Gues Post: Leadership: The Moses - Joshua Connection

This is a guest post from Chris Vonada. Chris is an aspiring author
and professional geologist, and also enjoys reading, running, anything outdoors,
travel, family, friends, music and life! He writes about his passions
at I’m Just Thinkin’ (http://chrisvonada.com).

-- http://chrisvonada.info

 

Leadership: The Moses - Joshua Connection

This may be the most inspiring lesson in the history of mankind regarding leadership.

Whether you believe in God or not I hope that you will stick with me through this message as this one, like so many others from the Bible, is relevant to our world today.

We all know something of Moses' incredible story. He's the one who God chose to lead the people out of Egypt and into the promised land, and the one who God gave the 10 commandments to share with the people. Moses wasn't really thinking he should be "the one" ... when God assigned Moses the task of bringing the people out of Egypt, his reply was "Who am I?" Also, for one chosen to be the leader, Moses quickly pointed out to God that he was lacking in communication skills... so God suggested that Moses utilize the assistance of his brother Aaron to speak to the people.

Many of us know something about Joshua too... remember Joshua and Caleb were the only 2 of the 12 spies that came back from the original scouting mission to the promised land with an encouraging report. Plus, Joshua was the only one allowed to accompany Moses part way up the mountain when Moses received the law from God.

Moses had a vision and marching orders from God... unfortunately, he never lead his people into the promised land. Moses died before that happened. Fortunately, before Moses passed away he was able to share with and guide Joshua in the leadership skills necessary to lead these people... not only INTO the promised land, Joshua lead the people in a heroic and monumental way that shines the beaming light on this as one of the greatest mentoring relationships. Ever. Moses chose Joshua and Joshua became his shadow. God later confirmed this wise choice when he instructed Moses to name Joshua as his successor.

And that, to me, is the story of the greatest lesson for any leader... how to help the people around you learn to perform everything that you can teach them... the task of "making myself replaceable." We talk about this at church all the time, as any growing organization should. Making myself replaceable means I can help someone else learn the skills that I possess... that I'm confident enough in myself and the organization to tell someone everything I know about my job, without the fear of becoming obsolete in the process. That frees me up to continue leading and for the organization to keep growing.

Where would we be if Moses hadn't made himself replaceable... maybe still wandering in the desert? Maybe someone would have risen to the occasion... but it certainly made sense then... as it does now... to always focus on "making myself replaceable."

What do you feel is the most important leadership skill?