BMAL 500 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY Leadership_Traits_of_the_Kings_ESSAY_2024.pdf

LEADERSHIP TRAITS OF THE KINGS 1

Abstract

What makes up the best leader? What qualities must a leader possess? What qualities should a

leader avoid? These and questions like these have been studied and examined for hundreds of

years or more. Leadership is a relationship dynamic that everyone will experience, at various

levels, at one time or another. Some people are seemingly born to lead and some shake in their

boots at the thought of influence. None the less, it is imperative to examine various

characteristics of leadership, to understand what makes up good leaders and what bad. This paper

briefly examines the lives of three kings and three traits they possess that ultimately made their

leadership a negative one. All leaders change the culture or thing in which they lead, big or

small, good, or bad, some more than others.

Keywords: Negative leadership, leadership traits, unethical, accountability, wasted

influence

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Leadership Traits of the Kings

It has been said that all people are leaders of someone or something. That may be of a

multi-national organization, it may be a floor team or shift at work, it could be a group of friends,

it could be a child, or it could be yourself. We all experiences opportunities and moments of

leadership, the struggle and the mystery are what will be done with those opportunities. History

is full of notable leader’s worth emulating, but sometimes it is value to examine those who are

not. Those that failed in the faces of their followers. 1 Kings is full of examples of leadership,

good and bad. What follows is three poignant leaders and more importantly, three qualities of

leadership that should be examined, in hopes of avoiding. Not everyone is a leader all the time,

but everyone will have opportunities of leadership, don’t waste it.

King Solomon – Unethical Leadership

King Solomon is often looked to as an example of quality leadership and the importance

of wisdom in one’s life and actions. King Solomon’s life and kingship is one that could be

studied in the pursuit of emulating many of his traits and embodying the many good

characteristics of him. Similarly, though, as many bright shining elements there are to his

kingship, there are dark spots as well. Varying in degree through his life King Solomon could be

described as a great man, with an often-divided heart (Merida et al., 2015). He chose the wrong

women, the wrong alliances, the wrong places to worship, he often lied and cheated, he set rules

with ill intent, and he didn’t hold himself to the standards he set forth for his people. In short

King Solomon had an ethic problem. He was likely a strong proponent of the age-old adage of

“do as I say, not as I do.” Another way of putting it would be that he made many ethical

compromises. It is well documented and apparent that how goes the leader, often so goes the

organization. Leaders are so important to an organization that, “Their communications,

LEADERSHIP TRAITS OF THE KINGS 3

decisions, and behaviors influence employees to act ethically or unethically to accomplish

organizational goals” (Mitchel et al., 2023). Poor leadership in this way, can and will have grave

pitfalls for any organization eventually, compromise and poor ethics will increasingly wobble,

however unnoticed and slight at first, eventually throwing the whole wheel off course.

Considering this, Shafra et al., (2023) speak of the need for organizations to be very strategic

about how teams are created and utilized to create overall effective communication and a culture

of sharing and transparency, simply for the sake of combating and avoiding unethical leadership

pitfalls. King Solomon’s story may have some rather dark patches and be littered with unethical

behavior, but as with all things in God’s plan, all hope is not lost. Merida importantly points out

that it is because of King Solomon’s struggle with ethical activity and leadership and his fragility

that this is what makes him so relatable and ultimately what shows God’s grace on his life (Pg

23).

King Ahab – Accountability, Lack There Of

The reign of King Ahab is not something that scholars will study through the ages to

gleam poignant characteristics and little gems and nuggets of leadership wisdom. His reign was

relatively short and without many bright spots. King Ahab took over in a time with a rather

stable and established kingdom, his chance of success would have been rather high. Yet Ahab

came in and sought to make his mark and nearly immediately things took a turn for the worst. He

is described as having done more evil than any king before him (Merida, pg. 97, 2015). King

Ahab seemed to act in any way that he saw fit, or his wife saw fit, making decisions and

proclamations without regard to his people. He fully submits to a false idol and leads his people

astray. The peak of King Ahab’s lack of accountability is that he vehemently went against a

known curse and word of God, to not try and rebuild Jericho. Ferry and Sandford note in their

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article that for locale and community governance to be effective and controlled, that

accountability in the hierarchy of the government is a necessity (2022). Looking at his reign, it

does not take long to see King Ahab’s failure points, most glaring is how those failures too lead

his people astray. For King Ahab to have been more successful as a king, there are quite a few

changes that likely would be necessary, but possible the most important, or at least the starting

point, would be that of accountability, starting with him. Kim points out that top down

accountability, though difficult at times to adopt, is a professional responsibility of a leader

(2022).

King Omri – Wasted Influence

It is often said that the obvious tell on if one is a leader or not, is for them to look behind

them and see who, if anyone, is following them. Although this method may tell you IF you are a

leader, it does not tell you HOW you are a leader. This is to say, where are you leading, what are

you leading, where are you going, are you being effective, etc. King Omri, was no doubt a leader

of his people, he was king after all. He was the chief vision setter, decision maker, and direction

giver. Yet when we examine him in the biblical context, we do not get much sense of who he

was as a leader. Aside from 1 Kings 16:25 telling us that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, we

do not know much. Merida (2015) shows how this is not to say that he did absolutely nothing,

but that what he did was directionless and non-memorable (pg. 95). He points to the shame of

King Omri wasting his reign on things that do not matter. Simply put, King Omri was a leader,

leading to nowhere. CTo be a great leader, one must have been a great follower and never lose

sight of thoseCunder them.CTo lead and to manage is centered inCone simpleCconcept, itCis a people

business.CLook out for yourCpeopleCand keep their best interests at heart and they will follow you

to the end.CLeadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what

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needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts

to accomplish shared objectives (Merits, K. 2020).CHenricks, Kehoe, & Young point to a direct

correlation between the transformational leadership capabilities of a leader and the outcome of

their direction of leadership (2020). Regarding King Omri, he sought to transform no one and

went nowhere.

Conclusion

In conclusion, anyone, anywhere, at any level of leadership is subject to success and

failure. The task of leadership can be one of the most daunting things than anyone ever embarks

on. This biggest obstacle is that one does not always choose to be a leader, sometimes it is a

situation in which one is placed. There is not one cookie cutter perfect way to be a leader as all

people and all situations are unique. One thing that can and must always be done is to examine

examples, good and bad, and seek to emulate proper actions. Always choose to lead from an

ethical standpoint, not doing so makes failure imminent. All leaders, regardless of level, are

accountable to someone or something, this is a necessity for long prosperous leadership. Finally,

if nothing else, have a direction and purpose. The path is not always smooth and clear, but if you

have been so lucky to have been giving the responsibility, never look back and see that you have

not moved a step, do not waste the opportunity of influence.

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References
Ferry, L.CandCSandford, M.C(2022), "Developing “place leadership” when hierarchical 
accountability is omnipresent: the case of English sub-national government",CJournal of 
Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 557-
565.Chttps://doi.org/10.1108/JPBAFM-06-2021-0094
Hassan, S., Kaur, P., Muchiri, M., Ogbonnaya, C., & Dhir, A. (2023). Unethical Leadership: 
Review, Synthesis and Directions for Future Research: JBE.Journal of Business 
Ethics,183(2), 511-550. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05081-6
Henricks, M., Kehoe, E. J., and Young, M. (2020)CAttitudes toward Change and 
Transformational Leadership: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Change 
Management,C20:3,C202-219,CDOI:C10.1080/14697017.2020.1758529
Kim, T. (2022). Reimagining accountability through educational leadership: Applying the 
metaphors of “agora” and “bazaar”.CEducational Management Administration & 
Leadership,C0(0).Chttps://doi.org/10.1177/17411432221132100
Merida, T., Platt, D., & Akin, D. L. (2015).CExalting Jesus in 1 and 2 Kings. B & H Publishing 
Group.
Merits, & Kivipõld, K. (2020). Leadership competencies of first-level military 
leaders.CLeadership & Organization Development Journal.,C41(8), 953–970. 
https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-09-2019-0392
Mitchell,CM. S., Rivera,CG., &CCTreviño,CL. K.C(2023).CCUnethical leadership: A review, analysis, 
and research agenda.CPersonnel Psychology, 76, 547 
583.Chttps://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12574

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Annotated Bibliography

Ferry, L.CandCSandford, M.C(2022), "Developing “place leadership” when hierarchical

accountability is omnipresent: the case of English sub-national government",CJournal of

Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 557-

565.Chttps://doi.org/10.1108/JPBAFM-06-2021-0094

This article in the Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, is not the

most obviously applicable to this assignment. Yet I found its content to a unique angle and

perspective on that of accountability and leadership. Each of the authors have a plethora of

scholarly articles to their credit and have been well received. Specifically, they are looking at the

accountability dynamics of different levels of leadership and government and how those different

levels interact and react to each other, in regard to their accountability and power and control. A

key point is that when this various level of leadership clash in the accountability, or lack thereof,

there are obvious issues and struggles in power, control, and implementation. This article, due to

the proximity to the authors, focuses on the U.K. but likely its principles and findings are

universal. It is interesting to examine this article in terms of both England’s democracy as well as

their royal class, compared to that of the US and its democracy. This leading issues amongst

accountability found is when there is a mismatch in equality of the accountability, to say one

group has more or less than another group, even if in perception alone. The article finds that this

holds true though any two adjacent levels of government or leadership, i.e. county government

and city, city and county, county and state, etc. The concluding point of the article is that

expectations of leveled accountability are a crucial, conscious concept that must be considered.

LEADERSHIP TRAITS OF THE KINGS 8

Hassan, S., Kaur, P., Muchiri, M., Ogbonnaya, C., & Dhir, A. (2023). Unethical Leadership:

Review, Synthesis and Directions for Future Research: JBE.Journal of Business

Ethics,183(2), 511-550. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05081-6

This article is written in the well-respected Journal of Business ethics and can be often found

quoted in other academic articles. Each of the authors of this paper, Sharfa, Puneet, Michael,

Chidiebere, and Amandeep are established professors at their respective universities around the

globe. Each hold advanced degrees and are professors in either the business/management world

or in psychology. This article fits very well with this assignment not only because of its obvious

academic qualities, but because rather than being a singular study, it is a review and analysis of

several other studies performed on the same general topic. So rather than having one wealth of

knowledge it writes from, its draws from several pools of knowledge to make singular and

unified conclusions. Admittedly, ethical leadership is a more studied direction, but its inverse is

equally important. Due to this gap in academic study, they propose a few models of future study

to alleviate that. In essence this article helps the reader to what unethical leadership can look like,

its potential consequences, and ultimately proposed strategies to get away from it

organizationally. A key point of this article is not only defining unethical leadership and the

difference of ethical leadership, but the dynamic of unethical leadership not just being a “lack of

ethical leadership”. Careful attention was paid to ensure that the articles reviewed within this

article itself were credible, academic articles. There is a clearly defined set of parameters and

criteria used as a selection process, this too aids to the reliability and accuracy of this article.

Henricks, M., Kehoe, E. J., and Young, M. (2020)CAttitudes toward Change and

Transformational Leadership: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Change

Management,C20:3,C202-219,CDOI:C10.1080/14697017.2020.1758529

LEADERSHIP TRAITS OF THE KINGS 9

This article helped to shine a light on the negative and wasted influence of King Omri. Key

elements of this article introduce the idea and concept of transformational leadership and its

effects over a period. It was very applicable to this assignment. The authors have multiple

scholarly works on record that have been cited many times over. The Journal of Change

Management as a whole is a respected publication with several important articles to its name. It

is known to have a respected peer-review process. This article was found via the Jerry Falwell

Library search engine. This article had a section that covered transformational leadership and the

type of influence and direction it can have over employees, something that correlates very well

with King Omri. More specifically with what he did not possess. Each author of this paper was

found to be a relevant professor at a respected university within their field and appears more than

qualified to write as an authority on this subject.

Kim, T. (2022). Reimagining accountability through educational leadership: Applying the

metaphors of “agora” and “bazaar”.CEducational Management Administration &

Leadership,C0(0).Chttps://doi.org/10.1177/17411432221132100

The author of this article holds a position at a respected university who has written several peer-

reviewed academic articles. Covering topics within the worlds of business, education, and social

sciences to name a few. This article set out to examine and reexamine leadership accountability,

especially in regard to educational institutions. Finally posing that school administrations, as well

as other organizations, set out to reconstruct and redefine how they as an organization view

accountability. This was a helpful article for this assignment, because it allowed me to see how

accountability plays a role in a very specific type of organization and to examine possible

changes it could have. As well as various outcomes from accountability or lack of, and how

various changes may have an effect on the outcomes. This article was done in a fast-changing

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environment for educational, as well as any organizational, leadership model was being tested.

The study from this article was done pre-covid, but some of the writing and analysis came after,

indicating that even in a newly evolving leadership landscape, the ideas and principles posed

here still hold true and are universal in concept. Covid forced every organization on the planet to

evaluate how it functions. This article in Sage Journals can be found to be citied and referenced

multiple times since its writing, indicating that it has been well received in the academic

community. The article seeks to practicalize accountability and make it a more common human

thing and not something to be demonized and feared.

Merits, & Kivipõld, K. (2020). Leadership competencies of first-level military

leaders.CLeadership & Organization Development Journal.,C41(8), 953–970.

https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-09-2019-0392