Reverence of Leaders

Reverence, not justice, is the virtue that separates leaders from tyrants, as the old Greek poets knew well. In episode after tragic episode, they show how failures of reverence destroy men who are trying to be leaders. 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. 

When leaders are reverent, they are reverent along with their followers, and their common reverence unites them in feelings that overcome personal interests, feelings such as mutual respect. These feelings take the sting from the tools of leadership - from persuasion, from threats of punishment, from manipulation by means of rewards. This is because there are no winners and losers where there is reverence. Success and failure are dwarfed by the magnitude of whatever it is that they hold in awe together. Wordsworth recognizes this in his tale of boyhood races over water in the magnificent Lake District:

In such a race,

So ended, disappointment could be none,

Uneasiness, or pain, or jealousy:

We rested in the shade, all pleased alike,

Conquered or conqueror. Thus our selfishness

Was mellowed down, and thus the pride of strength

And the vainglory of superior skill

Were interfused with objects which subdued

And tempered them, and gradually produced

A quiet independence of the heart.

                                            "Two-Part Prelude," 2.63-72

A leader who uses persuasion, threats, and rewards reverently does so with respect for the followers. This usually requires two things: the leader does not deceive the followers, and the leader is open to persuasion in return. Leadership involves fairly open deliberation. Openness and honesty are defenses a good leader employs against the danger of bad judgment. 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.

This is odd; I call it the paradox of respect. Why should a leader listen to people who know less than he or she does about the matter at hand? The short answer is that reverent leaders do listen to their followers. The hardest case for the paradox is teaching: Good teachers know more than their pupils; even so, as we shall see in the next chapter, good teachers listen to their pupils, and in this they are reverent.

from pages 175-177 of the book "Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue" 

by Paul Woodruff