be doing today if they had failed. Their ‘‘no exit’’ strategy meant that
they themselves could not conceive of such an outcome!
PEOPLE AS A PRIORITY
Many of the leaders in the Bible found their purpose in saving individu-
als or large groups of people from suffering and death. The Book of
Esther tells us about a beautiful Jewish maiden who became Queen of
Persia when she found favor with King Xerxes. She was chosen not just
for her youth and beauty (she was little more than an adolescent, as
were many leaders and heroes of the Bible). Ironically, she was also
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THE BIBLE ON LEADERSHIP
chosen for her obedience: The previous queen had been dethroned and
exiled because she refused to appear when the king commanded.
The ‘‘irony’’ is that this young woman was thrust into a royal posi-
tion so that she could risk it all to save her people. Haman, the king’s
evil prime minister, had hatched a plot to exterminate all the Jews, after
he had been insulted by the Jew Mordechai, Esther’s cousin. Morde-
chai’s crime? Holding fast to his purpose, he refused to bow down to
Haman and would bow down only to God.
Mordechai knew that there was only one person in the entire king-
dom who could save the Jews—his cousin, the newly appointed queen.
He also knew that she would have to have a strong sense of purpose to
accomplish her mission. After all, the previous queen had been exiled
for daring to assert herself in the smallest way. Esther could have taken
the easy way out by hiding her Jewish identity, letting her people be
destroyed but continuing to live royally herself.
Mordechai appealed to his young cousin’s larger sense of purpose and
destiny. His inspirational speech to her called her to a higher purpose,
much like Steve Jobs asking John Sculley if he wanted to be remem-
bered for sugar water or for revolutionizing the way people communi-
cate: ‘‘If you remain silent at this time . . . you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position
for such a time as this?’’ (Esther 4:14)
The young queen immediately responded to the challenge of pur-
pose. ‘‘I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. If I perish, I perish.’’ (Esther 4:16) She alerted the king to Haman’s plot against her
people. The king, no doubt moved by the purposefulness and bravery
of his young wife (not to mention her beauty), hanged Haman on the
very gallows that Haman had intended for Mordechai. Esther had saved
the lives of thousands of people and the future of a great nation.
A modern example of someone who also saved the lives of thousands
of people, even when those people were in far-away lands and there
was (believe it or not) little or no chance to make a profit is Roy Va-
gelos, ex-chairman of Merck. Vagelos was not saving anyone he knew
personally when he decided to develop Mectizan, a drug to cure ‘‘river
blindness’’ (onchocerciasis), a disease peculiar to river regions of Africa,
Purpose
35
which resulted in ‘‘crocodile skin,’’ lesions, and ultimately, blindness.
Whole villages were devastated by this scourge, and often people com-
mitted suicide rather than suffer the disease.
Ironically, the people of these villages were so poor they could not
even afford the small cost of the drug Merck proposed to develop.
Merck typically discontinued research on a drug if it was expected to
earn only $20 million or less in its first year. Here was a drug whose
target market was completely impoverished. Clinical trials were risky
and had many obstacles, both scientific and political. The World Health
Organization refused to fund the trials and, because the affected areas
were so remote, on-site testing was impossible. So Vagelos decided to
develop the drug and give it away to the villagers!
Pharmaceutical companies have become the targets of criticism be-
cause their ‘‘purpose’’ often appears to be making money first and heal-
ing second. Vagelos and Merck made absolutely no profit on their cure
for river blindness. But they established themselves as a company with a
heart and with a purpose. Vagelos explained that Merck had introduced
streptomycin (forsaking profit) into Japan four decades earlier and
helped eliminate tuberculosis in that country and added, ‘‘It’s no acci-
dent that Merck is the largest American pharmaceutical company in
Japan today.’’ Queen Esther qualifies as a Bible hero and a leader be-
cause she saved the future of her own people. Vagelos and Merck stand
out as modern business heroes for saving the lives and futures of people
not their ‘‘own.’’
In the best companies, the purpose continues, even when the leader-
ship changes, as it inevitably must. The Israelites’ basic purpose re-
mained constant even as the leadership passed from Joseph to Moses to
Joshua to David and Solomon. Ray Gilmartin, Vagelos’s successor, has
continued Merck’s sense of purpose. Upon assuming the helm, Gilmar-
tin studied the company’s core values as espoused by George Merck,
the founder and CEO from 1925 to 1950. ‘‘One of the things he said
was, ‘Medicine is for the people and not for profits. If you remember
that, the profits will follow.’ And the more we remember that, the more
profits we have made.’’
Gilmartin has put this purpose into actions, such as pricing an AIDS
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THE BIBLE ON LEADERSHIP
drug affordably so that it is accessible to more suffering people. ‘‘ Fortune has consistently ranked Merck as one of the best companies to work for
and in their summary they said employees liked the fact that we are
working toward a higher purpose,’’ says Gilmartin. ‘‘So not only do we
talk about this stuff having a higher purpose, we base our actions on
it.’’10
Another company with a strong sense of purpose is Medtronic.
Founder Earl Bakken, who is also described as ‘‘still the spiritual leader
or ‘soul’ of Medtronic’’ even after his retirement, first stated that the
company’s purpose was ‘‘to restore people to the fullness of health and
life.’’ Medtronic’s 9,000 employees are devoted to ‘‘full health, quality
products, personal worth of employees, fair profit and good citizen-
ship.’’ That’s a lot more ‘‘purpose’’ than just ‘‘making a profit’’ or man-
ufacturing pills. Says current CEO Bill George, ‘‘At Medtronic, we
don’t mix religion and business, but we certainly do not shy away from
the spiritual side of our work and the deeper meaning of our mission to
save lives.’’11
PURPOSE: GALVANIZING FORCE,
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
King David also had a purpose—to ascend to the throne of Israel and to
further his country’s political and cultural ascendancy. Ironically, David
began his political career as an outcast. He was driven away from the
palace by Israel’s first king, Saul, who, motivated by jealousy, vowed
not only to keep David from succeeding him but also to kill him if he
could ever catch up with him again.
David needed supporters and companions if he was ever to achieve
his purpose of ascending to the throne and forwarding the interests of
the nation. He was able to assemble a group of four hundred ‘‘mighty
men.’’ This was a ragtag crew, most of them outcasts who were low in
political power and influence, but they were high in purpose and desire.
And the person with the highest purpose and desire was David himself.
Purpose
37
Many times King Saul pursued him with intent to kill, and every time
David escaped. Eventually, he succeeded Saul as king of Israel, even
winning over Saul’s son Jonathan as his strongest ally.
For a modern-day David with an equally ragtag group of ‘‘mighty
men’’ (and women) who were transformed by purpose, we can turn to
Jack Stack of Springfield Remanufacturing. When Stack was dispatched
to this antiquated manufacturing facility in a remote area of Missouri,
the staff was demoralized and purposeless. The facility had twenty days
to ship an order of 800 tractors to the Soviet Union, with a huge cash
penalty to the company if the order was not delivered. Up to that point
they had been turning out tractors at the rate of five per day!
Stack did what King David had done. He ‘‘shared the mess.’’ Like
David challenging his ‘‘mighty men’’ to help him take over the king-
dom, Stack held out a goal: 800 tractors in twenty days. He didn’t mini-
mize the difficulties; he acknowledged them and gave his people
freedom in deciding how to overcome them. He freed them from the
rigid job descriptions in effect at the plant and helped them to become
more of a team with a unifying purpose.
What happened was a miracle similar to that of the loaves and the
fishes or a poor shepherd boy’s ascendancy to the throne of Israel. With
limited resources and the same ‘‘ragtag’’ group that had been making
five tractors a day, Stack’s ‘‘mighty men and women’’ assembled and