You never know if you’re really humble, but you can know if you do humble things.
-Erwin McManus
Leaders are great at making plans. Think about yourself and the leaders you know. They usually are working off some kind of goal, plan or vision. You likely have a plan on what you want to do after you graduate, what your dream job is or where you want to be when you retire. Buying a house, starting a family, preparing those children for a good future….lots of plans. What about our character?
We have a tendency to let our little Jiminy Cricket guide us as we make decisions. Our character is something that we use daily in decision making, but also something that we rarely take time to actually develop.
Humility in a practical sense
Humility can be tough to pinpoint, that is one reason why you don’t hear about many humility training courses out in the world. Who wants to take a class on humility anyway? Probably not many. There are some practical pieces to work on and consider with humility.
- A willingness to let go of power.
- An admiration of humble people.
- A desire to learn and be taught by others.
- Truly accepting and celebrating other people’s victories.
- The ability to give up the personal spotlight in order for the team to meet a goal.
Spend time preparing
Set some time aside periodically to invest in your heart and the whys that drive you as both a person and a leader. This doesn’t mean you have to go off in solitude every month. (But maybe a trip every now and then would help.) It could be that you volunteer for those less fortunate, you may go to a class to learn a hard or soft skill that you haven’t mastered. Do something that’s 100% about others and not yourself. It’s a very rewarding experience.
Spotting narcissism and the key traits
The opposite of humility is narcissism. This is a person that is very self-focused as they navigate life.
- They have a high need for praise because their world needs to be about them.
- They often have an opinion that there is no one in the world that can do something better then they can.
A narcissist also typically avoids these behaviors:
- They fail to ask for help because they believe that a problem can’t be solved if they aren’t the ones to answer the problem.
- They shy away from risks because it violates their sense of self.
- They struggle to accept failure because the failure was someone else’s fault in their mind.
Fight the narcissistic behaviors that can grow in yourself over time. Humility is not a sense that you are nothing. Humility is the sense that the world is not about you, but what you can offer to the world.
Make a better tomorrow.
-ZH
