12 The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”
5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!
There are two ways of looking at power and position. One is that it grants you the privilege to do more and to exploit others more. The other is that it is a grant of responsibility.
It is the conflict between God and Mammon.
If a missionary is exploiting someone, do you punish him more for abusing his position of trust and his calling, or do you protect him because he is “more valuable” than the victim?
In the one case, you are holding him responsible for his advantages and position. In the other case, you are granting him a privilege to sin at the expense of others.
Similar things go on in the military. Some groups, when something goes wrong, look for someone to scapegoat. That rolls downhill. Others look for someone to hold responsible. That rolls uphill.
A recent podcast on leadership discussed much of that. [Harbinger Show].
A significant part of it was on ownership by leaders — of the responsibility flowing uphill. They also discussed the concept of leadership and follower capital. What do you expend your ability to influence on? A leader who spends their ability to lead on things that are minuscule, has wasted it.
The same is true of a follower. A follower who complains and carps about everything loses the ability to influence leaders at all, they’ve spent their capital. When you look at someone with a cause, have they built up capital, served and supported, and then pushed a single cause, or have they cycled through many causes with a history of complaints? One is more likely to succeed than the other.
He also discussed how the game of “rock, scissors, rank” expends capital and creates nothing but problems (you’ve all probably played rock, scissors, paper, the game. The alternative in the military is trumping all arguments with rank — the I’m in charge, we do it my way, regardless of the logic or the reasons). It is a way to ruin an organization, to rely on privilege without responsibility.
34 Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen?
35 Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson—
36 That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.
37 That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.
38 Behold, ere he is aware, he is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks, to persecute the saints, and to fight against God.
39 We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.
40 Hence many are called, but few are chosen.
So:
- Have you seen places where people are relying on privilege instead of responsibility?
- How do we keep our hearts from being set on the things of the world and the honors of man (how do we avoid inhaling, to refer to Elder Uchtdorf)?
- When have you taken ownership and responsibility for a problem?
- Have you ever had to deal with someone whose positions all turned into a game of “rock, scissors, rank”?
- Can you think of times that leadership or follower capital was used wisely or squandered?
Wheat & Tares 
Very appropriate timing for this day and time. Thank you.
Fantastic post and thought provoking.
41 No apower or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
No power or influence can be maintained by virtue of the priesthood.
This has to be about the leak of the Kirton & McKonkie documents, yes? It can’t be coincidence that it comes up at just this moment,.
Not really. I’ve been working on this theme for months and it finally came together this morning.
The podcast is one I follow and I just finished the relevant episode Tuesday when it jelled for me.
I wonder about an emergency situation where the leadership evacuates the missionaries and leaves the members. Like the Ebola epidemic in Liberia or perhaps the recent hurricane that struck Puerto Rico? Are they placing a higher value on the missionaries’ safety than we are on the members? It seems like there may be subtle racial overtones in some of these decisions.
Roger, I get your point; however, the missionaries are where they are because the Church essentially ordered them to be there. With that ability to direct missionary placement comes a responsibility to care for and evacuate them if necessary. For that matter, the Church didn’t assist in evacuating the tens of thousands of members who were hit straight on by hurricanes in Texas and Florida either, so I don’t agree that subtle racism is at play at all. Could the Church try to evacuate members ahead of or after disasters? Absolutely, but the cost would probably eat our annual budget alive, and mire the Church in hugely complex refugee and immigration issues. While I do support the role of the Church in supporting the poor and needs, I don’t think the Church should have a role in large-scale emergency evacuations.
They’ve got $32 BILLION. What is it for? Certainly not more real estate!
Also, isn’t here supposed to be a time to come for the Saints to gather? Perhaps natural disasters which can be predicted with a significant margin of time would be excellent drills, so to speak, when those skills and tactical requirements could be worked out and perfected. It might be the most important gift our generation could bequeath to future generations.
“A leader who spends their ability to lead on things that are minuscule, has wasted it.”
To me, and generally speaking, leadership is like a muscle; the more it is used the stronger it becomes. It isn’t wasted on small things but strengthened through frequent use on things small or large. Of course, small things need only small leadership, but should still benefit from some leadership rather than none, otherwise people do whatever they want until suddenly you cross an invisible threshold and run afoul of “leadership”.
Most of the time leadership should be mentoring, positive, opening doors, removing barriers leadership. In the Navy it was one of the foremost duties of any leader to prepare his successor, develop subordinates so they can start assuming duties and relieve you of the small leadership so you can step up into other roles. This is not “boss”, it is “lead”; particularly where the church is composed of volunteers that can walk out the door or simply refuse this or that.
You can pull a string or rope but pushing one is ineffective.
The podcast discusses investing social capital and choices of how to invest leadership capital.
The guy trained seal teams. Micromanaged guys and pushing on points that don’t matter he felt wasted leadership capital.
So. Everyone using the same shoe polish is probably not a good investment of leadership.
Nice post, Stephen. It reminds me of an article appearing in the December 1990 issue of Sunstone magazine from Hugh Nibley. The article is about priesthood and he makes the case that D&C 121’s prohibitions on how the priesthood should behave ensure that very few actually have valid priesthood; that the worldly methods for determining power or authority are completely useless for doing so when it comes to the things of God. The person who has *true* authority would not boast of it or lord it over anyone. It’s a fantastic article.
Stephen, I generally agree that many leaders waste time and resources on unimportant things. That said, if you’re trying to instill in your trainees a mindset that seeks standardization in equipment across the unit (think interoperability and simplifying the logistics tail), shoe polish isn’t a bad place to start instilling that way of thinking. Maybe it’s less important for the SOF community, but it’s very important for conventional forces where numbers are much bigger and equipment choices more constrained.
Evacuate missionaries = Racism. Absolutely not.
There is an implicit 3 way contract between the church, the missionary, and his/her family. The missionary agrees to sacrifice 1.5 – 2 years in full time church service. The family agrees to fund the endeavor. The church agrees to do everything in its power to protect and keep the missionary safe. There is no similar implicit contract between the church and any other entity.