Watching the Democratic National Convention on TV this week, I was struck by the outpouring of love and admiration for President Joe Biden. His withdrawal from the Presidential race in July brought about a radical change in the prospect of who will lead our country for the next four years.
His decision has been called everything from a “noble act” to “being forced aside” to “a vicious coup.” I want to suggest we see it as an example of a virtue that’s increasingly rare and easily misunderstood. As a leader, President Biden demonstrated the virtue of surrender.
Surrender is the courageous act of saying, “I’ve come to the end of this road. I can’t keep doing this any longer and get the outcome I want. Instead, I now choose to lose – to lose this known and futile habit and hope that I’ll gain a better outcome.” Surrender is giving up and laying down. Surrender is a transplant without Novocain that relocates our egos to second place.
As with so many discussions of character and virtue, especially involving leaders, I find the story of King David helps us to see and practice this quality of character too.
In my book Thirty Days With King David: On Leadership — available through this website — I discuss the traditional “cardinal virtues” of Western thought. While “surrender” isn’t a traditional cardinal virtue, it’s a clear example of Courage, which is. President Biden exhibited courage on July 21 when he surrendered his vision, ambition and keenness for another campaign and withdrew from the Presidential race. He transplanted his ego for a higher cause and a greater good.
King David’s surrender, admittedly under very different circumstances, is the low point of his kingship. His was a response to evil he thought he’d hidden – the rape of Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. The royal chaplain Nathan confronts him with the reality of who he is and what he’s done, and David sees no other option but to acknowledge his frailties and illusions. He lays his ego down at God’s feet. The Biblical narrative condenses his reaction to just one sentence, “I have sinned against the Lord,” but an empathic reader will understand what a tangled tumor of emotions is encapsulated in those words.
President Biden was confronted with no personal evil, only the cultural fault of growing old. His stepping aside is the equivalent of a ballplayer wanting one more season, a parent wanting one more fling at adolescence, a senior law partner wanting one more case. The virtue of surrender requires the courage to swallow your pride, the hardest thing we can ever imbibe.
Other cultures are much better than ours at honoring the limitations and the wisdom of aging. We prefer to romanticize the person who can’t admit defeat. “Don’t be a quitter.” Our bumper stickers proclaim, “Never surrender.” Hollywood sells us Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky,” Mickey Rourke’s “The Wrestler,” Clint Eastwood’s William Munny (“Unforgiven”), and dozens more who just can’t find the courage to say, “No more.” Part of us admires their stubbornness. The rest of us winces at their humiliations and cringes at their refusal to accept the ever-turning hands of the clock.
We learn with maturity, though, that there’s a greater nobility in recognizing our limits and accepting them gracefully. Every alcoholic knows that surrender is not a sign of defeat but the first step toward victory. Maya Angelou writes, “Even at 15, life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance.” Wisdom can be as simple, so the song says, as “know[ing] when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.”
My own mother, an active and spirited woman deep into her 80’s, initiated the ritual of handing us her car keys and giving away her car. She chose to spare us all any awkward conversations or angry defiance. She surrendered with grace.
Back to King David. Yes, his surrender was forced by his sinfulness, a situation we’re not addressing here. He still had to swallow his pride and drop his defenses, to let go of his dreams and watch his glorious past fade away. He learned to serve a different purpose. The virtue of surrender is seen more clearly when we trust that some unforeseen good will yet emerge. In the months that followed David’s surrender, he gave up being the bold young warrior with no brakes on his pride. He served instead as a wise advisor to his army. He gave strategic advice to handle Absalom’s revolt. He forgave old enemies, and he wrote new songs of thanksgiving.
Joe Biden, a fundamentally decent man, also had to swallow his pride, let go of his dreams, and hand over the keys. He did it with grace. This is the leadership virtue of surrender.
What lies ahead for Joe Biden? He put “America First” by insisting the real question is, “What lies ahead for our nation?” He showed through the spring and early summer that surrender is no easy action to take. But I think it was the clear virtue of his surrender, his courage in letting go, that brought the Democratic Convention to its feet on its first evening. “We love you, Joe!” resounded amid ongoing waves of applause. Tears flowed. Hearts soared. Virtue was honored.
That’s a legacy to leave. It was a gift to see it alive and well in today’s politics.