Issue 142
Whenever you make a decision, you have the option to take into account the opinions of others before you make your choice. For the thousands of tiny decisions you make each day, you’ve already acquired enough knowledge to trust your own opinion, and consulting others would be superfluous. As the decision becomes bigger and the consequences more far-reaching, not only may you feel the need for others’ opinions but it is likely you will receive them whether you want them or not!
If people know your decision will affect their situation, they will want to influence you to come to a decision which will be in their interest. So the more you climb the ladder of influence, the larger will be the chorus urging you to sing their way, to their rhythm and in their key.
Should you become leader in any context then your options will be many and varied. With such decisions comes responsibility. There is a sequence here which cannot be broken: it involves listening, thinking, choosing, deciding and then taking responsibility.
We have a phrase in English for the act of deciding and then trying to avoid responsibility. It’s called trying to wash your hands’ of the situation. It has its origin in the episode of Pilate’s attempt to absolve himself from the consequences of condemning Jesus of Nazareth to death. During the process he made many mistakes. He knew in his conscience and from his own assessment that Jesus was not guilty. Furthermore he had a clear warning from his own wife not to condemn an innocent man. He neither listened to himself nor his wife. The voices he listened to were that of the crowds and the accusers shouting for injustice. His was an expedient political decision. His final folly was to attempt to wash his hands.
Five hundred years earlier, a man who was in royal service occupied the same position in Jerusalem. Faced with loud voices attempting to divert him from what he knew to be right, he refused to listen to the mob, but sought the voice of God and held firm in his resolve. He used his position skilfully to achieve just aims and shouldered responsibility for his actions, whatever the cost. Nehemiah is a model for managers and leaders alike.
There was facing Pilate another Governor – not yet recognised as such, but making his decisions nevertheless. There was to be no washing of hands here. He had decided to give his life and pay the price for decisions made before the world began. Because he chose, we can be freed from the tyranny of expedient political, unjust decision-making in our work. We can now choose in whose footsteps we will follow and then we can face the consequences.
Matthew 27: 22-24
22“What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!” 23“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!” 24When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”
Nehemiah 4: 1-5
1 When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, 2 and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, “What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble-burned as they are?” 3 Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said,”What they are building-if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones!”
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Geoff Shattock
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