In your journey as a leader, please never forget that many decisions you make and how those decisions are executed will be determined mostly by the people around you. Servants determine what kings believe, and decisions of kings are made based on information available to them.
Humans, including dictators, don’t make decisions in isolation. Most decisions are based on the information available to us, whether right or wrong. Even when born out of our experiences, those are still pieces of information that sedimented over years of interaction with others.
People around a king reinforce or dismiss his ideas. They also suggest ideas the king never thought about.
A prototype of this can be seen in Haman. As the servant to King Ahasuerus, he enjoyed unfettered access and influence over the affairs of the kingdom after his recent promotion to be the head over the princes of the provinces. It was his suggestion to destroy all the Jews who were scattered across the over 127 provinces. And without blinking, King Ahasuerus sanctioned the mass assassination of people who caused no trouble to his kingdom nor posed any threat in whatsoever form. Here, Haman, a subject of King Ahasuerus, made the king believe an entire nation (the Jews) was defiant to the king’s laws and warranted extermination.
If we step back a little, we observe that Haman’s idea wasn’t even original. It arose from the complaint of other kings’ servants who were serving at the gate with Mordecai. Angered that Mordecai didn’t bow to Haman (notice that Haman wasn’t even aware that Mordecai didn’t bow to reverence him), they reported the case to Haman. Their report triggered the anger of Haman, and he sought to destroy an entire nation. Again, servants determined what Haman believed.
The quality of a king’s decisions is often based on the quality of men that surround him. If the advisers are people of sound character, having good skulls hanging on their shoulders, they influence the direction of the kingdom in the right way. Otherwise, the deviation in the wrong direction would be inevitable.
Therefore, as a leader. it is expedient that you surround yourself with great minds of unblemished character. They make or mar you and the people you lead.
