Yet Pharaoh remains an enduring symbol of a failure to listen to his own advisers. He could not see that the world had changed, that he was facing something new, that his enslavement of a people was no longer tolerable, that the old magic no longer worked, that the empire over which he was presiding was growing old, and that the more obstinate he became the closer he was bringing his people to tragedy.
Knowing how to listen to advice, how to respond to change, and when to admit you’ve got it wrong remain three of the most difficult tasks of leadership. Rejecting advice, refusing to change, and refusing to admit you’re wrong may look like strength to some. But usually they are the beginning of yet another march of folly.
Adapted from “Covenant & Conversation,” a collection of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s parshiyot hashavua essays, published by Maggid Books, an imprint of Koren Publishers Jerusalem (www.korenpub.com), in conjunction with the Orthodox Union.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the British Commonwealth since 1991, is the author of many books of Jewish thought, most recently “The Koren Sacks Rosh HaShana Mahzor” (Koren Publishers Jerusalem).