Leadership Lessons from Moses

Our church is doing 90 days with the Bible challenge.  This is where the congregation is engaged in reading the entire Bible over the summer.   I’ve struggled my way through Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy but found that reading the entire account of Moses through in a few days has revealed several leadership lessons from his life that I never noticed.

Lesson 1:  Get a wingman.    Aaron was Moses’.  A wingman is someone who complements you so that two end up being better than one.  Moses had a stuttering problem and Aaron was a good speaker. They worked together to accomplish many things. (Exodus 1-15)

Lesson 2: Delegate; don’t go it alone. Moses found himself overwhelmed.   He gave leadership responsibility to others to deal with the day-to-day people issues Numbers 11) used people to scout out Canaan (Numbers 13), and gave people meaningful work to do (Numbers 3).

Lesson 3: Leadership isn’t easy.  People are prone to complain and forget how they have been blessed (Numbers 11, 20), but having someone to vent to can help with this.   God was this for Moses and should be for us all.

Lesson 4: Humility makes leaders more effective.  Moses was a “quietly humble man, more so than anyone living on earth.” (Numbers 12)

Lesson 5:  Advocate for your people.  Even though the Israelites were grumbling about not having any meat, Moses advocated for his people by asking God to provide meat for them, and He did (Numbers 11).  He also asked God to forgive them (Numbers 14).

Lesson 6:  Even leaders make mistakes and are human.  Moses’ temper was “white hot” (Numbers 16) and he lost his trust in God (Numbers 20, Deuteronomy 32), which cost him the opportunity to lead his people into the Promised Land.  It is how we handle these flaws and their consequences that matter.  Its never stated that Moses complained about the consequence of his lack of trust, and he controlled his temper.

Lesson 7:  Have a protégé. Leaders make more leaders.Moses’ was Joshua (Deuteronomy 31, 34).  Leaders should always be training and teaching others and should entrust others with important tasks.  Joshua was entrusted with leading the Israelites into the Promised Land,

Moses sought God’s guidance in all that he did, which led to many of the lessons learned through him.

What Biblical or historical characters have you gleaned leadership insight from?