Leadership by the Good Book

I did not set out to create a multi-billion-dollar company.

When World Wide Technology (WWT) was launched in 1990, I wanted to build a world-class company that would help transform the world through technology. Little did I realize in those early days, but God certainly knew, that our journey as a company would not only transform the world through technology but also serve a higher purpose and become a true ministry.

In the six years that preceded the founding of WWT, God had taught me many lessons about the blessings and burdens of entrepreneurship. I acquired and started several companies during the mid-to-late 1980s, after transitioning from a blessed and successful career in corporate America. However, the darkest time of my entrepreneurial journey was yet to come.

Within three short years of starting WWT, I was at an all-time low. I vividly recall sitting in my small office in the dark. The darkness was both external and internal. Externally, the power was out, literally, because of a powerful thunderstorm. However, that storm and the darkness it caused paled in comparison to the emotional and psychological darkness that I was experiencing. WWT was in dire straits from a business development standpoint, and cash was in short supply because of, let’s say, a creative allocation of significant cash that one of my associates chose to make.

So there, in the darkness, I sat as the thunder echoed in my mind from the storms outside and inside. Then the phone rang. Expecting more bad news, I tentatively picked up the handset. The voice on the other end wasn’t the gruff one of a banker, supplier, or customer, which I was anticipating. Instead, it was the sweet voice of my mother-in-law. Thelma’s mother, also named Dorothy like my own mother, has always been more than a mother-in-law to me—she is truly my mother-in-love!

Like her daughter, my precious wife, Dorothy always knew what Scripture would help me experience God’s peace. “David,” she said, “God told me to call you and tell you to read Psalm Ninety-One. I don’t know why God wanted me to do this right now, but He does and I’m sure you do, too. I love you and God does, too!”

After thanking her and saying goodbye, I quickly opened my Bible to Psalm 91. As I read, I knew why God told her to share this Scripture with me. Reading these powerful words of God’s protection and provision inspired me. They renewed my strength and became my scriptural backstop whenever I felt the darkness closing in again. I encourage you to read Psalm 91 now. Its sixteen verses will bless you; I know firsthand.

While our bleak situation at WWT did not change overnight, my dependence on God’s Word for leadership guidance deepened dramatically. As the prophet Isaiah writes, God’s Word does not return void! Receiving and resting in God’s Word enabled me to see Him as the source, not WWT, our employees, bankers, or customers. Even while I was buying groceries for my family at 7-Eleven, on a credit card that I couldn’t afford to pay off at the time, I heard from God that it was going to be OK.

From that point on, my leadership approach was informed and influenced by the teachings of the Holy Bible. I promised God that if He allowed WWT to survive, I would ensure that WWT was a ministry. Well, almost three decades later, God has enabled WWT to not only survive but thrive!

And true to my promise to God, I have endeavored to shape WWT’s culture and core values based on the teachings of the Bible. WWT is a platform where we could exercise the leadership principles seen in Scripture. I wanted to serve as God’s ambassador in a company focused on serving others. This company would be a ministry that spreads the Word of the Lord. We were not going to preach per se; I simply wanted WWT to draw people closer to God.

I’m a living testament, flawed though I still am, that Biblical leadership principles rooted in God’s Word are indeed applicable today. With the incredible success of WWT, it’s easy to draw a line of cause and effect to prove my point. But you must understand this line is not short, nor is it straight! Through the many ups and downs along the way, WWT’s success reflects God’s goodness and the power of the principles of leadership within the Good Book, that divinely inspired collection of history, poetry, prophecy, and letters known as the Holy Bible.

I believe I would be just as strong in my faith and just as content if God had not blessed WWT with such audacious global success. I believe this because I know the way I’ve led my life, my family, and my business endeavors would not be any different regardless of their success. Anything I know about leadership begins and ends with my relationship with God. I sincerely believe that putting Him first in all I do makes a tremendous difference in my personal purpose as well as my mission, motivation, and management in business. Having this higher purpose gives me a different perspective than most business leaders. Focused on God and His principles for leadership, I’m more concerned with the eternal than the urgent, the person than the product, the relationship, not the ROI.

And my relationship with Him—as well as with others and with what I do with the life I’ve been given—all comes down to service.

Firm Foundation

Like most people, my attitudes about God and faith, about leadership and how to treat people were influenced by my upbringing. Fortunately, I was blessed with a firm foundation for the leader God created me to be. I was born in Chicago, but I grew up in Clinton, Missouri, a small town of five thousand during the 1950s. Like most places in our country at that time, Clinton was segregated, a reality I encountered every day—on the bus to school, in the classroom, at the drinking fountain, on the playground, or anywhere else I happened to venture. I vividly remember having to sit in the balcony at the movie theater, not being able to swim at the public swimming pool, and not being allowed to eat at Wiley’s Restaurant because it was whites only—the list of indignities was a long one.

Despite this challenging cultural environment, I was blessed to grow up in a loving home with two devoted Christian parents. My father was the first entrepreneur that I saw. He was an auto mechanic who supplemented our family’s income by providing “shade tree” auto repair, as well as janitorial and trashing-hauling services. When there weren’t jobs available, he created them. I have always admired that about him. My mother ran our very small home, no small feat with eight of us kids in the family and no indoor bathroom! She also volunteered at church and helped other families in our neighborhood. We were so poor that I like to joke we didn’t live on the other side of the tracks—we lived on the tracks! Nonetheless, we had a small six-acre plot of land that allowed us to own a couple of cows, keep a few hogs, and raise chickens. We also had a vegetable garden, which my mother tended—and taught us kids to cultivate—almost every day except in the winter. Speaking of winter, Mom was also a canner, who enjoyed hosting “canning parties” to make sure our family and many others had canned the fall harvest, so we all had enough vegetables to last us through the winter. Miraculously, our little farm provided enough food so that our family of ten never went hungry.

I tell you this not for sympathy or to underline just how far God has brought me in achieving success. I share my humble beginnings with you so you can understand just how crazy it was for me to quit my job, risk my life savings, and blaze my own trail! When you follow God in how you live, learn, and lead, it won’t always seem logical on paper or make sense to others. Most people I knew, including members of my family and close friends, questioned my sanity at the time.

This restlessness within my soul emerged when my career seemed to be at its peak, but it had started long before while I was still a boy back in Clinton, sitting in Sunday school and learning about Biblical heroes like Moses and Daniel. I wanted to emulate them and, in my own unique way, serve others by being their leader. The greatest inheritance that I received from my parents is the love of Christ. Therefore, at an early age I knew that God loved me—that He loved all people, black or white, rich or poor—and that He had a special purpose in life for me. I understood that God loved us so much that He sent His Son to live on Earth as a baby born in a smelly stable and to die as an innocent man nailed to a cross. Jesus’ life on Earth was about overcoming the odds, overturning the corrupt establishment, and relying on His Father’s love and power in all that He did. Jesus loved everyone—fishermen and tax collectors, sick people and prostitutes.

From a young age, I felt called to lead and to love people the same way. Don’t get me wrong: I never thought about parting the Red Sea or spending a night in the lions’ den, let alone walking on water. But I liked the idea of being a good shepherd leading his flock of other people who also wanted to serve other people. After seeing the ways prejudice and racism poisoned people’s hearts in our segregated community, I wanted to make a difference and unite a group of diverse people around a common, worthwhile cause, a higher purpose. I dreamed of building a company that would focus on treating all people—employees, customers, even competitors—the way I wanted to be treated.

When I felt compelled to take a huge leap of faith and start WWT, I had already been blessed with so much in my life. By almost everyone’s account, I was successful. Married to my beautiful wife, Thelma, a registered nurse, and father to our two children, I had worked my way up to the position of senior account executive with Federal Express. In fact, in 1981 I was named our company’s salesman of the year. Fred Smith, the company’s great founder and CEO, personally presented to me the trophy, a silver ice bucket engraved with my name, at the company’s hall of fame dinner. While I felt incredibly honored to receive the award, I also felt this odd discomfort. I can remember peering inside that silver bucket and feeling as empty as it looked. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life meeting sales quotas and then wake up in my seventies one day, wondering why I didn’t do more with my life.