What is leadership? It is not simply getting people to do what you want. Tyrants and dictators get people to do what they want. But they are not leaders.
Woodruff argues persuasively that reverence is a virtue especially important for leaders. Once again we need a quick reminder on what we mean by reverence.
Reverence is the capacity to feel respect in the right way toward the right people, and to feel awe towards an object that transcends particular human interests. (175)
It is to recognize that one is human – finite limited and flawed. To recognize that one is not a god – and to speak and act accordingly. It is what restrains (the exercise of) raw power.
Woodruff offers several points which characterize reverent leadership:
- Good leaders sometimes take their followers where they are unwilling to go (164)
- Good leaders give respect to and in turn receive it from their followers (165)
- Good leaders and followers are joined by ceremony – I would use the term ritual but the meaning is the same – in a common reverence that reminds them that they hold certain ideals in awe together (165)
- Reverence enables good leaders to exercise good judgment – which includes making decisions without knowing for sure how those decisions will turn out (166)
- Good leaders do not master people by force – this isolates them from the people they are trying to lead and leads to mistakes (166-167)
- Isolation of leaders from followers – not involving them in discussion or decision making – is a first step away from good or reverent leadership (168)
- Good leaders do not overpower their followers with force or words or the threat of discipline (173)
- Good leaders do not use or appeal to justice (alone) in order to secure obedience (174-175)
- A good leader will not insist on everything due him under justice (175)
- Good or reverent leadership does not produce or speak in terms of winners and losers (176)
- Good leaders do not deceive their followers (176)
- Good leaders are open to persuasion (176)
- Good leaders listen to their followers – even if they know more than their followers (177)
- Reverent leadership encourages mutual respect – which comes before forming opinions about the other person (179-182) (this one is tricky and difficult to understand)
- Reverent leaders do not overlook devotion to common ideals no matter how low immature or foolish they think their followers (183)
- Reverent leaders are open to new considerations that might alter the course of their reasoning (184)
I am about to tread on very dangerous ground. I do not wish to imply in any way that Woodruff would agree with how I am about to apply his book including his exceptional chapter on reverent leadership. But in light of the above points – how much do our current national political leaders exhibit reverent leadership?
I will let gentle readers decide how to answer that.
And can those who do not exhibit reverence demand it – including respect which flows from reverence – from their opponents? What nonsense.
I think Woodruff is correct. Reverence is an essential if largely forgotten virtue. And I would argue reverence is in the process of being almost completely erased from the American social cultural and political landscape. No wonder it feels like we are approaching a peaceful(?) civil war. Civil war is the surest sign reverence has been lost.
