Just like any other discipline, humility is something we have to practice to be good at. And just like other disciplines, it doesn’t matter how humble you think you are or aren’t. Only your master is qualified to assess your progress. So rather than getting wrapped up around our worthless opinions of ourself or others, let’s just work on practicing. Leave the assessment to God.

Now for a bit of word clean up. “Humility” and “humble” are horrendously misused and ill-understood. Generally, they are used to refer to someone with low self-esteem or mockingly toward someone with a massive ego pretending to not think much of him or herself. Even in church I’ve heard it defined as simply making God first. Humility is not “I Am Second.” In fact, humility has little to do with God at all; it has everything to do with our attitude and behavior toward other people.

And because we fixate on this stupidly obvious relationship of “all-powerful God first and me second,” we miss the real meaning of humility:

Not that we are second (the secret implication that others are third) but that we are all equal.

What about folks in leadership positions above others? Is it impossible to practice humble living and be a leader or wealthy or powerful? Of course not, it’s just harder. Power and status lie to us; they tell us we are more important than others – either because of our success, talents, money, or responsibility. And the only way to combat this is through deliberate measures.

We need to go back to a model of humble leadership that is actually humble.

Think of power and status as belts (in the context of karate). A CEO might equate to a black belt/sensei while an entry level person may be a white belt. Note that there is nothing intrinsically superior about the sensei; for all we know the next sensei may end up being the new guy or gal (the white belt). The point is that what differentiates us is external – it is shaped by our circumstances, abilities, and actions. And it manifests externally, as a title, responsibility, or fame (or a belt). Both the white belt and sensei are equally human.

A humble leader says “follow me” not “look at me.”

The point of leadership isn’t to be looked up to or praised or rewarded. It is a responsibility; one sensei passing on what they’ve learned to the next. This is why military leadership is so different from corporate America – this is our model. In contrast, the link from one generation to the next is all but severed in corporate America (because of competition for positions) and each generation instead basks in its own glory until the next supplants it.