“You’re all that and a bag of chips!” That’s right, I said it. You know it, I know it, we all know it! Why not start this article off with buttering up all our egos, right?
That is until I “Pride Cross Check” you and tell you you’re not because we’re in a world of nearly 8 billion people and it does not revolve around one person, place, or thing.
As a person in the business world for quite some time I’ve observed pride to be the silent killer in any organization hurting relationships and creating politics in the business that I think ultimately costs you and your business significant money. In this day and age, everyone wants a platform and a place to roar their voice to be heard with Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn posts centering around each individual, creating what I believe are pride levels inflated to levels unheard of in the 1600s-1900s. Honestly, I believe pride levels in individuals are at all time highs and it is tremendously problematic. It is both fascinating and astounding how many people boast about their own achievements everywhere on LinkedIn or Facebook and tune their audience’s eye to applaud every little or big thing they do. We’ve lost the art of obscurity and doing things when no one is looking in order to post things to let every one know as we think they’re always looking at us. The truth is people are looking and observing you, always, no doubt. But what people really want to see is who you are behind the scenes just as much as who you in front of the scenes. The authentic you, the vulnerable you, the real you. How you cut through pride, is at its core: through humility. For humility is the enemy of pride.
Proverbs 3:7 “don’t consider yourself to be wise” for the mention of anyone who thinks they’re wise is likely really not wise. As a way to cut through self proclaimed pride on one’s wisdom, talent, etc. — it is to let others affirm that in you. Moreover, don’t consider yourself overly competent for the scope of this article, because you may succumb to pride, and let others affirm that in you because they’ll not only build your reputation but your business when they do that. When you’re that competent and/or wise, your works, or your actions will speak louder than your self-proclaimed pride over yourself. For your life is a verb that people look at and is not. just. a. noun.
Thus, I’ve assembled a few imparting thoughtful concepts to help you, my reader, as well as your business apply these concepts for your benefit. These are incredibly simple and are to the point to help undercut toxic pride and I think are helpful to save many relationships, to create more, to dream more, drive more innovation, more creativity, more team work synergy, and more value within your organization when these are applied.
To further fight pride, these are to aid in our battle against pride and it centers on this idea of accountability that is seemingly becoming more needed in the business world:
'Pride Alert!': “wee oo, wee oo” like an ambulance’s siren. This is the first layer of the pride check before cross checking someone or bringing out the needle. This is where a flag on the play has been thrown and where an alert has been issued that a pride level has been consistently high for a bit of time and that that person has been abnormally narcissistic in a time where Instagram and Facebook posts already inflate one’s pride levels to levels unheard of in the 1600s-1900s. All you do is say “wee oo, wee oo.”
The Pride Cross Check: Don’t be afraid to cross check someone like a game of hockey and cross check them into the wall to wake them up, kindly of course! The Pride Cross Check is when you have the puck and are skating with it in front of people, and those around you see you consistently acting out or having too much pride. This is obviously a layer beyond the Pride Alert, because the Alert didn’t work. They can then cross check you into the boards, out of love! The leader or person getting cross checked has to be okay with that. The same concept can be used for accountability, just flare up the sound alert system, and the “wee ooo, weee oooos,” like a siren and call it an “Accountability Cross Check.”
The Needle Check: Don’t be afraid to get your pin needle out and pop the balloon of someone’s pride because with pride, everything is either inflating it or deflating it. Obviously, if it is being deflated there is no need to pop it, but in the case of a scenario where pride is inflating too much there is a need to take out the needle and pop the balloon a tad and bring someone down a notch. This is for their own benefit. The more that person is communicating that there is a culture of people who carry needles means they won’t be blindsided when this occurs whether privately or publicly.
To hit both accountability and pride within the post: Accountability is where others tell you “no,” as to what you need accountability about whether that be an area you struggle with, an area you’re blindsided by, etc., but pride needs to be where you tell yourself, “no.” Pride carries with it an intrinsic need: kill your pride so it doesn’t kill you.
Yet, I always try and go back to what I think is one the most underrated and under applied book needed in the 21st century business world: The Bible, and more specifically, the book of Proverbs within it.
Proverbs paints pride as destructive with Proverbs 16:18 saying:
“Pride comes before destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall.”
Genuinely, I find too much pride to be dangerous. Anyone with pride levels too high, I throw a flag on the play for them, remain watchful, and remain skeptical of them because I think they are a downfall in the making due to the Proverb above.
Moreover, to get into depth on why I am writing for the scope of this article, I think arrogance and pride levels in company offices, boardrooms and in C-suites across the world that are so full of pride and arrogance it is leading to so many internal company implosions and leadership downfalls. For example, pride crept in and you’re losing your competitive advantage because you’re sitting on the laurels of your past successes that you’re proud of (nothing wrong with being proud of your accomplishments), so you stopped innovating and stopped doing the very things that made your company great. These levels of success and influence or downright company success and growth must not be circumvented and should have increased coverage at each ‘level.’ The higher up you go, the greater the fall, but with the multitude of counselors along with people to hold you accountable and follow the alerts, needles, and cross checks mentioned above, there is safety. Could it quite possibly be that the higher the company gets in terms of success, the more there needs to be healthy accountable structure? Causality of growth implies the correlation for a need of structure and accountability, without it you capsize your continued ability to grow and develop. I think the more someone has tremendous influence and successes, the more they need to have and receive more council, more accountability (with people to tell them “no”), more pride cross checks, and more wisdom.
A quick theology perspective here is that God wired limits on Himself to restrain His involvement on things, creating things like the Water and Carbon Cycle, as well as gravity to hold everything down or would it not just have floated away? He literally put a vodka or a whiskey ‘fun stopper’ upon Himself to impede the flow that He won’t do whatever He wants. Moreover, He placed checks and balances on Himself in the form of giving us all autonomy and free will, meaning He doesn’t always intervene. This is particularly what is absolutely astonishing regarding our country’s constitution in that God gave our founding fathers wisdom to place checks and balances on our own system of governance giving us divine wisdom to create democracy to check the pride of leaders and groups of leaders within the three branches that could disrupt the power of a governing body.
Because pride makes you think you’re a finished good when you’re really a work in progress. As pride is the enemy of humility. Pride keeps us from asking for help, asking questions and seeking guidance especially when there is a better and more fruitful way of doing things.
The issue of today now is that man is the same role as a prior king named King Nebuchadnezzar, who essentially built an idol almost made in his image arguably to himself for people to praise and worship it. In our present day, we’re building an AI version of God arguably made in our own image (if you don’t see this happening before your very eyes, you’ve absolutely been blinded and pride will blind you from seeing what is actually occurring, this is a significant problem), we’re trying to genetically customize our future children, trying to influence monkey’s thoughts in their brain to create desired actions or behaviors via brain signals, we’re being told we can be our own god and effectively have no rules, limits or morality with some states effectively destroying laws that would have typically criminalized higher crimes, the Silicon Valley is trying to investigate ways for us to live forever, and pride levels are at an all time high as Instagram is all about the individual and the spotlight to glean likes or favorites further cementing one’s pride.
The narcissism levels of today, I would say, are honestly higher than the pride of Nebuchadnezzar where people only focus on themselves and not on the other. For we never saw people like Isaac Newton post on Instagram after he just cemented on the three Laws of Motion saying on Instagram, “look at me, I’d like to thank me, myself, and I for the scientific discovery of the three Laws of Motion that have effectively changed physics forever.” Hopefully he knew how to give credit to where credit was due: to assistants, to people around him, etc, to take the focus off himself. Man is not God and man will never be God.
Your pride will cost you what God gave you, your pride will make you think you’re greater than God’s leadership over your life, your pride will trick you into thinking that everything God was doing through your leadership was you all along, your pride will make you put the glory upon yourself instead of deferring the glory upon the One who truly craves it and designed all of life to attest to His craftsmanship and His glory, and your pride will trick you into thinking you’re a finished product when you’re really a work-in-progress. The idea of the finished product concept is that pride will stifle your innovation when you should never lose that innovative edge within your business because you think or thought the version of your product or service is forever timeless and will always be desired.
To further combat pride, its downfalls, related toxic culture implications, is building a culture on humility that encourages failure, learning from it, to encourage thinking small while reinforcing big picture thinking, and to encourage being very detail oriented which can drastically improve processes, services, and more. “The devil is in the details.” You can’t be ‘a big picture person’ and not be in the weeds of details to drive results!
On the enemy of pride, Proverbs 22:4 says, “The result of humility is fear of the Lord, along with wealth, honor, and life.”
Pride will say no to feedback and say no to correction whereas humility will immediately tune its ear to feedback and correction to improve things.
Pride will make you shut down when criticism comes your way, humility loves to hear criticism because it wants to get better because it doesn’t think it has arrived or will ever arrive.
Pride will get to the top and want to receive all the accolades, but humility will defer the glory.
Pride says “me,” “me,” “me” on this team whereas humility would say “we.”
Lastly, see my post on “The Utility of Your Humility: Why it Belongs on your List of Top 5 Values” hyperlinked below for a follow up on why humility is the way over pride and, while not mentioned in that article, is a way to increase organizational effectiveness, team development, and innovation.
https://www.ryanegelston.com/post/the-utility-of-your-humility-why-it-belongs-on-your-list-of-top-5-values
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