John Dickson's "Humilitas": humility, leadership, and Christian virtue

Humilitas

In John Dickson's book Humiltias, A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership, his views on the human condition are expressed in terms of humility and humbleness. Dickson's extensive and varied background provided the necessary information to create a model on human religion and behavior based on humiliating experiences. The purpose of this essay is to review this book and offer critique to this publication.

The main point that Dickson is trying to convey in his book is that humility is a worthy attribute to aspire to or attain. He proclaimed that many great people in history have portrayed at least an outwardly appearing humble attitude that presented an opportunity for these individuals to achieve greatness or attain some sort of enlightenment.

The author provided a crucial definition early in the text to allow the reader to feel the importance of his disposition. He declared humility as "the noble choice to forgo your status, deploy your resources or use your influence for the good of others before yourself" (p. 19. This idea is expressed again in another passage the denotes the heartfelt appreciation for the discovery of this quality in his inner self. Dickson wrote "a willingness to hold power in service of others" is to be held in high esteem (p. 24). He also presented the idea that humility does not deliver greatness, nor does greatness demand humility, but "humility enhances the ordinary and makes the great even greater" (p. 29).

Leadership

Much of the book focused on the idea of leadership. This quality is helpful in bringing out the finer qualities of humility that the author is leading the reader to understand. Dickson's personal background comes into play in during these passages, as his varied professions as a teacher, musician, TV presenter and now servant of the Lord, creates a sense of realness to his explanations and communications dealing with leadership.

Christ is highlighted as the ultimate leader who presented humility in a most extreme and loving fashion according to Dickson. Dickson explained the Christ fused the ability to be humble and leadership to the greatest extent. By serving and presenting a sense of sacrifice to another, a certain strength presided over him.

Dickson also equivocates humility as common sense. The often misunderstood and too often feigned ideal of virtue helped the author explain how common sense and humility working together create the circumstances for leadership. Leadership is truly an empathetic role to play in life. It is possible to become confused at this point in understanding the ideas that Christ, common sense, leadership and humility play together.

Dickson overlooked the idea in his book that Christ transcended common sense through His divine presence as God living through man. This is not a common occurrence according to the Christian doctrine. While other traditions assume that God lives and breathes inside of us, this is not meant in a literal translation. Denoting such ideas pertains to mystical interpretations of humility and leadership which were not directly addressed in this book.

Shame, Honor, Christ & Leadership

To highlight the importance of character, Dickson introduced the Shame-Honor system that was present in the times before the revelation of Christ as king and savior of mankind. This system was rife with abuse, violence, unnecessary sacrifice, grudges, superstitions and many more unsavory aspects about humanity's existence throughout the historic record. Christ is exalted because he became humble and chose to be humiliated in front of his peers and family.

By being executed for crimes he did not commit, Christ displayed an ultimate service to the human race and provided the necessary leadership for others to follow. The sins of mankind were washed away with the blood of Christ. This act of humility was the cleansing of past errors. According to Dickson, followers of the Christian Faith need to realize how in service to others we claim the glory of God. He wrote "Learn to respect and care even for those with whom we profoundly disagree. We maintain our convictions but choose never to allow them to become justification for thinking ourselves better than those with contrary convictions. We move beyond mere tolerance to true humility, the key to harmony at the societal level. (p. 170).

Beauty of Humility

Aesthetics are subtle divine clues of harmony within the universe. Dickson understood this key concept as he discussed the implications of humility as it relates to beauty. Beauty is very hard to describe but it is often noted with empathy and signs of consideration for others and their well being. Cooperation is another hallmark term that can be associated with Dickson's ideas on living a humble life. He expressed this simply when he wrote " the art of inspiring others in a team to contribute their best toward a goal," (p.33).

By speaking in terms of others goals, and not the leaders' ideas of success a formula is created that demonstrates the power of humility. The power of letting go and submitting to a higher power is very difficult to accomplish without some sort of sense of being humble in service towards others for a real and loving purpose that transcends the material world into ethical and religious realms.

Conclusions

I strongly recommend this book for other looking to improve their understanding of leadership and how delicate this special trait really is. Leaders are both born and made, but, as Dickson, pointed out, a strong sense of humility is necessary. This letting go of personal plans, and letting God's plan take hold is at the center of this book which is spoken in more secular language to help others not familiar with Jesus and his teaching and opportunity to become saved by his works.