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A leader's successes and failures strengthen or weaken their credibility. It's a bit like spending and earning money. With every good leadership decision, money comes in. With every bad leadership decision, money goes out. Every leader has a certain amount of change in their pocket when they take on a leadership position. From that day on, it either grows or shrinks.
To build trust, a leader needs three qualities: competence, relational ability, and character. People can forgive serious mistakes when they see the leader turn around and keep growing from them. But they stop trusting the leader when the leader tries to talk their way out of it or shifts the blame onto others. Then even small mistakes can destroy trust completely. No leader can expect their people to follow them once the relationship of trust is broken. Because trust is what makes leadership possible in the first place.
Samson and the Law of Solid Ground
By all accounts, Samson could have become one of the greatest leaders in Israel. Instead, he became one of the worst. How could someone who started out so strong end so badly?
Samson had to learn the hard way that trust is the foundation of good leadership. This impetuous, erratic, lustful, moody, emotional, and unpredictable man is a very good example of a very bad leader. Because no one trusted him, no one followed him either.
What are the signs that a leader is in trouble?
Leaders who continually disregard the Law of Solid Ground can run into the following kinds of trouble.
1. They fail to address glaring character weaknesses.
Samson struggled with sexual impurity. He pursued pagan women, kept company with prostitutes, and was ultimately brought down by Delilah. Whenever a leader fails to work on their character weaknesses, they get worse bit by bit.
2. They rely on deception to protect themselves.
People who flirt with disobedience often deceive others to protect themselves. Samson liked to use riddles to outwit others. He also often failed to tell the whole truth, which later led to mistrust and betrayal.
3. They act impulsively.
Time and again Samson showed his impetuous behavior. He chose his wife without thinking it through. He made wagers without a second thought. And more than once his impulsive spirit led him into bloody battle. A leader who does not have their temper under control endangers themselves and others.
4. They are overwhelmed by their weakness.
Sin ultimately consumes anyone who lets it run free. Samson met his match in Delilah. The deceiver was deceived. The seducer, seduced. He lost a dangerous game, and it cost him everything.
5. They misuse the gifts God gave them.
Samson possessed enormous strength and divine anointing, but he took both for granted. Samson often used the God-given gift meant for delivering his people for personal revenge instead. When a leader misuses God's gifts, it inevitably has serious consequences.
What happens when leaders become unteachable?
Samson's self-centered, undisciplined, and arrogant nature made him unteachable. What happens when leaders no longer allow themselves to be corrected?
1. They trust their own strength and understanding.
Unteachable leaders lose their connection to God. They rely on their own strength and seek no counsel from God or others. Samson repeatedly resorted to raw force to handle difficulties. When he was embarrassed at his wedding feast, he killed thirty men. When the men of Judah handed him over to the Philistines, he struck down a thousand men. When he was caught with a prostitute, he tore down the gates of Gaza. Samson did not listen to his parents' advice, never took counsel from his men, and never sought direction from God either. Worse still, Samson never acknowledged God as the source of his strength. He turned from a man of anointing into a man of arrogance.
2. They stop learning from their mistakes.
A person's life moves uphill or downhill depending on whether, in failure, they fall forward or backward. Because it is only a mistake if you fail to learn from it. In Samson's life there is no improvement to be seen, only a downward spiral. For leaders to learn from their mistakes, they must...
- be big enough to admit mistakes. Samson blamed everyone else for his problems. Not once did he admit his sin or humble himself before God.
- be smart enough to profit from their mistakes. It is one thing to notice that a mistake happened. It is another thing entirely to understand what caused it.
- be strong enough to correct the mistakes. If they are unable to make changes in behavior or in the system, they cannot improve themselves, and the organization cannot develop further either.
3. They react instead of leading.
While good leaders are proactive, unteachable leaders are, in most cases, reactive. When Samson saw the daughter of Timnah, he wanted to marry her immediately. When his wife married his best man, he burned down the Philistines' fields. Samson reacted right up to his death and left his people groaning under Philistine oppression.
4. They can simply be defeated.
Unteachable people always lose in the end. Even great talent cannot help them get around this law. Samson's character weaknesses, which he never addressed, led to moral decline and unspoken sin. In the end, they destroyed him completely.
No one knows what would have happened if Samson had come humbly before God and asked for his guidance. He surely could have accomplished a great deal of good.