“I Can’t Do That” Leadership (Part 1)

Scripture — Esther 4:9-11 (NRSV)

Mordecai also gave [Hathach] a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther, explain it to her, and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and to entreat him for her people. Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mordecai: “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that, if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law: to be put to death. Only if the king holds out the golden scepter to someone may that person live. I myself have not been called to come in to the king for thirty days.”

Devotion

Leadership is a tricky institution—a paradox of sorts. On the one hand, it asks the individual to provide influence. Yet that influence can easily become a dictatorship when human agency is outsourced. Leadership involves developing others. Yet if the leader does not put their development process on display, they will quickly become a god or goddess. Leaders need to create environments that curate redemptive ideas. Yet Chesterton is probably right that “Nine out of ten new ideas are simply old mistakes.” (I hope the previous sentence is idea number 10.) Finally, a leader has to push an idea forward. But ideas have hands and feet. At some point, the leader’s hands and feet are included. Some cost counting will be required. And sin sticks to everything.

Esther’s cousin Mordecai, a fatherly figure in Esther’s life, ran into a problem with a colleague in the government. Mordecai refused to bow, and the consequence went beyond a performance plan. The result of the insubordination was an edict that an entire group of people must die (Esther 3:13-15). And we come to another paradox of leadership: the “I can’t do that” paradox.

The first approach to “I can’t do that” leadership is the lament approach. Mordecai put on sackcloth and ashes and stepped into the city in public mourning. Some issues are so overwhelming that the only proper response is to lament and mourn (4:1-3). The second approach to “I can’t do that” leadership is to share the overwhelming issue with others. Mordecai did not stop with lamenting, and good leadership does not make itself the object of the problem. He didn’t make his lament about himself. He’s in sackcloth, but others need to know the facts.

A series of correspondence occurred between Mordecai and the Queen in Esther 4:4-8. A key leadership move that Mordecai made was to lay the facts before Esther in an undeniable edict. Ideology met reality; people could lose their lives. And we get a hint at the redemptive nature of “I can’t do that” leadership.

Sometimes we have “I can’t do that ” moments, and there is a need to lament. And it takes a humble leader to know that the opportunity or problem is bigger than finite humanity. And lamenting helps one to avoid the inherent danger of the Fall, the garden serpent with the hint “you know you’re strong enough, wise enough, rich enough” (see Jer 9:23-24). Sometimes the “I can’t do that” moment calls for accountability to ask for help. Mordecai has done what he is able. But God is behind the scenes. Privilege didn’t get the letter through the gate; Hathach did. And now the “I can’t do that” moment sat at the desk of Esther to decide what she could do.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: God’s Hidden Hand and Human Response (Esther).