July 27, 2026

Business by the Book

I Chronicles 12:36  And of Asher, such as went forth to battle, expert in war, forty thousand.

The eighth leadership trait that we see in the men who assembled to make David the King of Israel is that they were experts in war.

Unfortunately the pathway to being an expert at something is paved with mistakes. Many have become expert at a certain thing by making many mistakes, few have become expert at the same thing by observing, and learning from, the mistakes of others. Either way, mistakes are the mechanism that allow anyone to become an expert.

There are those who learn from their own mistakes, those who learn from the mistakes of others, then there are those who never learn. Someone once coined the phrase, “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.”  Unfortunately the majority never learn, they continue to do the same thing expecting a different result. Therefore they make the same mistakes over and over and over.

But these men, the men from Asher, and the other men who came to assure that David would be king over all Israel could not afford mistakes. Mistakes in this endeavor would mean their life, or the life of their brothers in arms. There was no room for mistakes in this job. No doubt these men had grown through making mistakes or learning from the mistakes of others the way to wage, and win, a war.

Leaders train followers with the desire that those followers would one day become expert for the task at hand. Today we may call this mentoring, or training, or some other name, but in its most simple form it is leadership. If leadership is not expert, how can the followers become expert?

While these men were leaders and no doubt were instructing others to follow them, they were the ones assigned the task of winning this war. Leaders may lead all day long, but sometimes the importance of the task at hand dictates that they, the leaders (the experts) take matters into their own hands and complete the job. Certainly there is a time for delegation, for training, for mentoring, and for leading. But sometimes the task at hand needs the leader to display their expertise rather than leaving the job to someone still in training for the job.

Great leaders are never too much a leader to not get down in the trenches and win the battle through their expert ability. For through mistakes leaders have grown to be experts, and are willing to display that expertise when required.

Dr. William Howe