Ben Witherington on Humilitas

Over at The Bible and Culture Ben Witherington is working through John Dickson's latest book, Humilitas.

Below is an excerpt from part 2, and you can find part 1 here. I'd encourage you to follow along as Witherington continues to blog through this exciting new book!

"A good leader tends not to rely on just power or institutional authority.  They seek to persuade and win people over to their views, plans, vision.  Being a good communicator is for the most part an essential of being a good leader.  There are rare exceptions, but that is exactly what they are.    One of the key insights in this section is that people tend to believe people that they trust, and the converse is also true. 

It has been stressed by Stephen Covey and others that character counts enormously if one is to be a good leader.  Covey himself stresses patience, humility, integrity, courage, justice/fairness, patience, industry, modesty, simplicity.  Of course we can all think of examples that lack many of these traits.  The slave driving boss whom no one really much likes or wants to emulate but nonetheless gets lots done. But in general “Character is central to leadership. Unless a leader is trusted by the team, she will not get the best out of them.” (p. 41)."