Learning Leadership From the Bible, Harvard and a Chief Rabbi

To say that Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, is one of the most prolific and powerful ambassadors for Judaism today is an understatement. When he speaks, people listen; when he writes, people read. This axiom is a testament to Rabbi Sacks' sheer intellectual contributions to contemporary religious thought, and not just for a Jewish audience. The underlying recipe of Rabbi Sacks' success as a thinker of the modern age is his accessibility: he writes for people of every creed, race, and type. And indeed, looking within the faith, his writing speaks to Jewish people of all denominations. He is a unifying religious scholar of the highest order.



Which is why I am so delighted with one of Rabbi Sacks' latest works Lessons in Leadership (Maggid Books). Featuring a foreword by Professor Ronald Heifetz of the Harvard Kennedy School, Lessons in Leadership is a powerful and holistic treatise about approaches to Jewish power, how it's been applied throughout Jewish history, and what we can do to apply those lessons to the manifold problems that face humanity, let alone Judaism, today. It's a riveting read, and essential for those who look to take their leadership skills to a higher echelon.



Sacks found an ideal scholar in Professor Heifetz, to write the foreword to the book. In this way, Sacks allowed Heifetz to bring a certain secularly academic complement his own religiously-based ideas about the meaning of leadership. One of the first things Heifetz does is ask the reader the difference between authority and leadership and the consequences of comprehending such a critical distinction between the two:

The [Torah begins] to answer the central questions of authority and leadership: How can authority figures remain honest and trustworthy? How can we check the corrupting tendencies of centralized governance? How can people scarred by abusive authorities renew its ability to authorize and trust others? How did Moses, "the nursing father," succeed in transforming a slave-minded people -- both deeply dependent on and deeply skeptical of authority -- into a self-governing society? What principles of adaptability have enabled the Jewish community to survive and flourish over time? (xviii)

To be sure, Rabbi Sacks makes clear that he has been deeply influenced by Heifetz with regard to how he understands leadership in the Jewish tradition. A first point is on the difference between authority and leadership. Sacks identifies the prominent personage of Pharaoh as a figure who has the mantle of authority, but not leadership. In contrast, the more obscure figure of Nachson ben Aminadav, the first to enter the Red Sea that had not yet split, acted with no authority. In his action, he became one of the unsung heroes who comes to personify Jewish leadership. Sacks writes:

Judaism has tended to be critical of power. Kings had it and often abused it. Prophets had none, but their influence has lasted to this day. The Talmud tells that one nasi (head of the Jewish community), Rabban Gamliel, asserted the authority of his office in such a way has to humiliate his deputy, R. Yehoshua, and was deposed for so doing (Berakhot 27b). The gedolei hador, the great sages of the generation whose interpretation of Jewish law is usually followed, rarely -- if ever -- had formal authority. They simply emerge through common consent as the leading voices of their time. To remarkable degree, Judaism is about leadership by influence, not about authority in virtue of formal office, (xxiii-xxiv).

To be sure, Heifetz reminds readers that leadership is not some sort of zero-sum game. We can't abdicate responsibility for the actions of leaders who are not ready to take up the burden of responsibility themselves. (One might look at the circus which is the current presidential primary circus for proof of the folly of finding gurus over serious and sensitive administrator.) We can't absolve ourselves of the sins of feckless leaders and expect everything to work as we want them to be. Indeed, as Heifetz writes:

[Too often], we look for the wrong kind of leadership. We call for someone with answers, decision, strength, and a map of the future, someone who knows where we ought to be going -- in short, someone who can make hard problems simple... Instead of looking for saviors, we should be calling for leadership that will challenge us to face the problems for which there are no simple, painless solutions -- the problems that require us to learn new ways, (xv-xvi).

From there, Rabbi Sacks explains that there are three types of Torah: the Torah one learns from books, the Torah one learns from teachers, and the Torah one learns from life. He explains that his book was developed "[F]rom a life in active dialogue with Torah." And it shows. Heifetz explains the demands upon leadership:

Making progress on these problems demands not just someone who provides answers from on high, but changes in our attitudes, behavior, and values. To meet challenges such as these, we need a different idea of leadership and a new social contract that promote our adaptive capacities rather than inappropriate expectations of authority. We need to reconceive and revitalize our civic life and the meaning of leadership, (Leadership Without Easy Answers, Heifetz, 2).

A second fundamental principle that Sacks learns from Heifetz is that leadership is not a personal trait or gift but a process one engages. Rabbi Sacks draws from many different leaders and their approaches. For Sacks, one of the greatest leaders of modern time was Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch. In describing the qualities that differentiates a good leader from a great leader, Sacks lays out his idiosyncratic but sincere criteria: "What I learned from him [the Lubavitcher Rebbe] was that a good leader creates followers. A great leader creates leaders. That is what the Rebbe did" (xxvii).



Such work is not easy. Rabbi Sacks explains that the relationship between a leader and follower is not an easy one. "A leader is one who challenges a follower. A follower is one who challenges a leader" (xxvii). One of the many factors that makes this book work for a religious audience is that it is not a book on "how to succeed" in leadership. It's much more sophisticated than that. As Sacks writes: "[L]eadership is not only about what you achieve by it. It is what you become because of it" (xxviii). Sacks is as concerned, quite correctly, with our character and growth as he is with the consequences of our actions. And all who read his book will be much stronger leaders for it.

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the President & Dean of the Valley Beit Midrash, the Founder & President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Founder and CEO of The Shamayim V'Aretz Institute and the author of nine books on Jewish ethics.

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