Conference Leaders

I was recently reading a blog written by Gretchen Rubin, a best selling author and dedicated blogger. She is an outstanding writer and I know you will enjoy reading her blog.

She is currently working on a “Happiness Project” in which she looks at every aspect of life to help people find greater happiness. In her December 19, 2007 weekly tips column, she wrote about the importance of humility.  While her humility post has relevance to virtually all people, I found it particularly relevant for conference leaders. 

Many web conference/meeting presenters could achieve far greater success if they adopted a few of Gretchen’s tips. While most presenters are outstanding, never-the-less, several fail to recognize that the participants are real people with intelligence and insight.  Participants deserve respect. Presenters that embrace humility find that their audiences are more open to information and ideas…and more likely to return to future events.

A special thank you to Gretchen for allowing me to reproduce her humility tips aptly titled:  “Twelve tips to avoid seeming like an arrogant, know-it-all jerk.”  I am certain you will find them as valuable as I did.

“Humility is having consideration for others, appreciation for their views, curiosity about their lives, openness to correction and education by them, willingness to be interested and amused, a sense of deference, respect, and fellowship.

Here are some tips for showing humility:

1. Offer meaningful compliments: “You have a good memory,” “You obviously know a lot about this subject.” Empty, automatic compliments like “Great tie!” don’t count.

2. Give credit to others: “The team did all the work,” “Pat came up with this idea.” It’s pointless to begrudge others their due, because being generous with giving credit does NOT minimize your own contribution.

3. Ask questions and allow others to supply information. I’ve even seen some good leaders ask questions to which they knew the answers, merely to allow others the chance to demonstrate what they know. This is a challenge for me. I am a real know-it-all. It’s hard for me to ask for help, to say, “I don’t know” or keep quiet while others respond.

4. Admit error! It’s SO HARD to say “You were right, I was wrong” or “This was my fault,” but so important. Also, it’s a key to leadership. As my father once told me, “If you’ll take responsibility for failure, you’ll be given responsibility for decisions.

5. Remember other people’s names and the details of their lives. How many times have you heard people complain that “So-and-so has met me five times, but never remembers me”? It hurts people’s feelings. Unfortunately, I have a terrible time with names, so I developed some coping strategies for dealing with that.

6. Call on others for their specific contributions: “Pat is our expert on that,” “Lee, what do you think?

7. Laugh at yourself. Few things are as winning as people who are willing to poke fun at their own foibles. This doesn’t mean saying, “I’m so clueless” and waiting for everyone to cry, “Oh, no, you’re great!” It means honestly laughing at your idiosyncrasies and mistakes.

8. Refuse to take offense. Part of humility is not taking yourself too seriously and not getting your back up. Pride takes offense at an undermining comment, humility shrugs it off.

9. Teasing. One way of showing fellow feeling is teasing people – gently. People liked to be joshed, but not about anything sensitive.

10. Remember your limits. You’re just one person. You’re not infallible. It actually IS possible that you’re wrong.

11. Don’t be a bore. It’s pride to assume that others are as interested in the minutiae of your life as you are.

12. Be courteous to others, no matter who they are. William Lyon Phelps wrote, "The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.’”