LEADERS ARE PARTNERSit alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice,
and may God be with you. You must be the people’s
representative before God and bring their disputes to
Him. Teach them the decrees and laws, and show them
the way to live and the duties they are to perform. But
select capable men from all the people – men who fear
God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain – appoint them
as offi cials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.
Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but
have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple
cases they can decide themselves. Th at will make your load
lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this and
God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and
all these people will go home satisfi ed.’Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said.
He chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of
the people...They served as judges for the people at all
times. The difficult cases they brought to Moses, but
the simple ones they decided themselves” (Ex. 18:13-26).It took some wise council from the “outside” for Moses to learn the principle
of shared leadership. If he would not have received and heeded the advice
from his father-in-law, he would still be in the wilderness! He would still
be sitting on the “judge’s seat” trying to make all of the decisions! The
people would still be chanting: “Here comes the judge!” They would have
died and rotted “...waiting in line from morning till evening” to get
their turn to talk to “king Moses!” Before this time, his leadership model
had been that of Pharaoh – who held all of the power and made all of the
decisions! Through the wise council of Jethro, Moses made a strategic
leadership shift to shared leadership. At that point he made the paradigm
shift from exclusive ownership to authentic partnership. Often every young
leader needs a “Jethro” to come into their life to guide them in making
this leadership shift.
Later on, there was similar leadership crisis in Moses’ life. The people
were complaining about the monotony of their daily rations of manna.
They wanted meat instead. Similar kinds of dissatisfaction are not unusual
in churches and organizations today. People are not happy with their