Leadership Lessons From NehemiahSample

Day 7: Be Generous

In addition to overcoming resistance from neighboring enemies, Nehemiah also faced a much bigger threat -- unrest within his own community. Specifically, many of the poorer families working on the wall were slipping into serious debt. Not debt from some unknown third party - the Persian versions of Visa or MasterCard - but debts from wealthier families in their own community.  Unlike today, debt in Nehemiah’s time didn’t just mean calls from bill collectors – families would sell children into slavery to make interest payments. Understandably, this injustice was creating turmoil within the community that Nehemiah was working to restore.

Nehemiah gathered the people and sought to bring restoration to the situation immediately. He pointed out the ridiculousness of them treating their own community members so poorly at the same time they’re collaborating to restore Jerusalem. 

I think his argument is more compelling than you might realize when reading the first half of the chapter where this strife is discussed. When Nehemiah first comes to Jerusalem, he comes as the (effectively) governor of the region. Given this, he is entitled to tax the people and get a certain per diem of food every day. 

Nehemiah instead takes the opposite approach. He doesn't collect any tax for himself and instead uses the wealth he's accumulated over his years in service to the King and opens his dinner table every night to feed those who show up from his and surrounding communities. I believe, at least partially, that it is this evidence of generosity that makes his arguments against the extortion so compelling. 

I think Nehemiah's generosity models a powerful truth for each of us. Specifically, Nehemiah didn't believe in what is typically described in economics as the "zero-sum fallacy”. The zero-sum concept in game theory is that, for one person to win, someone else must lose. For example, if you are playing a game of chess and win, then your opponent must have lost. For her to win, you must lose.

While helpful as a theory for many games, this is not how economics works. For example, if you improve your house's value by renovating your kitchen, it doesn't stand to reason that someone else's property must decrease in value by an equal amount.

I believe that one of the great limiters of many 21st-century business leaders is that they fall into the trap of the zero-sum fallacy. They think that, for their company to win, all of their competitors must lose. In fact, they are often actually competing with potential customers maintaining the status quo and not signing up with any of the companies in the market. I’m not saying that you never need to go head-to-head with a competitor and try to win. I’m saying that you much more often need to solve for inertia. This isn't just limited to business leaders – church leaders can also fall into the zero-sum trap of thinking that they’re competing with other churches when, in fact, they are really competing to get people to stop staying home on Sunday morning. 

No matter what calling God has placed on your life, don't fall into the trap of assuming you are in a zero-sum game. Leaders are generous and look to expand the pie, not simply get a bigger slice of the existing pie.