1. A King in Narcissistic Clothes

This chapter explores the life of King David to illustrate that top leaders can become the inadvertent tools of organizational demise if they are not diligent. Specifically, a case is made to catch foxes in their infancy before they grow into a public leadership problem. This deliberation highlights a plausible blind spot of David’s that has not gained much academic attention and makes a case for the major foxes that all influencers need to monitor. Such a scholastic conversation unearths a model to help leaders proactively trap their respective foxes before they are elevated to higher responsibilities. Moreover, the chapter spotlights David’s specific decision point and argues that king-think can cause tremendous pain to both leader and led.