Nehemiah 5:14 "Moreover, from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, until his thirty-second year-twelve years-neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor.

15 "But the earlier governors-those preceding me-placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God I did not act like that.

16 "Instead, I devoted myself to the work on this wall. All my men were assembled there for the work; we did not acquire any land.

17 "Furthermore, a hundred and fifty Jews and officials ate at my table, as well as those who came to us from the surrounding nations.

18 "Each day one ox, six choice sheep and some poultry were prepared for me, and every ten days an abundant supply of wine of all kinds. In spite of all this, I never demanded the food allotted to the governor, because the demands were heavy on these people.

19 "Remember me with favor, O my God, for all I have done for these people." (NIV)

The true state of leadership is to never burden the people or place them under strain or any deprivation of their own hope and sustainance, but to make sure they find it easy in their own lives with your leadership as you pay the sacrifices for them.

The only time they need to stretch is when they're learning values, purpose & removing from their hearts and lives their old selfish traditions that keeps them bound and untransformed.

Anything outside this is no longer leadership but pain, and you destroying the people.

The true leader understands the pains of the people before he or she makes demands from the people.

Once we go overboard with our demands for their commitment, it's only to raise the people & not to destroy them, because I realized that manytimes, the people you're sent to raise will resist and fight against the principles that is supposed to build them. For this, you need to sometimes stretch them to grow.

It is at this point you'd begin to realize those who are the sheep and those who are the goats.

The sheep take instructions and corrections and keep following, the goat fights your instructions and resists your leadership because they have determined to be stubborn by choosing pleasure, comfort, ease and resistance over growth.

And they call their stubbornness and resistance strength because they're blind to the fact that true strength is not found in you being stubborn, it is found in you being yielded.

But if you take a closer look, you'd realize that manytimes, the goats are with you for 2-reasons;

1) They were either sent to you to teach you wisdom by their betrayal, resistance or conditional submission,

2)) They were never yours in the first place, so you got them attached to you because your perspectives were number over impact.

Impact is not first identified by numbers, but by depth. If you're using numbers, you'd think that the more people you have means the more loyalty you earn, but loyalty comes from depth not sight.

In rounding up,

There's no leadership if we have no concern for men. It is the most important factor of leadership that once men are getting worse or suffering under your leadership, it becomes your report card for why they're rejecting you or why they were really not yours to lead in the first place.