Don’t mistake humility with lack of imagination

Humans climb through different stages of expertise, knowledge, wisdom through their life. You may have heard of the terms such as “Dunning Kruger effect”, or conversely the “Imposter syndrome”.

It is important to recognize the people who are climbing through the valley of despair, or slope enlightenment. So we make a fair judgement when faced with the heightened confidence of “Mt. Stupid” as this graph shows, versus the person climbing through the slope enlightenment.

The most well-known feature of the person in the valley of despair, or in slope of enlightenment is the “Imposter syndrome”, the state of feeling like a fraud.

But there are other features and traits of those in this position that may not be as visible; humility.

Because humility is such a quiet, introspective state of affairs, it can be very difficult to notice. We might judge the person as lacking in imagination, or in expressiveness, or being pessimistic, dull when expressive.

Thoughts processed through the lens of humility introspectively, can come out as pessimistic or dull to an untrained observer. In most cases, even the person themselves can report recognizing pessimism in their own opinions. But let’s not forget this might be a result of the Imposter syndrome for the said person.

This is especially important to distinguish if you are hiring people to deliver results in your business. It is difficult to assess the humble quiet person but give it little more time, and that may save you and your business a lot of headache.

We are moving towards an economy where the tech businesses are under more scrutiny than ever. The infamous “it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission”, or “act in haste, repent in leisure” may be a thing of the past when tech businesses are in effect part of our every day life.

We need to have more introspection and thought put into products and teams we build for these products.

An humble, introspective engineer might just save you a lot of trouble.

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”

Plato