Neculai Fantanaru

Everything Depends On The Leader

A Tormented Soul In Hell

On July 08, 2010
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Leadership Impact by Neculai Fantanaru

Whoever isn't endowed with the talent of leadership will not be able to take upon himself a great burden and turn it into success.

The prophet started for the palace of the king of Israel, Zedekiah. He had to warn him at any price about the danger threatening him. If the king does not listen to him, there was no possibility of salvation for him, his children and his people.

- Surrender yourself, the prophet said to him. Surrender yourself and kneel down before Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. There is no escape. You must surrender and beg for his mercy. Maybe he would spare your family and leave the House of the Lord untouched, as well.

Nevertheless, Zedekiah, despite the warning of his prophet, didn't want to surrender. His mind simmered ambitious plans. He was blinded by the splendor of his dream, which was to set free his people from the domination of Babylon and to regain his lands. He was firmly convinced that he could fulfill his dream.

Even so, the prophet looked at Zedekiah with great sadness and realized that he was lost. For he guided him to live in peace, but he wanted war. And starting a war against such a powerful king like Nebuchadnezzar meant pure suicidal.

Leadership: Do you have the opportunity to truly visualize the effects of your actions by experiencing them from the perspective of an improvised role play from the high sense of pride of expressing your personality?

The beginning of an endless hell. Finding that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed a large part of his army, king Zedekiah and his three sons left the palace in the greatest hurry and arrived at the plain of Hebron, where the rest of the Israeli army had retreated. But he didn't get to gasp his breath when he saw above the platform that rose above the city a cloud of dust and inside the cloud, spreading all along the horizon, the Babylonian chariots of battle.

Zedekiah immediately ordered his army to take the position to fight, and his horses be straight away brought to him. "The lord shall fight along with you and you will arrive tonight in the Be'er Sheva oasis as winners" he told them.

However, nobody noticed the terror that struck Zedekiah's face. No soldier could imagine that, in fact, their lord's knees weakened when he saw the hundreds of battle chariots going down towards him at a dazzling speed.

Leadership: Do you work on accepting your own facets that you cannot accept and whose vibration draws situations that you experience in the state of being under the sign of fatality?

A soul tortured by the fear of death. The famous writer Valerio Massimo Manfredi was not wrong when he said: "When a king feels at the mercy of his enemies, his despair and fear increase over the top, thousands of time more than the poorest and most humble of his subjects who have known all his life that he is hollow and defenseless."

Zedekiah was seized by panic. At that very instant, there were so many feelings tormenting his soul. A growing fear seized him every time he saw his enemies vertiginously approaching him, feeling the imminent danger. He thought about Nebuchadnezzar's cruelty and felt an icy tremor of fear rising on his spine. He knew that if he and his children were caught, Nebuchadnezzar would find direful punishments for them, and maybe he would find a way to keep them alive for weeks, months, or years, creating for them an infinite inferno. God knows the tortures and the sacrifices they would have to put up with for the rest of their lives.

With every second passing by, Zedekiah realized even more that he was in a difficult and dangerous situation, which he could not control. The Babylonian battle chariots were getting closer and closer, and like a storm, they destroyed and killed whatever got in their way.

Leadership: Do you rely on accepting some lower values of the module to design a vision, embracing an attitude that clearly shows that you are the adversary of a destiny from which resignation arises?

You cannot run from your mistakes. Zedekiah didn't want to die. He had to run, he had to save his own life and that of his children. With his heart seized by the fear of death, taking his courage in both hands, he left his army, thus committing an unforgivable mistake. For nobody likes coward leaders.

Without a leader, any battle is lost. The whole army of Zedekiah panicked, and people started running everywhere. The Babylonian warriors followed them through the desert in their chariots, as if they were hunting wild animals, killing them all.

As I said in a previous article, the fate of king Zedekiah and his children were tragically. They were caught and enchained. His children were barbarically executed in front of him, and his eyes have been removed and taken to Babylon to live forever in the darkness, carrying inside the pain of losing his children. Values, such as tolerance and refusal of violence, could not instill a healthy vision of the future.

Mircea Eliade was right when he said: "Those who have never endured the struggle for the fulfillment of an absurdity consider to be madness everything that exceeds their weakness and mediocrity."

Open your eyes and see the real you ! Zedekiah was a leader with great ideals, but with a weak character, lacking the spirit of a warrior, and, altogether, unrealistic. Being aware that his army stood no chance against Nebuchadnezzar's army, which was much better trained, equipped and had at his disposal more soldiers, however, he decided to start the war, despite his prophet's warnings. He, therefore, became responsible for the destruction of his entire army and of the death of his son. And the punishment he received, the one of spending the rest of his life groping in the dark, in the abyss of loneliness, held in derision, was within his audacity and his unbelievable courage.

Zedekiah's power, honor and soul were put at a difficult test because he wasn't able to fully predict his future and take measures accordingly. He proved to be unable to manage the events that he himself caused and to be a real leader to his people. Only the greatest human minds, the ones truly audacious and gifted with the talent of leadership are capable of assuming a great burden and turn it into a success. Not the mistrustful, irresponsible and coward natures, like Zedekiah, who abandon his mission and his people in order to save his own life.

What about you? Are you a true leader? Look at the truth with your eyes wide-open. Are you a leader with great ideas, but who rambles on wrong paths in order to fulfill your own goals, just as Zedekiah was?

Leadership is the result of the warnings that must be inscribed on the surface of your own consciousness such as thought, image, desire, fear, from which you can draw an important lesson: "If you want to do pastoral service, never forget who the sheep belong to."

Conclusion: Starting a war without ammunition or a proper strategy is a lost war from the beginning. First of all, a real leader must be honest with himself, must be able to properly assess himself in respect to what and how much he can do, and not to lie to himself, relying on vain illusions.

Foolishness, cowardice, aberrant decisions, incorrect assessments, arrogance, will have repercussions for all, especially upon the leader. Panic will seize him in difficult moments. And once the negative and irretrievable consequences appear, regrets will be in vain, and he will remain nothing but… a tormented soul in hell.


* Note: Valerio Massimo Manfredi - Il faraone delle sabbie , Publishing House Allfa, 2004.

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