Towards a Dignity-defined Destiny

Our quest for ever more effective management and government has for 25 years emphasised emotional intelligence, but as we review the challenges of a Covid-coping world, a much misunderstood and under-appreciated worth will increasingly define our humanity both in society and in the workplace.

Over the same period, rights-based interventions have for too long under-emphasised the personal and collective responsibilities necessary to implement those rights.  By example, the United Nations Rights of the Child (that as a student I posted on my wall to keep them in mind) must be accompanied by our collective and personal responsibility to help them thrive.  The rights of any minority or the marginalised, the overlooked, the weakest, the poor, or the underprivileged, need to be accompanied by our responsibility that makes sacrifices (by our energies, time, acting on changed opinions, or money) so people can adequately succeed at work and in society at large.

But what is the bridge between those cherished rights, and our responsibilities?

It is dignity.

It might surprise international readers to hear this contention from an English writer.  We are famed for sacrificing our superficial dignity more easily than many, whether that’s epitomised by our current PM when he was London Mayor photographed hanging helpless from a suspended zip-wire in his beloved city, or our sunburned holidaymakers following their first opportunity visiting any sun-baked beach.  But such outward displays of indignity would be to misunderstand the English predisposition for superficial indignity while simultaneously deeply cherishing their freedoms, especially the freedom to laugh at themselves. It is perhaps peculiar to the English (more than any of the nations of the United Kingdom) that they most value the things they outwardly appear to take most for granted. 

So freedoms and values remain critical, but in the workplace, haven’t expediency and short termism now overtaken our deepest concerns? Should we live in a society where we have outsourced our values as easily as we have outsourced our privacy?

No. Preserving our personal integrity allows us to maintain our core values. Respect, tolerance, faith, justice and humanity promote, define and preserve dignity.  Reputations take years to nurture but can take only seconds to lose. Our dignity enduringly informs our most worthy core values, even in times of adversity, loss and failure. Cheated spouses can decide whether to lose their self-worth, or if circumstances allow, act with dignity through their emotional pain and humiliation.  Poorly treated workers rightly shame or challenge their uncaring bosses by refusing to bow to the indignities demanded of them. Shakespeare’s oppressed and complex character in his play ‘The Merchant of Venice’ displayed the kind of dignity to which I refer, when, of his kind, he reminds his accusers: ‘if you prick us, do we not bleed?’ 

Our dignity characterises the kind of people we want to be.

Our indignity can stay on the beach or the zip-wire, but in the workplace and in wider society, our dignified treatment of others (sometimes in the face of unwarranted opposition or inequality) in fact promotes and maintains our own dignity, which ultimately helps increase respect for us and others.

Thus a personal, corporate and societal focus on dignity not only lifts our interactions with others, our personal standing and our core values, but for those who cherish dignity, also, over time, leads to a more elevated, dignity-defined destiny.