What Abraham’s servant taught me about choosing for character and fit

I once gave a junior employee a lot of responsibility in choosing a consultant.

Torah interpretations through the Bridge6 leadership model
Parashat Chayei Sarah · Genesis 24:1-27 and 24:57-58

This Shabbat we’re on to Chayei Sarah in which Sarah dies and Abraham buys a burial plot at full price. This portion is rich with stories that are relevant to leadership, collaboration, business, and family. What interests me the most this week is the story of Abraham delegating a decision to his number one that will make or break the family: the identification of a wife for his son, Isaac.

Choosing who you want on your team is one of the most important decisions that any organization makes. Often, companies have departments that are solely or predominantly responsible for hiring, or, for top roles, an organization’s head will delegate this task to an executive leader, department head, or manager. In the case of finding Isaac a wife, the leader, Abraham, gives the decision-making power to his number one servant. In my experience, the process of selecting new team members is demanding. It requires a clear sense of who you are as an organization and what matters most in a new staff member. But the intangible factors of character that emerged through direct interaction were always more important.

In this parasha, Abraham gives the task of finding Isaac a wife to “the senior servant of his household, who had charge of all that he owned” (Genesis 24:2). This task had specific terms: the woman for Isaac must be from Abraham’s own people and not a Canaanite (Genesis 24:3-4); and Isaac must never be taken back to that place (Genesis 24:6). The conditions also offer a way out for the servant, “if the woman does not consent to follow you, you shall then be clear of this oath to me” (Genesis 24:8). Finally, the mandate is sealed with an oath (Genesis 24:9). This sequence describes a purpose, limits, and an exit if the woman says no.

The servant, who is not named but is usually referred to as Eliezer, departs with “all the bounty of his master” (Genesis 24:10). In modern times and in most Western societies, family members generally choose their own spouses, so this parallel isn’t literal. However, organizations, including family businesses, frequently trust people who are not family members or partners with decisions about people, new hires, or contractors.

Before Eliezer meets any potential wives, he sets some criteria to indicate what he’s seeking in a potential partner for Isaac. In particular, he decides on the response he hopes to hear when he asks a woman for a drink of water: “Drink, and I will also water your camels” (Genesis 24:14). This is what hiring managers frequently hope to find: someone who will not only accept a task but also do more than was asked without being told to do so.

Rebekah immediately meets Eliezer’s criteria and then some. She “quickly lowered her jar” and “ran back to the well to draw, and she drew for all his camels” (Genesis 24:18-20). Drawing water for ten camels after a journey is hard work (Genesis 24:10). Here she shows Eliezer both the technical acumen to complete the task effectively and the value of care for a stranger. Even further, there is the same level of hospitality towards the stranger that Eliezer has likely seen from his boss, Abraham. In Vayera, Abraham welcomes the three strangers by running and hurrying (Genesis 18:2-7) and Rebekah does exactly the same. The servant observes without passing any final judgment, withholding a verdict for a later moment. “The man, meanwhile, stood gazing at her, silently wondering whether GOD had made his errand successful or not” (Genesis 24:21).

In 2017, on my first project in a country in the middle of an armed conflict, the organization I worked with needed a local consultant to work as a facilitator on the ground, including carrying out a lot of stakeholder outreach and coordination for me and my junior colleague. I didn’t give my junior full decision-making authority, but I trusted them with a lot of say in the selection process and in the decision. They assisted me in both the interview design and its implementation. They were instrumental in discerning the capabilities we were looking for, especially collaboration capacity and the ability to bridge our organizational culture and that of the host country. The consultant did exceptionally. She became a vital part of our team, eventually trained in our methodology, and was more or less a full team member, or as close as possible without drawing a salary, working with us as a consultant on multiple projects following this first engagement. As in this parasha, we went abroad looking for someone and found exactly the person we needed for bridging the cultures.

My feeling and experience have been that almost anyone can be trained in skills but character is innate. A person with the wrong values who has the technical abilities to do a job but not the personality or character to work well with others is generally a bad choice.

In this story, Rebekah’s family agrees to the arrangement with Isaac (Genesis 24:50-51), but the final decision to depart is Rebekah’s when she is asked “Will you go with this man?”, and replies, “I will” (Genesis 24:58). Rashi (on Genesis 24:57) learns from this that a woman may not be given in marriage unless she also consents. Many lessons in the parasha relate to what my model calls Power, who gets to decide what and how that decision is shared. Abraham shares this power with his servant and at the end of the episode Rebekah also shares in decision-making power.

One other part of this story is relevant to today. Rebekah isn’t aware that she’s being judged. Her response at the well is natural and authentic because it isn’t performed for the benefit of the servant with any apparent ulterior motive. Today, we are confronted with almost the opposite. Candidates know that they are being watched and much of what a selection process entails is information passed through artificial filters: applications are written and/or polished using AI and then screened by AIs before a real person reads them, if ever an application reaches a real human. The original, authentic input the servant relies on in this story is getting harder and harder to find. In my own experience as a hiring manager, I always paid attention to the authenticity of applicants in live conversation. I was encouraged by vulnerability, and by moments when real human qualities shone through the cracks of polished performance, like when I could hear a spontaneous answer or even an admission of a mistake.

How can we discern someone’s character when they know they are being watched, when we know they are performing, and when we don’t know how much of what we see has come through artificial filters?

Leadership lessons from Chayei Sarah

1. Delegate authority with clear terms. When Abraham mandates his servant with the vital task of finding his son, Isaac, a wife, he bestows a purpose, two limits, and an exit if the woman says no (Genesis 24:2-9).
2. Authentic trust comes with real resources. Abraham gives Eliezer all his bounty to take with him on his quest (Genesis 24:10).
3. Before you start meeting candidates, decide what kind of character traits you’re looking for. Eliezer establishes the test and pre-conditions before he gets to the well (Genesis 24:14).
4. Check for both skill and values together. Eliezer observed Rebekah doing the work quickly and well and noticed that she exceeded the request with an act of great care (Genesis 24:18-20).
5. Observe well before making any final decisions. Eliezer remained silent, watching Rebekah even as she showed herself to be a strong choice (Genesis 24:21).
6. My experience has taught me that you can almost always teach skills, but rarely can you develop character.
7. Whoever gets chosen should also choose back. “Will you go with this man?” “I will” (Genesis 24:58).