As the Hebrew nation camped on the border to the land God had promised to give them, Moses selected leaders from each tribe to go in and bring back a report on what it would take to move into this land. There were 12 spies that scouted out the land of Canaan and of the 12 only Joshua and Caleb believed that the Israelites could take the land. After returning with their reports, the 10 leaders had more influence over the people than either Joshua or Caleb. Even though he had the correct position before God, Joshua had not matured into a place of great influence. Read Numbers 14:1-12.

If we look only at this early part of Joshua’s life of leadership, we could get discouraged. I have seen several potentially outstanding leaders give up when they were ineffective in the use of their influence. Fortunately for the nation of Israel, Joshua did not fit into that mold. Joshua had a major setback in his leadership life but he continued to be faithful to God. As he matured he eventually became a leader with great influence and was the man God chose to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land 40 years later.

Effective leaders must develop self-discipline. The first person a leader needs to lead in this area is themselves. Read Numbers 33:1-49.

Numbers 33 provides a review of the entire exodus journey from Egypt to Jordon. Why didn’t the Israelites get to the Promised Land more quickly? Not because it was such a long trip in distance, they could have made the trip across this distance in less than a year under the worst of circumstances even with small children. The real reason was that God needed to prepare the Hebrew people, teaching them how to move from a slave mentality to a free mentality where they chose to be obedient to Him from a free disciplined spirit.

Every leader will have emotional highs and lows and decisions will have to be made during each of those periods. During the high emotional times it is easy to be proactive and during the low emotional times it is natural to become reactive. Unfortunately, the reactive times may hurt a leader personally and their ability to lead effectively. Read Numbers 20.

By this point in their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, Moses felt unendurably weary of the complaining, the stagnation, and the lack of progress among the people. He was running on empty. Every leader knows the feeling. In Moses’ weakened emotional condition, he made a decision that cost him his future.

No leader can enjoy success without developing a healthy sense of discernment and intuition. Read Numbers 22:21-35.

Balaam lacked both discernment and intuition about what was happening around him. Balaam angered God because he disobeyed what he knew (or should have known) to be right. It actually took an angel standing in Balaam’s path to stop him. Balaam lacked the discernment to see the angel’s blockade and even whipped his donkey, who had more discernment than Balaam, for responding to the angel.

There are two kinds of false leaders in organizations: man-appointed and self-appointed. Yesterday, there were truths about Korah, a self-appointed leader, today truths about Balaam, a man-appointed leader. Read Numbers 22:5-24:25.