How does a child of God operate in a world which rewards visibility, certainty and control? Having served two decades in the public service, and more recently serving as Chairperson of Methodist Welfare Services (MWS), the social concerns arm of The Methodist Church in Singapore, it’s a recurring question for Eugene Toh. He shares his imagined conversation with three kings, and lessons gleaned from them
Leadership is often—rightly—described as influence. It’s also about direction, responsibility and the ability to move people towards a shared vision.
But above all, I’ve come to see that leadership is about navigating tension: the tension between what I can do and what I should do; between leading visibly and submitting quietly; between what the world rewards and what the Lord requires.
In one of my ruminations, I imagined myself in a roundtable conversation with three kings: Saul, David and Solomon. Each chosen by God. All gifted. All flawed. But only one finished close to the Lord. I ask them questions about leadership.
What did leadership mean to you?
“It meant action,” Saul says. “When people start to scatter, you lead. You cannot afford to look weak.”
He once stepped ahead of the prophet to offer a sacrifice. It wasn’t arrogance—it was insecurity disguised as leadership. And it was the start of his undoing.
“Leadership meant waiting,” David says. “And listening. Sometimes, God said ‘Go’ and sometimes, ‘Stay’. But sometimes, I heard nothing.”
He was a shepherd boy when he was anointed as king. But Saul remained on the throne. David waited through years of hiding, serving a man who saw him as a threat. He didn’t force the crown, but let the waiting hone him.
There was a time I had to wait, too. A golden opportunity had been offered to me, a high-profile senior post. However, it came with a request: to tell my current boss I was unhappy where I was working (which wasn’t the case) in order to protect someone else’s interest. I paused, prayed and walked away. I might have gained the role but would’ve lost my integrity.
“Leadership is judgment,” Solomon says. “To be able to judge people, their motives, and also the proper timing when dealing with issues. That’s why I asked for wisdom.”
I recall the two women who each claimed to be a child’s mother, coming before Solomon. They could show no evidence. Solomon asked for a sword. What looked like an irrational judgment revealed God’s wisdom in the end.
Some of my most formative moments in leadership were the moments I chose to pause and discern quietly.
Were you ever afraid?
“I feared losing people,” Saul says. “Their confidence in me. Their loyalty. I felt I had to hold them firmly.”
That fear is familiar. It makes you second-guess your own decisions. It sneaks up when silence stretches too long. You fear that your influence will fade quietly.
“I feared losing God,” David says. “After Bathsheba, I prayed, ‘Take not your Spirit from me.’ That was my fear.”
Not the disgrace of the scandal being exposed, but fear of distance from the Lord.
“I feared growing numb,” Solomon says. “When you lead too long, people stop telling you the truth. Eventually, you stop caring about the truth.”
What he says lands hard, because numbness creeps in slowly, over time, with the compromises we make.
Once, I was repeatedly overruled by a senior leader. I had worked with the team, aligned ideas carefully—and still, the answer was no.
And what surfaced wasn’t frustration—it was fear. Not loud fear, but the quiet kind: Am I losing my influence? Should I push back? Or trust differently now?
Fear is not always a roar. Sometimes it’s the quiet withdrawal of faith.
What do you regret most?
“That I stayed home,” David says simply.
The spring when kings went to war but he didn’t, temptation came. Bathsheba. Uriah. A baby’s death. A kingdom that would never fully heal.
“I was not with my men when they needed me most,” he adds solemnly.
Indeed, sometimes the greatest failures come not from what we do, but from what we don’t do.
I think of a team member who had lost someone dear. I had assumed she wanted space but what she wanted was presence. We didn’t show up. And she remembered.
I turn to Solomon expectantly. His answer: “That I built too much. The temple, yes.
But also other altars—for alliances, for convenience, for image.
“I told others how to live well. But I did not guard my own heart.”
And Saul?”
“That I held on too tightly,” he says. “Even when the role was no longer mine, I still wanted to be honoured. I could not let go.”
I recall a time I waited too long. A team member’s behaviour was quietly damaging morale. I delayed taking action, telling myself I was buying time when really, I was buying peace.
Eventually we acted, but months later, someone said, “I don’t think we’ve fully moved on from that,” and others agreed.
I had let a sore fester for too long. I should have circled back to explain, to close the loop for everyone who was affected.
Real leadership doesn’t avoid tension. It walks through it and returns to bring peace.
If you had one more year to lead, what would you do differently?
David says, “I would be more present. With the men. With my sons. With the Lord.”
He pauses. “I would sing more.”
Solomon says, “I would tear down the altars. Every last one.”
Saul says, “I would ask God what he truly wanted. And this time, I would listen.”
Then they turn to me.
I say, if I had one more year to lead, I would want to lay aside my competitive spirit, to stop comparing. I wouldn’t chase bigger milestones, add more strategy decks or stretch for one more title.
What if David’s greatest legacy wasn’t the throne, but the Psalms he left behind which are filled with his emotional honesty, his yearning for God?
He once wrote: “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.” (Psalm 131:2)
David had the kind of sacred rhythm I long for.
So I would build sacred rhythm into my everyday leadership. Not just through devotions, but by talking through my calendar with God.
To say, “Lord, here is my day, this meeting, that request, this decision I keep postponing.” To name what the task requires, what my superiors expect, what the stakeholders want—and then to ask, “But Lord, what are you asking of me?”
I want to recognise my voice too. Sometimes the hardest part is knowing which desires are mine, and which is just noise.
Yes, there will still be times I will fail to listen, fail to discern, and even fail to obey. But like David, I want to return.
That is the sacred rhythm: to lead with awareness; to move with purpose; to live without comparison; and to come back, again and again, to the One who leads me still.
The final question
The world often asks us: Are you capable? Are you ambitious enough?
But God’s kingdom asks a different question: Are you aligned?
Saul had ability. Solomon had brilliance. But David—flawed, scarred, often uncertain—kept returning.
Even when he failed, he knew how to come home.
And maybe that is the kind of leadership God honours most: not leadership that never fails, but leadership that returns.
If I could choose my legacy, I want to be someone who feared God more than failure, who loved my Lord more than success, who followed him not because I needed the crown, but because I never wanted to forget the voice of my King.