're seen as kind of wasteful overhead."
Osterman also mentions the hero-empowered view. The hero view is the perspective of business historians, that the growth of large-scale American enterprises depended on middle managers because you just couldn't achieve the scale that we have without people doing the kind of planning work that they do.
This view comes the closest to Artaxerxes' view of Nehemiah. As we see next, Nehemiah earned this kind of respect from his superior.
Nehemiah was cross-cultural to the 21st-century mindset. Paul Osterman describes middle managers today as loyal to their tasks but not their senior management. "One reason is they perceive top management as having feathered their own nest, been greedy, and a lot of the management that I've talked to made comments to that effect, and it really does have an impact on their attitudes." Nehemiah's senior manager was all of the above, yet Nehemiah still practiced loyalty.
When the king noticed Nehemiah’s sad countenance, Nehemiah admitted he was afraid. “Nehemiah had good reason to be frightened. Subjects who were noticeably sad or melancholic in the presence of the king were usually killed for ‘raining on his parade’ (Charles R. Swindoll, Hand Me Another Brick, page 48).
Because dictators were insecure about the possibility of assassinations, the job description of cupbearers included having pleasant personalities, wearing bright clothing, and smiling a lot. Nehemiah was genuinely loyal to his leader which was expressed in his reply, “Long live the king” (2:3).
In the first dialogue of this new scene, Nehemiah communicates the scene’s principle: Leaders follow their leaders. This was not just proper protocol for Nehemiah. Nehemiah had not fallen into the two extremes among followers: followers who are simply “yes men” and others who live to make their leaders look bad. Nehemiah was genuinely loyal.
Nehemiah was not the exception to this mark of leadership which more examples prove. David was loyal to wicked King Saul for 10 to 15 years between David’s two anointings when David was a fugitive on the run from jealous King Saul. David had two chances to retaliate and take Saul’s life in 1 Samuel 24 and 26 but he did not. If you read these two opportunities David had to kill his enemy you will be amazed at David’s love and loyalty for his superior who was out to get him not promote him.
Ruth was loyal to Naomi her mother-in-law in the days of disloyalty: “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:15). Ruth 1:16 is not what a bride vows to her groom at their wedding ceremony [“Where you go I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge ….”] but what a daughter-in-law vows to her mother-in-law.
Peter Drucker gave this warning to those who would push back against this principle, "Contrary to popular legend, subordinates do not, as a rule, rise to position and prominence over the prostrate bodies of incompetent bosses. If their boss is not promoted, they will tend to be bottled up behind him. And if their boss is relieved for incompetence or failure, the successor is rarely the bright, young man next in line. He usually is brought in from the outside and brings with him his own bright, young men. Conversely, there is nothing quite as conducive to success, as a successful and rapidly promoted superior" ( The Effective Executive. New York: Harper & Row, 1985, page 93).
Loyalty is necessary because it is Biblical. The writer of Hebrews 13 mentions pastors [“rulers” or leaders] three times. In Hebrews 13:17, he gives the command “Obey them that have the rule over you.” Loyalty promotes the unity and effectiveness of the ministry where it is practiced. Of course, loyalty does not endorse sin in the life of the superior. Paul admonished believers to rebuke elders before all that others may fear in 1 Timothy 5:20. We should, however, loyally follow our leaders as our leaders follow Christ (1 Cor 11:1). In addition to praying for your leader and practicing loyalty, you can communicate with tact to your superior to practice followership.
3. By Expressing Yourself with Tact (2:5, 7).
Nehemiah twice respectfully said to his superior, “If it please the king” (2:5, 7). Andrew Carnegie gave insight to this principle, “If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive” (How To Win Friends and Influence People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963, page 19). Nehemiah did not slam his fist down and demand his rights.
Again Nehemiah is not the exception of this mark of leadership. Aquila and Priscilla were tactful to Apollos in Acts 18:24-28. Because Aquilla and Priscilla had sat under the ministry of Paul they were cutting-edge in their knowledge of Scripture. Apollos was at least 20 years behind theologically and still holding to the baptism of John the Baptist. To bring their preacher up to date Aquila and Priscilla took him aside privately and brought this to his attention. Because Aquilla, Priscilla, and Apollos were humble and tact was practiced, the church was better for it as Acts 18:28 reveals.
J. Oswald Sanders defined tact as the “skill in reconciling opposing viewpoints without giving offense and without compromising principle …. The same thing can be said in a tactful and untactful manner. One shoe salesman said to his client, ‘I’m sorry, mam, but your foot is too large for this shoe.’ The other salesman said to his client who was in a similar situation, ‘I’m sorry, mam, but this shoe is small for your foot.’ Each used almost exactly the same words, but tact and diplomacy caused one to make a slightly different emphasis by a slight difference of phrasing and secured a loyal and satisfied customer” (Spiritual Leadership, page 67).
Nehemiah wanted something the king had forbidden 13 years earlier in Ezra 4:21. Because Nehemiah acknowledged his leader’s right to disapprove, he requested permission to do what God had put in his heart. Daniel also displayed this attitude in Daniel 1 when he refused to eat the king’s meat yet “requested” (Dan 1:8) of his superior “that he might not defile himself.” God blesses respectful attitudes much more than talent, I.Q., or skill.
You can add to praying, practicing loyalty, and communicating with tact to your superior this fourth principle of offering a positive alternative.
4. By Offering Positive Alternatives (2:6-8)
Nehemiah did not criticize the king’s plan. Nehemiah carefully researched and offered an alternative plan. Perhaps Nehemiah picked his brother’s brain who just returned from Jerusalem.
Nehemiah not only prayed for four months, but he also planned for four months. Nehemiah knew he would need a visa, a passport, and protection. Once in the king’s forest which was under the supervision of Asaph, Nehemiah would also need a requisition to secure lumber to rebuild the walls. All of this was carefully thought out in the plan Nehemiah presented to the king when God answered his prayer to change the king’s heart. Finally, Nehemiah included himself as part of the solution.
This is the way to respond to a ministry or situation in your church or organization. If you disagree, instead of simply finding fault, come up with a positive alternative and volunteer to be in charge. Nehemiah reveals one more mark of a good follower. He gives glory to God for success: “And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me” (2:8).
5. By Giving God the Glory (2:8c)
Nehemiah was a forceful leader as we shall shortly see. First, however, he was a faithful follower. His followership was not a sign of weakness. He knew his place in the chain of command. Nehemiah was most importantly blessed by God because of his humble and godly attitude. Nehemiah knew his success with his superior was not because of his people skills nor his visionary planning but rather because God’s good hand was upon him: “The king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.”
[1] There are grammatical clues as well. In the New Testament Epistles, we have markers like “therefore,” “because,” “for,” etc. for paragraphs. In the Old Testament Narrative, one marker for a new scene is וְהיה [vay-hi] translated as “and it came to pass” in Nehemiah 1:1 (the beginning of a new scene), 1:4 (the end of a scene), and 2:1 (the beginning of a new scene)