Unhealthy Humility

One of my favorite things to do is encourage people. I enjoy finding where people excel and cheering them on. But I want it to mean something. I never want to say something just to check off an encouragement quota. “Well, I haven’t encouraged Stan in awhile, I better go find something. Oh look, he opened the front door properly. Let me go cheer him on.” Over the years, it has meant so much to me when someone has given a genuine note of encouragement, especially when it happens to come at a time when I’m questioning my ability, or feeling weak, in a particular area. It’s so important that we all have moments like that, and I enjoy making sure that happens.

The responses I get vary, but there’s a common theme that pops up from time to time that I’ve been thinking about lately. It’s the classic, ‘Even a squirrel can find a nut’ response. There are several variations on this, but at face value it certainly doesn’t come off as prideful. But is it humble? It’s such a common response, and it seems harmless, but I’m not sure it is.

During a convective event I was working one afternoon, I drew a polygon around a storm developing along two colliding boundaries. Since the storm was going up along the boundaries, it didn’t have a clear motion yet. However, having the mean storm motion vector overlaid with radar, I was able to fan the polygon off to the southeast in anticipation that the developing storm would move in the direction of the mean wind, and make the box wider to account for the expectation that the storm would grow in size given the favorable environment.

After I drew the box, the storm moved off the boundaries, rapidly increased, and then moved off to the southeast…right through the box. One of the other forecasters looked over and said, “That was a great box. Did you mean to fan that out that way?”. The answer was yes, but I didn’t say that. I said something more along the lines of ‘It just worked out’, or ‘I got lucky’. It was my version of ‘Even a squirrel can find a nut’. The reality is, I used science and an understanding of how storms typically interact with certain boundaries, and I drew a polygon based on that in order to provide the best service possible. My response, however,  made it sound like I got lucky. See the problem? I don't share this story to toot my own horn. I share it because we've all had situations where we did something well because we are good at it, but played it off as something less than skill.

I try to be careful not to make unfair assumptions, but I would venture to say that many people who respond like I did are worried about coming off as prideful. We've been taught that pride is unhealthy, so the “squirrel” response makes sense. But, I believe we’re missing the heart behind humility. Being humble doesn’t mean we shy away from things we are good at. A phrase I like to use a lot is be humbly confident. We can be confident in an ability without flaunting it. Healthy humility supports the team, unhealthy humility hurts it.

Think about this. If you regularly tell others you just got lucky, how do you think you’ll respond when your boss asks if you believe you are skilled enough to take on a particular task? Or do you think your coworkers will choose you to be the next leader of a particular team if you always give the impression that your success is by chance? It’ll be hard to get a job or new opportunity if all you ever do is tell people you’re good at finding nuts once in awhile.

In his leadership podcast, Craig Groeschel once talked about changing our approach to unhealthy thoughts. He said, "...we must change our thinking and forge a new path in our brain." He went on to say "The leader you become tomorrow will reflect the thoughts you think today."

He's not saying that we can simply declare we're good at something when we're not. But where you do excel, it certainly doesn't help you, or anyone else, to regularly downplay it. Downplaying it may seem humble, but Craig argues that in reality you're just furthering an unhealthy thought process that can have long-term ramifications. It seems to be in line with ‘we are what we eat’. If we regularly tell others that the reason we did something good was because of chance, we may begin to believe that over time. Before you know it, you may find yourself not trying as hard, passing on new opportunities, or missing important windows to help others. What starts as humility becomes an unhealthy thought process that can hurt yourself, the team you’re on, and the people you serve. The fix doesn't even have to be some elaborate answer. It can be a simple "Thanks, I appreciate you saying that.", or "Thanks. I've been trying this new idea. I can tell you more about it if you're interested.".

If your default answer to compliments is squirrels and happenstance, it’s probably going to take some discipline and time to break the bad habit. In the end, I believe you’ll find a healthier balance of humility and confidence that best supports those around you.