Leadership & Humility: the test of the 10 commandments!

I had the opportunity to attend a theology and philosophy orientation class last Saturday. I had one of the greatest lesson in humility that I never had. I’m glad to share it with you.

I have been postponing, thinking, and rethinking about this class for the last five years. I am still thinking about it. But, last Saturday, I was there eager to learn about this new spiritual journey.

The leader of the class had a good introduction. He shared some basic truths about life issues, and he invited us to reflect on humility and what we think we know.

We were around 30. We learned about the time commitment and the coursework.

Then at the end, the orientation leader asked us to be ready for a simple test. He handed out blank sheets of paper, pens, and told us to be ready for our first test.

“You don’t need to put your name, and this will not count in your point average,” he said asking us to just fold the paper and leave it on his desk when we are done and take a coffee break.

I felt relieved by then. I don’t like to take test and above all in such a condition.

“Are you ready,” he asked us. “Don’t

use google, books, anything, and name in order the 10 commandments “.

“WAOH! What a test”, sighed my closed neighbor.

I sucked. The only thing I did right was to put the number 1 to 10 in a vertical order.

And I name 4 commandments I barely remembered in no specific order. I took my time before I folded my paper and put it on the table shortly after 3 other colleagues.

I made sure I was not the first one to finish.

I left the classroom, rushed to the cafeteria, grabbed a cup of coffee with cream and sugar thinking I ddon’t know what I don’t know, and a lot of things I think I know aren’t so.

I looked at one of my colleagues and I felt as embarrassed as he was in our ignorance.

Posted

January 22, 2016

Uncategorized

Roosevelt

Tags:

Comments

3 responses to “Leadership & Humility: the test of the 10 commandments!”

Olson Ornevil

January 22, 2016

Tx Prof!

Olson

________________________________

Reply
Marie-Josee

January 23, 2016

Thanks for sharing with us! I don’t think that I could have done any better! And that’s scary, if we don’t know the 10 commandments then how can we follow them?

Reply
Joseph Adelson

January 23, 2016

Roosevelt thank you for sharing with us your insight , I really appreciated your article. First of all, it helped you to see how we forgot things with the time. Secondly, it helped you to test your humility by being honest with yourself ” you don’t know what you don’t know and some stuff you thought you know but you forgot” Your article helped me to test myself and I realized that I don’t remember also more than four of the commandments that I knew by heart in my youth.
With the development of new technology it’s easy to grab our devices to look for anything which has an impact on our memory. “If we don’t use it we loose it”
I think you did the right thing when you don’t google it to find the write answer. You maybe feel ashamed like me to don’t remember this basic stuff. However, you should be proud of yourself to remain honest and humble in taking responsibility of this low score which increased your leadership capacity. Your article reminds me about a Word Press Blogs I wrote in 2011 about Leadership. Authentic Leaders that’s what the world is missing today.
Félicitations!
Joseph

Reply