Rebuilding of the Temple and Renewal of Hope: Leadership Lessons from Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah

Abstract

The past three decades have been witness to a nascent but compelling body of literature on lessons in leadership for business derived from biblical narratives. The aim of this paper is to advance that effort. Specifically, this study considers the leadership of Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah who built the Second Temple on the ruins of the First, and that of Ezra and Nehemiah, who instituted reforms -religious, financial, and agrarian. When Zerubbabel arrived in Judah from Babylon, the walls of Jerusalem were breached and the land was filled with people hostile to the construction of the Temple. This paper discusses mistakes made by Zerubbabel as a leader, how Ezra and Nehemiah rectified these errors, and demonstrates what leaders of today can learn from the issues pertaining to the Second Temple period. Introduction The past three decades have been witness to a nascent but compelling body of literature on lessons in leadership for business derived from biblical narratives. The aim of this paper is to advance that effort. The concepts of servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1991), covenantal leadership (Pava, 2003), and spiritual leadership (Fry, 2003) all have their roots in the biblical tradition. Robert K. Greenleaf (1991) first introduced the concept of servant leadership in 1970. Lynch and Friedman (2013) use the Bible to demonstrate that adding a spiritual component –encouraging personal growth and incorporating social justice themes into the work environment− to the concept of servant leadership makes it more complete as a leadership theory. Scholars have examined the lives of biblical figures such as Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in order to extract important leadership lessons (e.g., Baron & Padwa, 1999; Birnbaum & Herskovitz, 2009; Feiler, 2004; Feiler, 2010; Fischer & Friedman, 2017; Friedman & Hertz, 2016; Friedman & Langbert, 2000; Herskovitz & Klein, 1999, 2000; Laufer, 2006; Maxwell, 2002; Morris, 2006; Wildavsky, 1984; Woolfe, 2002). The United States and many other nations are facing a serious crisis of leadership (Annan, 2016; Pearse, 2018; Shahid, 2014; Veldsman, 2016; World Economic Forum, 2014). The HERSHEY H. FRIEDMAN BROOKLYN COLLEGECUNY, NEW YORK PAUL J. HERSKOVITZ COLLEGE OF STATEN ISLAND-CUNY, NEW YORK