WORKPLACE COLLABORATION
Honesty Humility
HAND IN HAND – HONESTY AND HUMILITY
word ‘character’, our next stop is at H – honesty and humility. Honesty and humility can be opposite sides of the same coin. If you have one without the other, then you become unbalanced. Picture only you sitting on a see-saw. Your feet are surrounded by dirt, your knees are bent, and the seat is resting on the ground. You look straight ahead and up and see the other ‘seat’ empty – and very high in the air. Now attach ‘honesty’ to one seat and ‘humility’ to the other. One ‘seat’ is much higher, and in a sense, much stronger, than the other. Let’s begin with definitions from
merriam-webster.com:
Honesty: fairness and straightforwardness of conduct; adherence to the facts
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DOMmagazine.com | mar 2017
Humility: freedom from pride or arrogance Face it, you can be honest and you can BE HONEST. Take this situation …. one of your direct reports suggested a solution at your meeting. Afterwards, he asked you what you thought of his suggestion. You can answer him honestly by saying “It was not a very good idea because you did not address these elements: blah- blah-blah”. You are being honest and straightforward with him, correct? How do you imagine he will take your answer to his question? Probably not very well; you raised only the negatives in his response and were honest to the point of being blunt. Let’s add a dose of humility – an
appreciation for the perspective of the other person – and your response may be like this: “You bring up some good points…” or “It’s a good idea…” and continue with
BY DR. SHARI FRISINGER
HAVING ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER IS LIKE SITTING ON A SEE-SAW ALONE Continuing our exploration of the
“Let’s explore this in a bit more detail” or “Let’s walk through how this would play out”. Now not only have you engaged the person in a discussion, you are coaching and mentoring them in looking at the bigger picture, and you are showing you are interested in their ideas and their professional development. All by adding humility. Honesty, based on ‘fairness’ and
‘reality’, can be different for each individual person. We are a product of our experiences and our hopes, and most definitely our emotions. Remember: emotions are nothing more than data to be considered when making decisions and when interacting with others. What your reality shows is a fair and honest assessment of the situation could very well be perceived as playing favorites or penalizing a person. It’s all in the individual perception of the situation.
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