Oh, For Humble Leaders

Sometimes, the place where you find wisdom is not on the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, or even your favorite news channel. It is the Bible. Quaint, you say? In a thousand ways, no, but one especially. Around us, we see leaders who fail us, and why? They are tone deaf, too often self-absorbed, arrogant, proud, and not humble.

What is humble? Why do we want it in our leaders? It is knowing that no one gets anywhere alone, that we owe debts we can never repay, that God’s mercy has repeatedly saved us, and that we owe that mercy – that same help – to others.

It is realness, knowing we are no more special than anyone else, or more accurately, that all of us are special, genuinely, truly, without qualification or judgment, special in God’s eyes, and when we see with those eyes, the eyes he gave us like the ones he made for the blind man, we are special in each other’s eyes.

That is humility, gratitude, and awareness that we each have a purpose, are each made in His image, each special to Him, which means our mission is to find that unique purpose, and as often as possible, help others to find theirs.

Humility is not imagining we know His plan, but being ready to serve when called, to lay aside what matters little, the superficial things we celebrate, and do what matters.

Humility is not demanding others think our way, not insisting to some point of anger, not exercising authority as if it is somehow due and owing, not threatening lawsuits to force others to abandon their conscience or act from fear. That is not humility and not leadership; it is cowardice.

The coward – like the pharaohs who lectured that blind man who told of Christ’s healing for his eyes – makes excuses, pushes self-serving ideology, and demands truth be denied for their own vain glory. Only the glory is not theirs, it is God’s.

Still, we have leaders who insist we repeat after them, that boys are girls, that unsafe times are safe, that violence is peaceful, that things unnecessary are necessary, that lawlessness is lawful, that crime is victimless, drug addiction best permitted, drug trafficking unstoppable, that pushing people from their homes with immoral spending, taxing, and indifference is, in fact, caring. It is not.

We have leaders who have no idea what it means to struggle, to barely survive, to have life-changing anxiety over government coercion, interference, demands, mandates, costs so high they must sacrifice a lifetime of dignity to live.

We have leaders so haughty they block even discussion of issues that matter to average people, parents, kids, grandparents, people who, to paraphrase Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, “Do most of the living and dying around here.”

What does the Bible say? “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before the fall.”  That is Proverbs, old wisdom. Do we not know that to be true? How did they – how do so many elected leaders – forget this truth? Proverbs again: “Humility comes before honor.” Is that not always true?

How did we forget not to value those who value us – who care – above those who care not? In this time after Easter, we are reminded of what matters, yet still some leaders – and for me, in Maine – know not what they are doing, devoid of humility.

Of course, we all know the answer to the questions posed, almost instinctively. Power begets pride, and pride begets forgetting, and things only get worse from there. The hope is, like Spring’s eternal hope, that we will not forget, nor they.

Colossians reminds us, especially in this season, what matters, and how to model it: “Put on then…compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” It is hard, harder for those in power, but it is a timeless truth. And truth matters. 

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).