Reverent Leadership: Become a Leader with the 'Right Feelings'

Copyright © 2004 by Don Blohowiak
Don@LeadWell.com www.LeadWell.com

I want to tell you about the best leadership book I've read in a very long time. (Publishers send me many books to review, so I have a broad basis for a strong endorsement of this work which I purchased—for myself and others.)

Interestingly, the book is not, strictly speaking, a leadership tome—there are more than plenty of those. But this loving tapestry of timeless wisdom addresses many important lessons for leaders, directly and more subtly, throughout its very readable couple hundred pages.

 Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue by Paul Woodruff, professor of humanities at the University of Texas, draws together lessons from ancient China, ancient Greece, and more contemporary Western poets to speak directly to the challenges of leading others.

Reverence, professor Woodruff explains, "is the well-developed capacity to have the feelings of awe, respect and shame when these are the right feelings to have." It is, he tells us, "the virtue that keeps leaders from trying to take tight control of other people's lives. Simply put, reverence is the virtue that keeps human beings from trying to act like gods."

Good qualities for a leader to understand, appreciate, and cultivate, yes? Here, to whet your appetite, are some excerpts from this engaging collection of profound and gentle insights.

Water naturally flows downhill; it would have to be forcefully carried uphill; and left on its own it will resume its downward path. So it is with virtue: It belongs to the character of the person who has it.

A good person behaves well without being forced to do so; that is why virtue is of the utmost importance when men are so powerful that they have no one to force them to behave. . . . A leader who uses persuasion, threats, and rewards reverently does so with respect for the followers.

...

Leaders are especially vulnerable to bad judgment when they allow themselves to become isolated. Unfortunately, it is easy to resist this conclusion, and would-be leaders are often given to deceit or other devices that prevent them from taking into account the opinions of their followers. Their excuse is that they know more than their followers. This is often true; they do know more than their followers, but that is no excuse for not listening. . . .

Leadership training thirty years ago included a strong injunction never to admit that you are wrong when you are in a position of authority. [A military] officer, we were told, is never lost, never ill informed, never without resources to complete a mission. "Can do, sir!" was the refrain of an officer in those days. We were taught, in other words, to deceive those above us and below in a systematic way, as if a mask of deceit were essential to good leadership. It isn't.

True, soldiers will not follow an officer who is clueless or who leads them into disaster. But in a healthy unit, soldiers can respect an officer who makes unfair decisions, if they recognize in him or her a common commitment to fairness, and they can respect a reverent leader who makes an occasional mistake. They will actually respect their officers all the more if they do not catch them hiding their mistakes or blaming them on other people.

A reverent leader is devoted to ideals such as freedom and justice. A reverent leader need not pretend to be godlike; the ideals are godlike enough.

Get this book. And a highlighter. Read Reverence slowly, a little at a time. Savor its intriguing, inspiring, and uplifting message so vital for those who wield power in today's pressured, results-obsessed world.

You'll be a better leader—a better person—for it.

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Don Blohowiak, a management consultant and popular conference speaker, is the author of several business books. The executive director of the Lead Well® Institute in Princeton, NJ, he may be reached at http://www.LeadWell.com/.

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Copyright © 2005, Don Blohowiak, Lead Well Institute

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