Everything rise and falls on leadership?

And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Uzziah had done (although he did not enter the temple of the LORD). But still the people acted corruptly. – 2 Chronicles 27v2

One of my great memories of Bible college at Tennessee Temple was Dr Roberson saying ‘Everything rises and falls on leadership.’ Now, I have a very high regard for and great memories of Dr Roberson. There is some merit to what he says. His quote may have a general truth about it, but it is not an absolute. Sometimes leaders can do it all right and the people not.

Here we have King Jotham, who became king when he was 25 years old. We read that he did what was right in God’s eyes. We read that he was like King Uzziah, but that he avoided Uzziah’s sin of going into the temple to burn incense. He did all this right, but the people still acted corruptly.

I like to study leadership. I don’t know what happened here. Did Jotham do right, but not teach the people how to do right. Did they simply not follow his example?

On second thought, as I consider these things, maybe there is more to ‘Everything rises and falls on leadership’ than I first thought. Maybe the problem here is that a leader cannot just do right himself. He must also lead his people to do right in order to be a great leader.

Sure, a key aspect of leading is to lead by example, but that is not enough.

Maybe everything does rise and fall on leadership?