What exactly is humility?
It is letting someone else take the spotlight…
Encouraging them to shine even knowing that this could mean that you will lose them from your organization or from your team, knowing that the working relationship you have and enjoy with them might be no more…
It is letting someone else grow, even if they grow in a way that makes your position in that particular company redundant…
It is seeing others passions and giftings and encouraging them without any ‘hats’ on to try and curb them towards doing something that would benefit you or your company, truly letting them go to grow in whatever direction they need to grow in to fulfil that passion and ultimately to be happy in their career progression and growth…
What exactly is humility?
Humility is knowing your limits…
Knowing what you are good at and majoring on that rather than trying to prove to yourself and everyone else that you are really good at other things which just don’t come so naturally for you and which you need to ‘strive at’ and ‘stress over’ to make progress in (obviously this ‘self-discovery’ is a trial and error process)…
It is being able to see others for whom that task is ‘light and easy’ and to allow them to complete this work so that you can focus on what you are most passionate about, releasing others to fulfill their potential…
There are ‘doers’ and there are ‘releasers’…
There are those who are gifted to do and to keep doing, maybe learning new things to do but who find their joy in doing things, completing tasks, learning new techniques, new technical processes, becoming familiar with new technical information…
There are others who are really motivated to release others to do what is on their hearts to do, they don’t have the same desire to ‘bury their head’ in the books for hour after hour, honing in on a very fine point or topic or becoming a ‘guru’ in a particular area, these ones have a holistic viewpoint and like to see how everything and everyone can come together to achieve a great end or goal…
These ones (along with everyone else but especially these ones), to function and fulfill their calling in the business world, need humility…
We call them ‘visionary leaders’ or ‘servant leaders’, they are the opposite to the egotistical, ‘self-made’, ‘I, I, I’ type leaders who focus all the attention on themselves…
What is the point of what we do?
Our answer to this answers whether we will be a humble worker or leader…
Are we wanting to be known or are we wanting to play our part to contribute towards the wellbeing of humanity?
If we want to be known then we should sacrifice our family lives, our sleep, our health, our moral beliefs and anything else we might need to, to achieve our goal to be known…
But the image we portray to others and what we manage to convince them to believe about ourselves, is it really true?
If we sacrifice that pursuit, of being known and being ‘praised’ for what we do, and focus deeper on what the point or the purpose of our being where we are, possessing the training and giftings that we possess, the qualifications, the platform and the voice which we have been given and think, “Why am I here?”, “What can I do to serve the best interests of humanity?” then we start to see a very different path unfold…
Vision…
We’ve been working on our website (https://transparencygroup.nz, which is still under construction) at Transparency and we’ve had to think through the above in terms of the vision of the company going forward…
We’ve chosen a vision (that none of our team members have disagreed with so far and some seemed positive about when asked for feedback, which is a good start) and it is the below…
Why? Our focus is to bring together the design/build community, humanity & creation by efficiently and elegantly providing a sustainable built environment in which all, in justice, equality & dignity, can thrive and succeed, releasing people to live their dreams.
How? We believe in providing integrated design/build solutions by bringing together architecture, engineering, information technology, construction practices, land acquisition, property management and master planning to serve the design/build community, humanity & creation under one unified platform.
What? In line with Goal 11 of the United Nations Development Programme, Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, Sustainable Cities and Communities, we will focus our efforts on the residential sector, whether that be multi-storey urban village communities or single-unit dwellings, anywhere in the world, wherever the need is greatest and the benefit is most tangible.
Team…
For this vision to become a reality we as a team at transparency need to support each other and recognize our individual strengths and weaknesses, we need to support each other to realize how important we all are to make this a reality in our world…
No one of us can go out and ‘bite this off’ alone…
We need each other, we need to find out who loves what and we need to let people work in the area of their strengths (we need anyone who wants to be involved, it is the passion you feel in your heart which leads you to us)…
When someone comes through and wants to lead we need to be ready to give them a ‘hand up’ to do so, recognizing in them the humility to put others before themselves and be an ‘enabler’ and a ‘releaser’ for others to do the things and achieve the goals which they are so passionate to achieve…
To be an encourager and rewarder of those who put their heart and soul into the vision which we have committed ourselves to…
To give counsel when counsel is sought, to be available for advice when advice is sought, to be a shoulder to cry on when difficult times (as they inevitably do) come…
Character…
It is not wise to hand ‘the reins of power’ to someone who exhibits the opposite characteristics to those of humility, as pride divides and shuts down individual creativity, there is ‘no way but the highway’ (think Hitler but not for too long) when the person in authority is operating under pride…
It is all about them and an opportunity for them to prove their value, to look good and to be ‘adored’…
This shuts down creativity, productivity, and belief in those who are the doers, they feel a sadness which they might not be able to quantify but they feel like they are working to fulfill the ego of another and that is not a nice or fulfilling feeling…
Cause…
A cause is stronger than an image…
An image shaped by a cause is stable, an image shaped without a cause will crumble…
Andrew J Horton
11 July 2017
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