Biblical Business Radical: Better Leader than a Pagan King?

John Maxwell makes an observation after contemplating the story of Esther. Mordecai subverts a plot to kill the Persian king Xerxes--who's ruling an empire stretching from India to Ethiopia--and subverts a plot to kill all the Jews in this extensive part of the world. Maxwell suggests that a real leader "cannot be successful unless other people want him [or her] to be." Successful leaders are helped by their followers. 

Successful leaders are only successful because they have followers who work for their leader's success.

I'm not saying that Xerxes was a good leader to work for. Nor was Belshazzar, for whom Daniel worked, or the pharaohs of Egypt, for whom Joseph worked. However, if you read the scriptures carefully, even when the kings were wicked, the Lord blessed their reign through the work of Mordecai and Esther, Daniel and Joseph. They may have been tyrants but Joseph's, Daniel's, Mordecai's and Esther's courage to constructively challenge the king couldn't have been the first time these leaders were confronted with some sort of ugly truth.

Wouldn't it be great though if your employees worked towards your success? How are you like the good leader for whom they enthusiastically would work for? (Enthusiasm and commitment, I think, are the two sides of the Engagement coin. It's probably why employee engagement is so low despite 30 years of focus on improving it.) How often does your team tell you ugly truths?

Even if you're not a good leader, have you thanked the people helping you succeed? Don't take their efforts for granted, like "it's their job and their thanks is to stay employed." And recently in a conversation, another business leader shared that he once worked through the night for a presentation the next day. He wasn't thanked. Likely, his boss probably presumed he'd be willing to do this all the time. Maybe even shrunk the lead-time on future, similar efforts. This is the opposite of thanks. And resentment could build. Maybe bad leaders don't have efforts sabotaged--believers are to supposed to put their best efforts forward for Christ as the Lord and not the human lord--but they may not be getting much more than 78% effort (low engagement can mean 22% less productivity). All of this starts with a foundation of trust: being trustworthy as a leader. Without this foundation, all other efforts are worthless. 

Trustworthiness comes from competence, dependability, integrity, approachability and mutual vulnerability (e.g. admitting a mistake so they will tell you about their mistakes). How would you rate yourself and how much are you sensing that your team is working with you and for the organization's success?