After the American revolutionary war against Britain was over, there was a ground swell to make General George Washington the emperor of the new united colonies that became the United States of America. When a group of officers contemplated a march on the [Continental] Congress and to make Washington their leader, historian Joseph J. Ellis writes that Washington,
“… suddenly appeared at a meeting of the officers . . . He summarily rejected their offer to become the American Caesar and denounced the entire scheme as treason to the cause for which they had fought. Then, in a melodramatic gesture that immediately became famous, he pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket: ‘Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles,’ he declared rhetorically, ‘for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in service to my country.’ Upon learning that Washington intended to reject the mantle of emperor, no less an authority than George III (King of England) allegedly observed, ‘If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.’ True to his word, on December 22, 1783, Washington surrendered his commission to the Congress, then meeting in Annapolis: ‘Having now finished the work assigned me,’ he announced, ‘I now retire from the great theater of action.’ In so doing, he became the supreme example of the leader who could be trusted with power because he was so ready to give it up.” “Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation” by Joseph J. Ellis. (New York: Vintage Books, Random House), 2000, p. 130.
Likewise, though one elder may carry a greater influence in a church than other elders, it is the unusual man who can step aside from or defer leadership for the sake the greater principle of genuine plurality of leadership that the Bible calls “the elders.”