Leadership and the Demands of the Moment

Leadership never exists in a vacuum. It changes depending on what a culture needs at a particular time. Nations, organizations, and communities “pull out” certain styles from leaders that fit their situation.

Take King David as an example. His Kingly leadership made sense in the cultural world of ancient Israel, where the legitimacy of a ruler was tied to being publicly “anointed” by God. Because of that expectation, David could hold together a Hebrew commonwealth through both religious identity and military victory. When he won a battle, people didn’t attribute it to superior strategy, they said, “God gave him the victory.” That reinforced his authority, not just as a commander, but as a covenantal figure.

But David’s tactics and personality clearly don’t translate to every context.

Cultural Leadership

Cultures without a strong religious identity don’t need an anointed king, and many modern leaders are judged precisely by their ability to avoid military conflict rather than win one. Leadership effectiveness is always filtered through the values, crises, and expectations of the moment.

This becomes more obvious when we look at someone like Stephen Douglas. In his book Certain Trumpets, Garry Willis opens his discussion of Douglas by writing that “compromise is the essence of the political art, and especially of American politics” (p. 50). Could we fit King David into any model of compromise? Perhaps—but only under a unifying religious vision. David united Judah and Israel to meet a cultural need rooted in ethnic and covenantal identity. Douglas tried to keep North and South together as well, but his version of compromise was, as Willis puts it, “palliative”—able to calm symptoms but not heal the American disease. Even if successful, it wouldn’t have cured the moral sickness slavery exposed.

All of this reveals something about leadership: it depends heavily on what the moment demands. Certain eras reward charisma, others diplomacy, others moral clarity, others the ability to negotiate or to fight. Even so, there do seem to be certain traits that travel well across cultures and centuries. Nearly every effective leader is persuasive, communicates a vision, and activates some shared need or longing in a people.

One question that interests me is whether we are drawn to leaders who mirror our strengths, or to leaders facing trials we can sympathize with. I suspect the answer is both.

If King David were running in an American primary today, I doubt he’d be a strong candidate, yet historically he’s widely recognized as an effective leader.

What does this say about our American cultural moment?