My great-grandfather was born during the Civil War, and his parents named him Robert Lee Shelley. Want to guess which side of that conflict they were on?
I didn't know this until recently, thanks to my dad's genealogical research, which traced the family to Grand Glaise, Arkansas, where the Shelleys ran a sawmill and a small hotel. Since this revelation, I've been newly interested in the character and leadership of my great-grandfather's namesake.
I learned, for instance, that one of General Robert E. Lee's most significant moments of leadership was not on a battlefield but on the eve of his surrender.
After four years of warfare, during which, except for the final campaign, he had repeatedly out-performed his opponents, he now had to face the reality that he could not continue the war against the well-resourced Union Army. His Army of Northern Virginia numbered 15,000, while Union forces under General Ulysses Grant numbered 80,000.
His soldiers weren't ready to quit. Even with their shortages of food and ammunition, they would greet him, "General! General! Say the word, General, and we'll go after them again."
The night before he met with General Grant to discuss an end to the war, his artillery officer, E.P. Alexander, recommended that the Confederate Army should "scatter like rabbits and partridges in the woods" and fight a guerilla war.
It must have been a tempting suggestion. Lee had already lost his home and virtually all his worldly goods, including his savings and investments. Worse, he had lost a daughter, a daughter-in-law, two grandchildren, and countless friends and comrades. A patriot who loved his country and his home state, he now was deprived of citizenship and liable to be tried for treason. Why shouldn't he give his men permission to continue striking back at those who had carried out the Union's policy of total war, destroying much of the South's countryside?
But Lee looked at Alexander and shook his head.
"The men would have no rations, and they would be under no discipline," he said. "They would have to plunder and rob to procure subsistence. The country would be full of lawless bands in every part, and a state of society would ensue from which it would take the country years to recover. The enemy's cavalry would pursue, and everywhere they went, there would be fresh rapine and destruction."
Lee told Alexander that he mustn't think of what surrender would mean in terms of lost honor; they had to do what was best for their country.
Alexander recounted later, "I had not a single word to say in reply. He had answered my suggestion from a plane so far above it that I was ashamed of having made it."
When I found that story in H.W. Crocker's book Robert E. Lee on Leadership (Prima, 2000), I asked, "What does this say about Lee's character?" Perhaps a leader's most difficult task is to view the current situation from a higher plane, to see beyond the immediate situation to the long-term effects.
This requires more than 20/20 eyesight. It requires a wisdom that rises above accomplishing my current agenda.
Have you and your team ever prayed for a "God's-eye view" of your ministries? When we do, it both humbles and energizes us.
