“I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?” I said, after looking at him for some time. “Me, Master Copperfield?” said Uriah. “Oh, no! I’m a very umble person.” . . . “I am well aware that I am the umblest person going,” said Uriah Heep modestly, “let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a very umble person. We live in an umble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for. My father’s former calling was umble; he was a sexton.”

I’m indebted to Doug Bratt, who in his reflection on today’s epistle reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians notes an interview between Adam Bryant of The Times and Laszo Bock, senior vice president of Operations at Google, reported by Thomas Friedman in the NYTs on February 22, 2014. Bryant and Bock’s subject concerned the nature of emergent leadership – and this is what caught my attention. In contrast with more traditional hierarchical models of leadership, Emergent leadership is not a fixed status command and control role, its more a flexible function [my words]. It’s situational – arising and recededing according to the demands of the situation. Bock explains that emergent leaders face problems as members of a team. At the appropriate time they may step forward to lead – but just as critically step back and let another team member take the lead:

Because what’s critical to be an effective leader in this environment is you have to be willing to relinquish power (Bock).

Humility seemed to be a key component in Bock’s description of emergent leadership. Explaining how humility and leadership go hand in hand:

It’s feeling the sense of responsibility, the sense of ownership, to step in to try to solve any problem — and the humility to step back and embrace the better ideas of others. Your end goal is what can we do together to problem-solve. I’ve contributed my piece, and then I step back.

It is why research shows that many graduates from hotshot business schools’ plateau. Successful bright people rarely experience failure, and so they don’t learn how to learn from that failure [Bock].

Bock stresses that without humility no learning can take place. Every institution of higher education should have his words emblazoned over their gate posts.

Emergent leaders don’t take the personal credit for success, neither do they blame others or conditions for failure. Emergent leaders argue fiercely for their point of view but have the ability to accept how the introduction by someone else of new facts changes the situation. Bock notes: You need a big ego and small ego in the same person at the same time.

It is interesting to note how much Google’s concept of emergent leadership is so contrary to the thrust of American academic, business – and might I add -political culture – where talent and leadership is about being the brightest, the highest paid, or when it comes to politics, the most shameless star in the firmament – all the while like Uriah Heep protesting umbleness. The problem with encouraging a prima donna culture – particularly in business and politics – is that it’s the antithesis of collaboration. An individualistic culture will celebrate narcissistic models of leadership – and we wonder why things don’t work out as intended.

The Philippians had sent Paul a gift delivered by the hand of Epaphroditus who subsequently had fallen ill. Paul is writing from imprisonment – most probably house arrest in Rome to reassure the Philippians that Epaphroditus had made a full recovery and that Paul is returning him to them in good health. This letter allows Paul to express his deep gratitude. Thanking the Philippians for their love and concern he addresses the current tensions in Philippi – news of which has reached him from Epaphroditus’ mouth to his ear.

Philippians is just one of his Paul’s more personal letters written during this period of house arrest. It’s during this period that he pens his opus magnum – his letter to the Romans – in which for the first time he seeks to collate a systematic theology – responding to some very thorny issues around inclusion and exclusion, righteousness and judgement, human intransigence and the faithfulness of God.

This is an anxious time for Paul. Will the result of his impending trial lead to an acquittal or his death? Facing into the uncertainties of the future, Paul is at pains to encourage the Philippians to take the humility of Christ as the blueprint for holding together in the face threats to their faithfulness to Christ.

Paul draws on the language of a familiar hymn extolling as the model for Christian community relations Jesus’ humility in his relationship with God. Paul asks that the Philippians practice having the same mind as Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. Being born in human likeness – he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – and not just any kind of death – but the most shameful of deaths – death on a cross. In this manner Paul encourages the Philippians to work out their salvation with fear and trembling – recognizing that it is God who is at work in them.

By fear and trembling Paul is not advocating some kind of fearful submissive Uriah Heep like groveling. Paul is showing the Philippians that only humility enables the Holy Spirit to work in and through them to achieve God’s good purpose. Our context and cultural issues may differ from those of the Philippians, but the underlying truth of the message remains the same because human nature does not change much over time.

The Classical World of the 1^st Century in which Paul is living and working was a world in which success and power were celebrated and in the ultimate case of the Emperor, worshipped. For the Roman man – to have power and social prestige was literally to have unquestioned power over – the right to dominate others with few societal or personal moral restraints. Might was right and humility was the ultimate sign of weakness!

Although we live in a society that in many ways apes Roman norms – where might is right continues unchallenged in many instances, yet unlike the Romans, a lack of humility is for those of us with normal levels of narcissism a guilty secret we try to hide. For we know that might is not necessarily right in the moral sense. What changes with the death and resurrection of Christ is that powerlessness and humility become the ultimate expressions of power. After Christ – as we see in Paul’s teaching – the exercise of crude power is – regarded from a moral and ethical perspective – subject to judgment by a higher set of values embodied by Jesus on the cross and vindicated by God in his resurrection.

Because Judao-Christian legacy continues to be enshrined in the secularism of the democratic West – humility stills echoes in our society even though for many it’s no longer tied to the practice of Christianity as a religion. Nevertheless, humility is still admired – we can say nothing better of a person than to ascribe to them the virtue of humility. We value humility as a cardinal virtue – despite or maybe even because for many of us – our struggle with humility is a guilty secret we try to hide from others.

Our greatest contribution when any of us might find ourselves in leadership roles is to know when and why to relinquish power. In leadership as well as in ordinary life – in Google speak – each of us needs both a big and small ego in order to be able to live collaboratively and work effectively or as Paul puts it to work out our salvation with fear and trembling – to come together to find collaborative solutions to shared problems.

The only adequate response in the face of the overwhelming mystery of God is one of humility – allowing power to flow in and through us – in pursuit of God’s good purpose.

I wonder if Google recognizes in their model of emergent leadership a contemporary reworking of Paul’s encouragement to the Philippians?