Humility & Truth Seeking

I've always placed a lot of value on people who are humble. I've written about it here. I've always thought about humility in the context of getting better at what you do. If you have the humility to know that you aren't the best at everything, that drives you to improve. And of course it makes you much more fun to work with. 

I had a conversation with someone the other day who pointed out another reason why humility is such a great attribute: it's a signal that you see the world clearly. If you have the humility to see your weaknesses (which we all have) and to understand that whatever success you've had required the support of lots of luck and lots of support from other people, then you see the world more clearly than someone that doesn't. And an undervalued skill in the workplace is the ability to see the world clearly. To seek the truth.

An executive's job is to make good decisions. You can't make good decisions if you're not seeing the world as it is. Being able to see the world as it is might be the most important thing an executive can do. Often once you know the truth, making the decision is often the easy part. Humble people are naturally better at this. and this is just another reason why that value is so important in the workplace.