So in rethinking my blog’s purpose one thing continually sticks out in my mind. I must talk about young leadership. I am a young leader. I believe that I can teach other people about leadership while they are young and I really hope that these lessons can help young people, who desire to be leaders, really begin to develop this skill.
So for Lesson number one I want to talk about humility. Humility is such an interesting part of leadership. It’s not glamorous or powerful nor does it have some bling as a part of it’s identity. I’ve heard a quote that says:
Pride makes us artificial, but humility makes us real.
I totally agree with that. One interesting thing to not about humility is the way that we view other people when we have a humble spirit about us. When we take pride in ourselves, our abilities, and our accomplishments, we place other people in a spot below ourselves. But when we live with an attitude of humility, the way we view people changes. People are seen as at least equals, but in most cases are honored.
Humility is cool for another reason as well. It gets us to ask questions of others. If you view yourself as an expert, are you ever going to ask someone questions to improve your craft or your behavior or your family life? Probably not, Humility opens us to the realm of authentic life change, because we have opened the door to being able to take advice from others.
Oswald Chambers talks about Humility on June 9th, in My Utmost for His Highest. He says:
“If any of you lacks wisdom . . . .” If you realize that you are lacking, it is because you have come in contact with spiritual reality— do not put the blinders of reason on again. The word ask actually means “beg.” Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are poor enough spiritually to show our interest. Yet we will never receive if we ask with a certain result in mind, because we are asking out of our lust, not out of our poverty. A pauper does not ask out of any reason other than the completely hopeless and painful condition of his poverty. He is not ashamed to beg— blessed are the paupers in spirit.
So today be humble, but also remember this quote:
“The proud man can learn humility, but he will be proud of it”
-Mignon McLaughlin quotes
