Modesty
May 25, 2010
In the front page of last Tuesday’s New York Times was an article that revealed that Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal repeatedly for years, misrepresented his military career by claiming that he had served in Vietnam while he had not.
Why did he do that? Did he really think that no one would find out?
Mr. Blumenthal has an exemplary career as a special assistant to Katherine Graham the publisher of the Washington Post. He later worked at the Nixon White House and was a member of the U.S. House of Representative. He is now running for the U.S. Senate.
That revelation has damaged his reputation and might jeopardize his chances of becoming a U.S. Senator.
We are all tempted to exaggerate our accomplishments and diminish our failures in our resumes, and in the way we present ourselves to others. This is unfortunate because it is to the detriment of character and integrity.
Being honest about ourselves and modest about our accomplishments as well as acknowledging our mistakes and failures builds trust and respect. It also gives us psychological strength that comes from being truthful with ourselves and others.
It is better to be underestimated and then to surprise than to be overestimated and to disappoint!
The ideal of course is to be as truthful as possible.
Modesty and humility has lost much of its appeal in our society yet they are of solid values. They are a good antidote to arrogance. Arrogance has led a number of individuals and corporations to disaster.
Moises Naim in an article published by the Financial Times entitled “The Roost of Corporate Scandals” lists arrogance as one of the reasons that led American executives to “think that they could get away with hiding billions of dollars in corporate losses or invent staggering amounts of non-existent revenues.”
Dr. Adalat Khan, professor of Business Administration at the American University in Hawaii lists arrogance as one of the “Top Leadership Mistakes Worth Avoiding”. He says, “perhaps the most fatal of all mistakes for a leader is arrogance … blind overconfidence in one´s capabilities, dismissing good ideas from others, and too much pride in oneself are some of the hallmarks of an arrogant leader.”
Cicero once said:
“Modesty is that feeling by which honorable shame acquires a valuable and lasting authority.”
Comments (1)
May 26th, 2010 at 8:19 am Posted by betsy
the grammatical errors in this blog kill me! love the articles and get so excited when i see them in my email inbox but the grammar needs some double checking. ie: when meaning to use the term “our”, the writer wrote “are”. thanks again for a great article, RF.
Post Your Comment
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)