A BYU football player sat on the bench every game for nearly three years. I was especially interested because his father and I had been missionaries together and I knew the boy. Commitment and patience paid off when this young man, Brandon Doman, found himself as the starting quarterback in the final game of the season against the University of Utah. Some of you may have seen the game.
With less than a minute to go BYU was behind. After a sack it was 4th down and 13. The Cougars had 83 yards to go for a winning touchdown.
That seemed an impossible situation: a new quarterback, the team back against a wall, too little time, and only one down left for long yardage to keep even a remote chance of winning alive.
Think of the pressure. Think of the opportunity. Brandon stepped into a dejected huddle and said, “Alright you guys, this is what it is all about! Everyone do his job and let’s win this game!”
The team left the huddle focused and resolute, empowered by renewed vision and by someone they trusted. Brandon called the play and completed a very difficult 34 yard pass on the sideline. First down. Then, another pass for 36 yards. On fourth down Brandon plunged through the Ute defenses for a touchdown to send Coach Edwards into retirement a winner.
I am going to visit with you about leadership under the title of “ Will you Lead?” “These I Will Make My Rulers.”
My great grandmother, Ann Fall, was an English convert who moved with the Saints to Zion. She lived an impoverished life, before and after her husband was scalped and killed. She cared for her eight children essentially alone in a small cabin that never had more than a dirt floor and a sod roof. In the midst of her isolation and despair she received a very short but amazing patriarchal blessing that said, in part, “Your name shall be held in honorable remembrance in future generations,” a highly improbable prophecy.
Ann Fall taught her children the faith that she embraced. She lived the gospel and focused on sustaining and influencing her family. She is buried in an obscure grave atop a little hill. Her posterity includes hundreds, faithful mothers and fathers, missionaries, teachers, bishops, mission presidents, temple presidents. Two have served as General Authorities; another was Governor of the state of Utah. Does Ann Fall fit your image of a leader? She fits mine and we hold her in honorable remembrance as her righteous influence continues today and will into the eternities.
President Gordon B. Hinckley is not only President of the Church, he is also an incredible personal leader. President Hinckley has had a lot of years to develop from when I first dealt with him in 1958. I was a student walking on a dusty gravel road where a speeding car passed several times and then skidded to a stop next to me. The driver rolled down his window. I recognized him as the newest General Authority, Elder Hinckley. He was obviously frustrated and said that he was lost, already late for a meeting, and that he needed directions. I told him where to go. He thanked me, spun gravel, and kicked up more dust that left me coughing as he hurried on his way.
Many years later I said to him, “President, you are doing a good job.” He said, “Well, I am doing my best.” He is an authentic, humble leader who has paid attention, caught on, and step by step built a record of accomplishments.
President Hinckley works hard. I got a telephone call from Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin early one Monday morning. I asked him where he was calling from. He said from his office. I asked, “Why are you calling from your office on a Monday, this is your day off, your Saturday. Besides, you were in Hong Kong yesterday helping to dedicate the temple there.” Elder Wirthlin said that he had returned to Salt Lake with the president late the night before, exhausted, but that he awoke with the thought, “President Hinckley will be at his office by 7!” So, he said, “I got up, dressed, and hurried to my office. I shouldn’t be outworked by President Hinckley!”
President Hinckley is a doer, a man of vision, decisive. He listens to the Spirit and the counsel of others. Karen and I were with him when the Lord put into his mind having 100 temples before he died. Once that inspiration came, he got busy and built more temples. We are all blessed by President Hinckley’s personal leadership.
Leadership: Personal Power and Righteous Influence
Leadership is in high demand and generally in short supply. The greatest need of this growing church, President Hinckley has said, is for leaders. Freedom and democracy require a broad base of leaders. Business will not emerge and become profitable without leaders. Every family needs leadership.
I have studied the leadership of thousands, including U. S. presidents and presidential candidates. In recent times my interests and private writings have more and more involved doctrines and principles of leadership. Think about one of my conclusions: The requirements for exaltation in the Celestial kingdom are essentially the same as the requirements for leadership.
For instance, trust is the first principle of leadership. Heavenly Father’s plan for mortality deals first with trust. As we are obedient Heavenly Father can trust us and we can trust each other. We cannot trust telestial souls at all. We can trust terrestrial folks with temporal matters.
Our readiness for leadership rises with our level of obedience to God’s commandments. Our ultimate and unlimited potential for leadership comes because we are the sons or daughters of the most powerful and influential leader in the universe. We carry Heavenly Father’s “spiritual DNA” and, therefore, each one of us may qualify as a natural born leader.
Jesus Christ is the model of our potential
Jesus has been called the perfect leader. In the little book Lectures on Faith, Joseph Smith explains the Savior’s perfect leadership. No power is greater than His. He knows all things. His love for us is perfect. He reconciles the demands of eternal law and mercy. He connects vision and reality with perfect strategy. His ideas about alliances are reflected in the Godhead, presidencies, quorums, and councils. Thus, we can trust Him, faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ.
God’s desire is for each one of us to become like him. Jesus asked a question: “. . . what manner of men ought ye to be?” And then gave His response, “Verily I say unto you, even as I am.”[1] Abraham describes Jesus’ leadership that we are to emulate: “I rule in the heaven above, and in the earth beneath, in all wisdom and prudence, over all the intelligences . . .”[2]
He is not talking here about personally being the best engineer to construct worlds. He can deal with that, but His supremacy and leadership are with his family, his intelligent posterity.
The following scripture might be talking about you:
Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was [that’s you]; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; and God saw these souls that they were good . . . and he said: These I will make my rulers . . . and he said unto me: Abraham . . . thou was chosen before thou wast born.[3]
I first read about Abraham’s vision while I was a young boy. I knew that Abraham was not there all alone. I wondered to myself, “Was I there?” I didn’t know. But, this is what I thought: I do not know if I was there as a potential ruler, but it would be far better for me to assume that I was there and be wrong, rather than to assume that I was not there and be wrong!
Identity as a leader
If we lose the vision of our potential we might fall short of our possibilities. My grandmother might have become depressed. Brandon Doman could have been overcome by the obstacles. President Hinckley could have become a pessimist in the middle of the worst depression in the history of America.
Please don’t get mixed up about who you are and your future!
The movie, Seabiscuit, tells the story of two horses that dominated race tracks across America in the 1930s. Eventually these two great horses, Seabiscuit and War Admiral, ran against each other in what was called the “race of the century.”
I had a horse named Champ who was Seabiscuit’s cousin and War Admiral’s nephew. Champ’s story unfolded when he disappeared from our farm in Washington State when I was fourteen. We searched for weeks and concluded that he had been stolen. I could not accept him being gone, and decided to make one more effort to find him. I borrowed a horse, started near dawn and rode for hours into high country and rough grazing lands miles away where I had earlier chased wild horses. On my way I kept thinking about how a few years before we had found and bought Champ as a wild undisciplined yearling in Idaho foothills, never before touched by human hands.
The frigid air was warmed as the sun moved high in the sky. That was when I saw specks in the far distance, then movement, and eventually Champ with a band of about a dozen wild horses. I could not believe that Champ had run away. I was chasing this marvelous coal black horse whose grandfather, Man ‘O War, had won the Kentucky Derby. Now, with me in hot pursuit, he was running loose with a bunch of reckless mustangs, risking his life racing on uneven rocky terrain as wild as the first time ever I saw him.
I finally caught Champ as the sun was setting and took him home. I resumed riding him to drive range cattle out of our crops. He carried rodeo queens, pleased crowds at parades, and won a blue ribbon at the fair. (I was saddened to learn that the other horses that Champ ran around with for awhile were rounded up and became dog meat.)
Please do not lose sight of your potential. I have thought how, like Champ, some resist the truth of who they are and what they should do with their lives. You will not want to run away from your royal inheritance, or become distracted by fickle or forbidden things.
Stand aligned with others of righteous power and influence
Leadership always involves other people. In order to lead we must be linked with helping allies. No leader is an island. I learned something about friends and allies as I first entered BYU in Provo. I was seventeen and a stranger among thousands of new students. On the first day of the school year I prayed to know how to survive my obscurity. That prayer was answered as a quiet voice spoke to my mind, “Be their helping friend.” I decided right then that I would look people in the eye, smile, say hello, and remember faces and names. From the results of that decision those students elected me their class president and many of us have been helpful allies to each other ever since.
The decision to be a helping friend might seem to some of you a little elementary. For me, that one early decision about making friends became highly relevant throughout my entire life, including during a drizzly evening on the other side of the world about forty years after my first day at BYU. I was serving in Sydney, Australia when Pope John Paul II came to town. I was invited to join religious leaders to welcome him. We were roped off from the hundreds of thousands who had gathered and were provided seats near the stand. The Pope was late and my colleagues of other faiths in their impressive robes and regalia were just sitting around and waiting. It was most natural for me to take initiative, shake hands with row after row of these high ranking religious officials, introduce myself, and thank them for coming.
As I was finishing with the last row of dignitaries, a man who had been watching me came down off the stand and asked who I was. I learned that he was a senior Catholic Cardinal, the third ranking man in the entire Roman Catholic Church worldwide. He asked if we could talk more and invited me to Rome.
Our friendship led to several trips to the Vatican and many hours of candid and enlightening conversation. This Cardinal told me that before my arrival he spoke with every senior officer of their church and that I was their first contact ever with a LDS official. Our association led to friendships with others at the Vatican and around the world, including extended personal involvement with LDS matters by Cardinal Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI. We are now known and trusted at the Vatican and have been singled out and given access to the most ancient and precious religious documents found in the Vatican archives.
Can you safely conclude that making friends is a small thing? Please don’t risk it. We seldom know how Heavenly Father will use us as we respond to his subtle directions in our lives.
Available to lead
My early thoughts about rulers and leaders were also influenced by President J. Reuben Clark, Jr. He was sustained as second counselor in the First Presidency after serving for years as first counselor to two previous presidents. In response to what some perceived as a demotion, President Clark told the church that it is “not where we serve, but how.” We are not responsible to be called to any particular office or undertaking in the church, but we are by covenant fully responsible to be worthy, able, and willing to accept any possible calling or release from the Lord at any time in our lives.
Our attitudes about serving in the Lord’s work ought to follow the example of President Kim Clark’s recent call to preside over this university. The Harvard Business School where President Clark has been the dean stands at the pinnacle of business education and my profession. The Boston Globe reported on what seemed to them to have been a remarkable decision. Their article said,
. . . [President Gordon B.] Hinckley called Clark . . . to ask him to leave his post as dean of Harvard Business School and take a job heading a Mormon college in Idaho. Clark knew the answer before Hinckley posed the question. The answer was yes. And now Clark, who at Harvard holds one of the loftiest jobs in academe, is heading off to Rexburg, Idaho, to become president of the newest outpost of Mormon higher education: Brigham Young University Idaho, a proud name for a campus that until four years ago was a two-year institution knows as Ricks College. . . .[4]
President Clark also is quoted as saying that his call from President Hinckley was akin to getting a call from Moses.
Like the Clarks, we will have personal testimony stories about callings, but likely less public. Indulge me one obscure personal growth experience on this point.
In our early married years we moved to LA to enroll at USC for full-time doctoral studies. I also had a demanding full-time job and was recovering from being hospitalized several times, including for some tough surgery. We were still in our twenties and far from family while we struggled through a fifth very difficult pregnancy, and then the death of a child. While still wondering how we could possibly carry on I was called to serve as bishop.
This calling could not have come at a more difficult time. Of course, we accepted. My doctoral chairman, the dean who was the national president of my profession, was very upset. He said I would never finish my studies and he wrote me off. We grew much in those years and Karen and I witnessed many miracles with our service and studies. I earned the education and credentials on schedule, plus got praise and support from my former critic.
We do not seek callings and we do not decide where and when we serve. We already made our decisions with sacred covenants. Furthermore, we are obligated to be worthy at all times, and to be as capable and qualified as possible for any responsibility. We are also to be free from entanglements that would restrict our service, such as excessive debt, legal troubles, or a negative image or reputation.
Please, will you be worthy, willing and prepared to serve where and when the Lord wants you.
The power of the priesthood through leadership.
We can, in a roundabout way, better understand leadership by pointing to Satan as the exact opposite of a leader, the perfect despicable example of what leadership is not! His premortal proposal to save all humankind was not benevolent and it was not leadership. His proposal was inoperative; it could never have worked. His tactics then and now completely ignore the intelligent nature of God’s children. His plan of force violated individual moral agency. His demand for honor and glory disregarded the fact that authority and power cannot be given like a latch key, or an office with a name on the door. His was the most inept and unrealistic proposal ever made in the history of the universe. He sought to overthrow the Father and enslave his family, to impose forcible control and compulsory means. Satan is altogether devoid of leadership.
In stark contrast to unrighteous forms of control, the eternal power of the priesthood is found in “invit[ing] all to come unto Christ,”[5] for that is the church mission. To invite with “will you?” is the pattern of divine leadership.
To “invite all to come unto Christ” implements the most profound mission statement I have ever known. It represents both the end results of our leadership and the process of leading. The inviting we do should help others come unto Christ, such as “Will you be baptized? Will you come for an interview for the Melchizedek priesthood? Will you come to the temple?” Or perhaps “Will you come with me to our fireside?” “Will you help me?” “Will you pray with me?”
“Will you?” respects human intelligence and activates moral agency. It is precisely that power and influence Heavenly Father wants us to learn and exercise as we labor in both temporal and spiritual matters.
Inviting with “Will you?” rather than “You will!” is at the heart of leading.
Heavenly Father’s perspective on leadership
All true leadership is close to divine. President Thomas S. Monson wrote “ . . . of all the blessings I have had in my life, one of the sweetest is that feeling the Lord provides when I know that he has answered the prayer of another person through me.”[6] You may have those same sweet feelings. The Spirit will teach you what you need to know, helping you to see what needs to be done, prompting you to take initiative, and alerting you to allies, The Spirit will tutor you in your individual circumstances and opportunities.
Elder Neal A. Maxwell was an exemplary leader who listened and acted on the Spirit. He set Sister Merrell apart as a missionary and then, after pausing a moment, responded to what only she and the Spirit knew and said, “Sister Merrell, regarding your early morning private prayers . . .” Elder Maxwell then gave Karen specific Apostolic promises and blessings, answering her pre-dawn secretly and prayerfully expressed concerns.
Your leadership is best a partnership between heaven and earth as angels are assigned and minister to you in your unique challenges and opportunities.
Jesus Christ knows your circumstances and the needs for your leadership now and into the eternities. In Section 121, verses 29-32 we are told about “thrones and dominions, principalities and powers” that shall be given to those who are valiant according to ordinations and preparations before this world was. That is talking of your potential – thrones, dominions, principalities, powers – that you are now working toward. The Lord finishes that revelation with a promise that as we seek power and influence for righteous purposes the
Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.[6]
Just imagine this promise that righteous power and influence will flow to you naturally, without compulsory means, forever and ever. I hope you believe that, for that is the nature and magnitude of the influence that Heavenly Father has in mind for you.
Growing as leaders
Is there anything you can do to best obtain the capacity to rule and reign? The truth is that we grow into leadership. The power to lead is not conferred nor given by edict or authority. Ann Fall was not automatically a leader by giving birth to a child. Brother Doman was not a leader just because he was in the huddle. Elder Hinckley was not influential simply because of hands laid on his head. The capacity to lead comes by nurturing the seeds of divine potential within us, line upon line, becoming tomorrow more than we are today.
Authority, legal authority, for an office, we all know, is conferred at times by ordination or settings apart. Then comes the opportunity to magnify the calling through leadership. Section 84 tells how to learn to lead in the Lord’s eternal kingdom.
For he that receiveth my servants receiveth me;
And he that receiveth me receiveth my Father;
And he that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father’s kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto [them].[7]
To receive all that the Father hath, including growing in our capacity to lead first comes with receiving God’s servants who then help us to receive the Father and the Son. The servants we are to learn from are those among us who teach, interview us, counsel and correct us, extend callings, and to whom we return and report. These servants we are to receive and learn from could include parents, ward officers, teachers, living prophets, and inspired associates. And, those servants we receive include the angels who give us personal, customized, and “just in time” help.
We learn to receive all that the Father hath by being meek, submissive, diligent, patient, and kind. We receive the Father by praying, magnifying our callings, and not having to be commanded in all things. Essential sacrifice and consecration are represented by being frugal, generous, diligent, hard working. Being tired and feeling unwell are no excuse.
Thus we grow and eventually may take the place and undertake the work of a leader in mortality and in the realm of our appointed dominions forever and ever.
Prepare as high potential leaders
Some of you are saying to yourselves that you are not a leader; mentally arguing that you are not that type of person; in fact, that you would rather be a follower and lay low. Satan is a liar, telling you that you are stuck the way you are, limited in potential, unworthy of God’s promises.
The truth is that not one of you is lost or without royal potential! Jesus Christ has rescued you from yourself already if you will truly accept him. You are here at this university to become competent and trusted to labor and lead in some arena. You all are aware of the folly of cramming and the advantages of being prepared.
I learned something of preparation many years ago, fresh out of school. A partner and I were pleased when the White House took note of our work identifying and coaching high potential leaders. The president’s staff asked for a proposal from us within a few days to help follow up on the State of the Union address scheduled for the next week. As it turned out our proposal was soon the heart of a Presidential Executive Order mandated for implementation by the entire Federal government. When the request came from the president’s office, there was no time for more preparation.
To paraphrase President Howard W. Hunter, if you want to get in the game put your shoes on before the coach calls for you. Your years in school can be an important part of your preparation for leadership. The entire program of this university, everything here is to nurture graduates of nobility who are visionary about life, skilled in leadership principles, and competent to function in a multitude of labors and work environments.
Summation
What have we learned this hour? Specifically, what does the Savior want us to understand and to do? He and Heavenly Father want us to catch a glimpse of the most fundamental work of the eternities, and to obtain the means by which it is done.
- God is the supreme leader and wants us as sons and daughters to share in his power and influence now and forever.
- We grow in leadership step by step as we gain experience in our family, the church, and the world.
- We may be blessed as leaders through promptings from the Holy Ghost and the angels assigned to minister to us, and from the Lord’s servants.
- Jesus Christ is the perfect leader, and he invites us to grow in power and influence to become more and more as he is.
To grow as a leader may be a large challenge for some of you. Others will be comfortable in improving. If you commit yourself to doing the Father’s will as we have discussed today, and as you have been prompted by the Spirit to respond, your capacity will increase and you will feel the sweet love of God by becoming more as He is.
Will you lead?
Now I ask each one of you: Will you lead? Will you be worthy and do your best to be available to serve whenever and wherever you are called? Will you expand your friendships and allies? Will you accept those servants who will help you learn to lead? Will you grow toward that ruling role for which Heavenly Father has created you? Please answer me, will you lead?
I testify that this is the Lord’s Church, His work. Your Eternal Father wants you empowered and very influential now and forever more. God Lives. Jesus is the Christ, our perfect leader. Gordon B. Hinckley is God’s prophet. Watch him and other Brethren. Follow their examples in the realms of your own lives. I declare to you my special witness of the Savior in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Dr. Merrell was a LDS General Authority as a member of the Seventy.
For comments and suggestions contact: dallasmerrell@comcast.net.
Notes
[1] 3 Nephi 27:27
[2] Abraham 3:21
[3] Abraham 3:22-23
[4] Michael Poulson, The Boston Globe, no date. Reprinted in Deseret Morning News, July 9, 2005, page E2
[5] Doctrine and covenants 20:59
[6] Doctrine and Covenants 121: 46
[7] Doctrine and Covenants 84:36-38