The following quotation was included in the bulletin of East Liberty Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, PA on Sunday, October 30, 2016 under the heading “Time of Preparation”
“Grant unto us, O Lord, the gift of modesty. When we speak, teach us to give our opinion quietly and sincerely. When we do well in work or play, give us a sense of proportion, that we be neither unduly elated nor foolishly self-deprecatory. Help us in success to realize what we owe to thee and to the efforts of others; in failure, to avoid dejection; and in all ways to be simple and natural, quiet in manner and lowly in thought; through Christ.” — Cardinal Joseph Bernardin
This quote reminds us to be modest: As followers of Christ, in all things we do we are to be simple, quite and not full of self import. When we speak, we are to do so quietly and sincerely. When we do well and are successful, we are to remember God’s part and the contribution of others to our success. And when we fail do not fall into a state of dejection. I think this is sound advice both theologically and for leadership. For those that lead, there is a temptation to get caught up in leadership and to “feel important” and to take credit for successes and point fingers for failures. Rarely do we accomplish things solely on our own – either in the corporate world or in the church community. Leaders need to be able to listen as well as speak and to recognize the gifts and contributions of others.
For one of the software development projects that I am currently managing, I scheduled a steering committee meeting tomorrow. It is with senior executives to report the status of the project. This is a growth project that will, when finished and implemented, generate additional revenue for the financial institution. It would be easy for me, as the project manager, just to give the update. Instead, I wanted to recognized the significant contributions of the technical and quality assurance teams and have asked the leads in these areas to give the update. I will begin the meeting with a quick overall status and will highlight these two areas and their leads for the outstanding jobs that they have done in overcoming significant obstacles in the execution of the project. As the project manager, I do not see myself as being “front and center” but my role is to ensure that the project is completed on-time/on-budget and that means getting the best team possible, removing obstacles from their path and enabling them to do the best job possible.
Some of our readings have illustrated points that align with the quote from Bernardin. Garrido writes about administrative work which is often behind the scenes and typically not highly visible. Garrido identifies traits that are important in this work including integrity and humility. Those traits are consistent with the Bernardin quote. Similarly, the work we are reading on Emotional Intelligence demonstrates that both personal competence and social competence are important in or ability in our interactions with others.