Are prestigious titles and powerful positions prerequisites for impactful leadership? “You don’t need structural authority to be a leader of influence,” according to historian and social commentator John Dickson. “The leader’s strongest tool is humility,” he says. “It intensifies credibility.” Dickson, the author of Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership (May 2011), investigates the crucial role humility plays in a leader’s life—and its theological, historical, and practical implications. Dickson issues this challenge: Navigate the complex intersection of leadership and humility, and learn to lead through persuasion, example, and influence rather than positional authority. Dickson offers practices to help you cultivate deeper authentic humility on your team—and in your soul.
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- There is a dilemma facing anyone addressing the topic of humility in public.
- I have a love/har
- Humility is not humiliation.
- Humility is not low-self esteem or hiding your talents or achievements
- Humility is the noble choice to forgo your status and use your influence for the good of other before yourself.
- Humility is to hold you power in the service of others.
- Some of the greatest leaders in history possessed humility.
- Humility will not make you great; just as greatness will not make you humble.
- Humility makes the great greater.
1 – Humility is common sense.
- None of us is an expert at everything.
- Despite the brilliance all around us, what we collectively don’t know and can’t do far exceeds what we know and can do.
- Expertise is one area counts for very little in another.
- A true expert should know this better than anyone.
- True experts know there is so much more to know about a topic.
- The experts must know that what they do know and can do far exceeds what they can’t do and don’t know.
- The opposite is competency extrapolation.
- Because we think the Bible trumps all other forms of knowledge we try our hands at Biblical perspectives on politics, science, world religion, etc.
- If we aren’t careful, we will make mistakes applying the Bible to fields of knowledge outside our areas of expertise.
- To preach well to my church I have to listen to the wisdom sitting out in the pews.
2 – Humility is Beautiful
- We are more attracted to the great who are humble.
- Presumptions diminish greatness.
- Humility has no always been regarded as being beautiful.
- Humility used to mean servitude in Greek culture.
- One of the prized virtues in ancient Greece was the love of honor.
- How have we, in Western Culture, come to prize humility?
- A humility revolution took place in the middle of the 1st century with a teacher from Nazareth.
- Mark 10:43 – whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant.
- It wasn’t Jesus’ teaching that created the humility revolution.
- It was Jesus actual crucifixion that changed the way people thought about humility and greatness.
- In antiquity, crucifixion was the lowest form of death.
- Jesus’ death caused them to redefine greatness.
- If the greatest man we have ever known willingly sacrificed his life on the cross, the Innocent for the guilty, than greatness must exist is sacrifice.
- Philippians 2:3-8
- Prof. Edwin Judge – Everyone in our culture dislikes people who are proud; everyone admires humility.
- We only like people who are actually humble.
- You don’t have to be a Christian to appreciate humility.
- Our culture has been massively impacted by the event of the crucifixion.
- Western Culture has been profoundly influenced and shaped by the cross.
- The cross changed everything.
- Our culture is cruciform.
- Greatness and humility are now one.
3 – Humility is Generative
- Humility generates new knowledge and abilities.
- Humble people are always looking to learn something new.
- Science is a humble confession of humility.
- Peter Harrison, “The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science” – there is a need for new methods to explore reality.
- The humble place is a place of growth.
- It is in the lowest, dirtiest places that you learn something you couldn’t learn any other way.
- Accurate criticism is your best friend if you are a wise person… it’s your fast track to growth.
- The low place is the generative place… the place of flourishing.
5 – Humility is persuasive.
- The textbook of persuasion says there must a intellect, emotion, and character.
- Humility makes people trustworthy.
- The most believable person in the world is the person you know has the best interest in their heart.
6 – Humility is Inspiring
- The real power of effective leadership is maximizing other people’s potential.
- When leaders appear aloof and unapproachable, we admire them but we don’t emulate them.
- When leaders are approachable, we aspire to be like them… they seem just like us and we think we can be like them.
- There are four tools of leadership a leader has to work with:
- Ability – the natural flare they have.
- Authority – organizational power.
- Character – merit of life.
- Persuasion – ability to move people to believe.
- Some of the most inspiring leaders in history had no structural authority; they just had truckloads of ability, character and persuasion.
- People couldn’t help but follow them and believe.
- You don’t need the power to change empires or individuals.
- You don’t need the keys to the kingdom to impact the Kingdom.
- You’ve got to have character.
- You don’t need organizational structures… what you need the most is humility.
- You don’t need the majority to change a nation.
- You don’t need the authority to win the war.
- You don’t need to reclaim the nation for Christ to win the nation for Christ.
- You need humility.
Humility is not just another leadership technique. Humility is a reflection of the deep structure of reality. At the center of history is a cross… the self-giving of the Almighty. If that is true, the cruciform life is a life in touch with reality. Your attitude should be the same of that of Christ Jesus.
