Leading: Be Humble, or Be Humbled

A garage door opener, a tiny screw, & a 6 year old... What do these have in common? A humbled dad. Yes, there's a story behind this, but first...

Humility & Leadership

I've been thinking a lot about the role of humility in leadership. It's something we don't often see in our most highly visible and 'successful' leaders. We seem to place a premium on strength, decisiveness, goal attainment, and winning (or... snuffing out the competition) at all costs. Then pay lip service to relationship building, humility, civility, and kindness. After all, how can we possibly get the attention so many of us crave if we don't put our "best selves" on display in our social media feeds for all the world to see?

Humility: Heart vs. Head

I wonder if we don't understand true humility? Yet, I actually think we do... It's not knowledge that's the problem, it's moving this knowledge from our heads to our hearts. It's not the hard work we're really afraid of, it's the heart work that terrifies us. Why? Because it's not a simple, easy 3 step process. Humility and laziness of character cannot coexist. Being humble is a lifelong journey that daily battles against our deep desire for safety, selfishness, and "success". Yet there's little to no tangible, short-term hard return on the labor. So we sacrifice long-term rewards for short-term gains.

Being humble, and attaining the long-term rewards, requires prioritizing:

• being over doing
• character over results
• people over process

In choosing to be before we do, we take the narrow, more difficult, and less traveled road.

If we won't be humble, we will eventually be humbled. And such was the vivid event almost 9 years ago involving a garage door opener, a small screw, and a 6 year old...

Being Humbled

One Saturday afternoon about 9 years ago, our garage door opener stopped working. My wife was leaving for the day and I was home with my two boys. I told her I'd try to fix it and she left. I'm certain she wondered what she would come home to because I'm not the handiest guy. I'm willing to tackle repairs with the help of the internet, but I do have my limits (and quite frankly they're not really that high!).

I spent some time on the internet researching it and quickly came to the conclusion it needed new gears. But first, I had to pull it down and take off the cover to ensure this was the correct repair and the correct part.

My youngest, who was six at the time, followed me around and wanted to be part of the process. So we (and by 'we' I mean 'I'), unbolted it and lowered it to the garage floor. Upon inspection, we confirmed the repair was needed. So off to the phone I ran to call the parts store for the kit we needed. Lo and behold, they had it in stock!! But... they were closing in 35 minutes and they were almost 30 minutes from my house!

I announced to my boys that we were going on a 'road trip' and hustled them out to my car. It was going to be close, but we could easily make it if there was no traffic. And we did, arriving safely back at home an hour later with the required part.

But that was only the beginning... With the help of my faithful assistance (that'd be my 6 year old) we examined the very sparse instructions that came with the kit. I replaced all but one of the gears. But then I ran into an issue. The screw I needed to remove to replace the last gear was partially covered and not accessible. And it wasn't that way in the diagram!

My son pointed to a different screw and asked about removing that one first. I looked at the diagram and the instructions which didn't indicate that as the next step. So in all my wisdom and fatherly maturity I said, "No, that won't work."

I struggled some more trying to figure it out, but nothing changed. My son made the same suggestion again, "But Dad, if you take this one out..."

"That won't work! Look at the diagram in the instructions!" I struggled some more... I don't know how long.

My son patiently made the exact same suggestion he'd made twice before. In frustration and desperation, I said, "Fine, I'll try it but I don't think it will work."

As I'm sure you've guessed by now... It worked flawlessly!!

What's the Point?

I was obviously humbled by my 6 year old son who was (and still is!) innately more handy than his 40ish father! If I had been humble, being humbled would not have been required... But, honestly, I often learn the hard way! Lessons learned:

See gifts, strengths, and abilities. Even at the age of 6, we could tell what my son's natural talents seemed to be. Yet, I completely overlooked these simply because of his age. I'm ashamed to admit this, but deep down I was thinking, "How could a 6 year old know better than an adult how to solve this problem?!" I could not have been more wrong.

I mean, this was the kid who 'jacked' up the battery powered John Deere tractor his grandfather got him for his birthday. Then grabbed my box of tools and proceeded to inspect & "repair" his brand new tractor. Before even getting on it to ride it around!!

Leverage gifts, strengths and abilities. Paying attention and seeing talents and abilities is great, but knowledge only goes so far. We must utilize the talents we see in others ! It's okay to acknowledge our weaknesses and fill those gaps with someone else's strengths.

Swallow pride. I viewed myself as the (mostly) all-knowing father and authority figure. I had life experience and common sense. Yet I was really just prideful. Knowing my son's gifts and abilities, I should have said, "Let's try that," the first time he mentioned it. Let's face it, none of us like to acknowledge our often deep seated, but very cleverly justified or disguised, pride. We're born with it and spend the rest of our lives fighting it... or at least we should be fighting it! Pride is often the source of many human ills. And is certainly the source of many leadership failures.

Praise lavishly! Once we see and then leverage the gifts, strengths, talents, and abilities of others, and swallow our pride, we are free to express appreciation and praise. If I had listened and tried my son's suggestion the first time, I could have acknowledged and praised his natural talents. (And I would have avoided lots of wasted time and energy!)

This is a super power... As influencers and leaders, expressing appreciation, praise, and gratefulness has the power to create joy, drive performance, and elevate others. And don't wait for mid and end of year performance reviews... That's way too late and much less effective!!!

Your Turn

Which of the above lessons in humility do you most relate to? Are there any others you see in my story, or have experienced in your own life?