Being Humble- I

Being humble is one trait that can make or break a leader.  If you are humble, you respect others and you are respected by others. If you are not humble you don’t respect and you are not respected. Humble leaders will treat their teams well.  They are great motivators. They build great teams and leaders.  They get the best out the teams and teams are happy to work with them. Above all, humble leaders are good human being.

I want to narrate a real instance that I’ve come across and I’m sure you could relate to this well as we come across similar kind of instances in our day to day life.

This happened more than a decade ago when I was an HR student.  As HR final year students, we had to plan, mobilize funds and resources and organize a one-day HR conference with HR leaders across the country.  This is really a blessing in disguise since you get to face the real world, corporate work and learn many things that you would need when you get into the corporate.  You have to face the acid test since you need to work in the real world and get things done. This is really good model for the budding HR professionals.

All of us (students) have worked very hard and we were looking forward to the event. I still remember that the previous day, the student coordinators went and checked the venue and ensured that everything was taken care of.  By the time we reached home, it was at least 30 min past 12.00 PM in the night. The next day, the conference started well and we had all the speakers showing on time. Surprisingly there were no surprises.

We were looking forward to one of the most sought-after speaker from Mumbai who also came on time and started delivering his presentation. It was a gathering of around 1000 and there was a pin-drop silence when he was on the podium. It went on well until there was a problem in the PAS (Public address system) and he was not that audible enough and it was breaking as if he was speaking on a mobile phone with a poor tower. There was an attendant who quickly realized the situation and without wasting any time, he rushed up to check up the wires.  Every time, he touched the wire, the PAS was making a weird sound. I think this has really provoked the speaker and he started shouting many times on top of voice, Out , Out, Out. Out.  This was quite audible to all the 1000 participants. 

There were many who did not like what the speaker did.  There was a friend of mine who came from another B school sitting next to me got annoyed of the Speaker’s behavior and she lost all her respect for him.  Well. Her thoughts resonated with me too.

Though he was one of the most sought-after speakers, he did not know a simple value of being humble.   What the speaker did not realize was this attendant was also a human being and after all he was trying to help him and like everyone, he does have self-esteem and he would have also wanted to be treated well with little courtesy.  I think however sought after the speaker was, whatever he said carried no or very less value that day. 

During the lunch break, I saw the attendant and he looked obviously upset.  Can you imagine being shouted in front of 1000 people?  That’s very tough. 

A thought just occurred to me that he must have his family, his own life challenges like any one of us.  Irrespective his position is in that hotel, he must be an important person for his family, may be as a father or spouse or son etc., Had they seen what happened in the conference, how would they have felt? And how would he have felt? Why are we failing to treat them well?

Do stay connected. I will be sharing few more real-time examples in the forthcoming postings. 

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