Thou Shalt Heed &
Honor Ancient Lessons

Reviewed by Don Blohowiak, Lead Well Institute, http://www.leadwell.com/

"The Bible," leadership development consultant Lorin Woolfe contends, is the "greatest collection of leadership case studies ever written." He postulates that Biblical tales provide modern managers with "tremendously useful and insightful lessons," because these ancient stories "form some of the major archetypes of our collective consciousness."

This well-researched book is rich with anecdotes from both antiquity and modernity illustrating both good and bad leadership. You'll find King David and Bill Gates; Queen Esther and Anita Roddick; Jesus and Jack Welch.

In drawing parallels between the leadership challenges chronicled in the Bible and those faced by today's leaders, Woolfe concludes that successful leadership, then and now, derives from a set of ten "traits and skills."

Lorin Woolfe (or his editor) had the good sense and judgment not to do what I'm going to do: Present his ten lessons, as drawn from the Judeo/Christian Bible, in the following cliché manner.

1. Thou shalt deal with thine followers with Honesty and Integrity.

2. Thou shalt lead from a clear Purpose.

3. Thou shalt treat all others with Kindness and Compassion.

4. Thou shalt lead with Humility.

5. Thou shalt master effective Communication.

6. Thou shalt effect results by deploying Performance Management for thine colleagues.

7. Thou shalt improve performance of thine operation through Team Development.

8. Thou shalt demonstrate Courage in all thine affairs.

9. Thou shalt deal with all others with Justice and Fairness.

10. Thou shalt assureth continuity by giving priority to Leadership Development.

To even the most casual student of leadership today, those themes ought ring quite familiar. Looking through the lens of modern leadership theory, one can, not surprisingly, find examples aplenty of these themes in the ancient stories of human shepherds leading their human flocks.

Woolfe's extensive research does a good job of making the case that human nature, or at least the behaviors that are shaped by the West's familiar Judeo/Christian traditions, have remained pretty much the same over the millennia. So the methods that helped (or hindered) a leader's attempts to affect the behaviors of ancient, nomadic, desert-dwelling clans thousands of years ago are quite the same as those that influence contemporary, computerized cube-farm inhabitants. (Though modern leaders -- facing constituents with more choices for the leaders they'd willing follow -- probably tend to emphasize the less harsh end of the consequences spectrum.)

The plethora of examples that Woolfe has mined from both the Good Book and today's business press amply make the case for each lesson the author presents. But too much so. The book often seems to read like: Ancient Anecdote...Ancient Anecdote... Modern Example...Modern Example...

And then for variety: Modern Example...Modern Example...Ancient Anecdote...Ancient Anecdote... Or, alternatively, Ancient Anecdote... Modern Example... Ancient Anecdote... Modern Example...

After a while, it's more tiring than engaging. And occasionally uncomfortably forces itself against the boundaries of analogy. ("In 1991, Larry Bossidy, CEO of Allied Signal, found himself in a position similar to that of Moses. The company lacked purpose, morale was suffering, and the bottom line was showing it.")

The book easily could be half as long, and, in turn, perhaps twice as effective.

Still, for people who are students of leadership or adherents to the Judeo/Christian tradition (or who want to understand the source of its echoes in our modern world), this is a useful, well documented, and instructive work worth having and reviewing.

Buy the book here.