What a Titleless King Proves About Rising In Leadership

Promotions. Those feel great, right? Outperforming people, getting recognized, receiving a shiny new title, and maybe even a brand new office. This is pretty par for the course in promoting people in most organizations.

Typically, someone is seen for their remarkable output. They're consistently performing by meeting goals and hitting numbers. For all intents and purposes, this person has earned a promotion. So, a higher-up comes along and sets a new bar above them. This new bar comes with a new title, a new position, and some people to manage.

The bar may be beyond them at this point, but the potential is there, so there's high hope they'll rise to the occasion.

Common or not, this approach does a massive disservice to your organization for one reason—it's forgetting to account for all the intangibles that actually measure effective leadership. These include qualities like being flexible, demonstrating humility, taking on more responsibility than is expected of you, having the courage to make hard decisions, serving others, and showing gratefulness, just to name a few.

If I were to sum up these intangibles in one word, I would call this influence.

With influence, pointing to potential isn't enough. This happens to require proving. This is why I will forever look to people to function in the capacity of leader before ever giving away a title or position.

If they come back and tell you they can't effectively lead because they won't be respected without a title, this should be eye-opening to you. How a person navigates relationships and situations where they can't leverage a position or use a title as a trump card should be a strong indicator of the posture of their heart.

Influencers get creative with solutions, they carry their load with gratefulness, they continually mature their communication, they set others up for success, and they tailor their approaches to people in ways that organically garner respect.

This is why I believe "right-alignments" are a much better model for handling leadership than "promotions".

•••

I'm going to tell you a story to demonstrate what I mean. If you believe in the Bible, then you're welcome to think of this as an historical account. If you don't, then consider this a highly compelling parable for the right way to rise to leadership.

Quick overview. Saul was king over Israel, and while Saul was ultimately Israel's choice for king, the prophet Samuel knew God wanted someone with a different heart, so he found David.

David was the youngest of eight brothers and a shepherd for his dad, Jesse. For context, a shepherd was one of the lowliest positions in a family and in society. So, when Samuel skipped over the first seven brothers and zeroed in on the 12-year* old shepherd boy as the one to be king, Jesse was surprised. Nevertheless, in the company of David's dad and seven brothers, Samuel told David he has was the one fit to be king of Israel.

Here's where the story gets really interesting. The first action David took after finding out he was chosen to be king was to go to Saul—the current king—and offer to serve him. He became Saul's armor bearer in times of war and his musician in times of peace. Saul loved David so much that he wrote to David's dad and essentially said, "Hey, I really like your son. Would you please allow him to stay in my service?"

And what I find so beautiful about David's response to this is, he had every right and probably every inclination to make a full transition from shepherding his dad's sheep to solely serving King Saul, but he didn't. He continued to serve his father Jesse as shepherd while also maintaining his role in Saul's courts.

There were literally times when Saul's men would be at war hunkered down in a ravine, waiting to attack the enemy, and David would go back and forth between the pasture and ravine. And the times he had to leave the sheep to be with Saul, he would find a replacement to fill in for him. Even later in the relationship when Saul became consumed with jealousy for David and tried killing him multiple times, David still served.

Fast-forward about fifteen or so years, David finally takes the position and title as king at thirty years of age.

[ . . . P A U S I N G   T O   L E T   T H A T   S I N K   I N . . . ]

You guys, there was literally over a decade in between the time someone called out David's potential and when this potential actually materialized. And here's the real takeaway I'm getting to: who David chose to be in this "in-between time" tells us everything we need to know about who is truly fit to lead.

First.

  He got in proximity to the position he was readying himself for.

Second.

  He served the person from whom he would ultimately inherit this position.

Third.

  He maintained the extra load until he could properly delegate his shepherd role.

Fourth.

  He used this time to slowly and organically build trust with the people of Israel.

His leadership potential had over a decade to mature, and he didn't waste a single ounce of opportunity in this ten-plus-year waiting period to plant deep roots with the people he would ultimately be leading and serving as king. On the day he was finally handed the kingship, the story tells us that a massive group of people came to him and collectively said, "We are as much as part of you as your own bones and flesh. Even when Saul was still in power, it was you who truly led us."**

If that isn't the right way to rise to leadership, I don't know what is! The fact of the matter is, he was leading even in the waiting period. If leadership is servanthood (and it is), then he was actually leading all along. The lack of title couldn't stop him from being who he was always meant to be. The title finally coming at thirty years old was just a formality and a right-alignment. His potential was so well-aged and the title so fitting by this point that it was a no-brainer to the people of Israel.

This is exactly what you want leadership alignments in your organization to feel like. It should almost feel overdue and anticlimactic.

How do you know when you've fully transitioned from promoting people to right-aligning people? You know when they walk in the next day and their job literally hasn't changed because they've been doing it all along anyway. You know, because they show up the next day and keep running the infinite race of growth and servanthood. You know, because the rest of the organization smiles and says, "Well, finally!"

Here's the truth. I don't actually believe I have the power to bestow leadership on anyone. All I can do is point toward the potential and encourage this person to move toward it. I can't make the decision for them to serve with humility. I can't force them to see the extra load as a gift to be carried with gratefulness. I can't fill their relational banks with deposits of trust and goodwill on their behalf. They're the only ones who can make these decisions.

I will never apologize for being an organization that does not give leadership away. I will never apologize for expecting those with the potential to lead to have a heart posture like David and to take ownership of raising themselves. If someone is truly convicted to lead, they will move toward it because it's who they are at their core, not because it's a posting on a job board.

How many times do organizations promote people because they're "management material", yet they haven't done anything to win the hearts of the people they're being asked to lead? That's like piling up some car parts, putting it on the lot and saying, "These parts have the potential to be a Honda Civic, so let's start selling it."

NO! Nobody does that. Now your team feels unprotected, they don't trust you can make smart decisions, and the customer is getting garbage. It's a lose-lose-lose for every single part of your organization and who it serves. The world's version of leadership is backward, it's expedient, and it's sloppy. Don't fall for it.

Love your people. Empower your people. Call out their potential. Make space for them, but hold the line. Accept nothing less than leaders who demonstrate an ability to organically earn their influence. This is the right way to raise leaders and your culture will be all the more mature and healthy for it.

•••

*The Bible is not explicit about David's age at this time, but scholars believe he was somewhere between the age of 12 and 15.

**Paraphrased.