Devon is a technical genius. He must be, because he typically spends much of his day telling everyone in earshot how brilliant his solutions are and how dumb everyone else’s are. He likes to work alone and will accept no advice or direction from anyone, including his boss. He tells others how to do their jobs, even those he has no experience with. He has zero concern for the success of his team or meeting business deadlines. He wants to do his own thing, which is always the right thing, no matter what anyone else says.

Do you know or work with a Devon? He’s obviously a fictional character taken to the extreme. But sadly, many technical professionals share his attitude on some level. What word would you use to describe him? I’m sure you can think of many—including a few colorful ones—but for the purposes of this article I’ll narrow it for you down to one.

Arrogant.

Now—flip it and think of a word to describe the opposite of Devon. Again, I’m sure there are many to choose from, but based on the title of this article, you probably guessed the one I have in mind.

Humble.

In my previous Insight article, I explained how empathy—one of the five pillars of effective communication I describe in my book, Communication: the IT Professional’s Secret to Success—is critical to building strong relationships and advancing your career as a technical professional. Humility is another one of those pillars, and like empathy, it is often overlooked as a key factor to success in the workplace. It also may not seem like a component of communication, but the pillars I focus on are less about the mechanics of communication and more about the attitude driving what you say and how you say it.

Everyone will ultimately pick up on the attitude you’re communicating and react accordingly, which will have a significant impact on your relationships and career. Let’s look at how you can effectively and genuinely communicate an attitude of humility to set you up for success.

On Arrogance

Before I get to humility, though, I want to first illustrate how the opposite attitude harms career growth, as some people tend to believe that a little arrogance can help a person advance their career. Dictionary.com defines “arrogance” as: “Offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.” You can see from both definitions that arrogance by nature doesn’t attract others, it repels. “Offensive.” “Overbearing.” These traits are toxic to a work environment and to your career.

I know this from experience in working with other arrogant people and with myself (unfortunately). This was especially true early in my career when I knew nothing about anything but acted as if I knew everything about everything and was incapable of making a mistake. Sometimes I acted cocky to (try to) be funny, but it certainly wasn’t always taken that way. In fact, it actually resulted in one of my coworkers asking to move seats so she wouldn’t have to sit next to me (ouch). Do you think it helped my career to be known as the guy people didn’t want to sit next to, much less work with?

Beyond the interpersonal issues arrogance creates, it also makes one more vulnerable to mistakes—something else I have personal experience with. One pivotal example springs to mind immediately.

Back when I was a technical analyst for a media company (my first tech job), I was working alone one evening, charged with installing a tax update into our production system. The process required a series of detailed steps to be executed sequentially and precisely and typically took a couple of hours to complete. As I was nearing the final step, I realized I had never executed a key step when applying the same tax update in our Test environment. This meant none of our testing had been valid, and it would be a risk to go live with the update. I called my boss and let him know, and the decision was made to back out the update, retest everything (no small task), and perform the installation another evening several weeks later.

Wow—that sucked. The reason I missed that key step in the test environment was that I had tried executing the lengthy process from memory. I liked to think that I had a perfect memory and didn’t need to follow a written checklist. Well, that arrogance led to a bad and public mistake, as I let down the team I worked with, forcing them to retest everything they had already tested, while an announcement went out to the HR, Benefits, and Payroll departments that the update they had expected was being postponed.

I was humiliated. And I knew that the situation was entirely my fault, caused by my arrogance.

From Arrogance to Humility

I had a choice on how to respond. I could’ve acted like our friend Devon would have: deflecting blame, making up excuses—anything to avoid taking responsibility and keep my ego from being bruised. Or, in my humiliation, I could have accepted responsibility openly, showing some humility, allowing my ego to take the hit it deserved (and needed), and enacting concrete steps to prevent such a large mistake from recurring in the future.

I think you know the choice I made since this is an article on humility.

Because of that choice and the attitude I consequently communicated to my team and leadership through my words and actions, the mistake I made was quickly forgiven, and trust was ultimately restored. I created a checklist of steps that, in the future, I would mark off as I worked through the tax update installation process in both Test and Production (something obvious I should have done from the beginning). The Project Manager continued to task me with installing the tax updates, and I never made that same mistake again.

In fact, that very public mistake stuck in my mind and helped shape the way I approached work on a daily basis. To this day, I am much more careful, checking and double-checking everything of consequence I do, no longer assuming I couldn’t possibly have made a mistake the first time. And though I’ve made plenty of other mistakes in my career, I’ve never made a similarly public and embarrassing one like the tax update mistake. On a side note, as I started to grow in humility (and become less obnoxious), I developed quite a good working relationship—and even friendship—with the person I had initially inspired to seek a new seating arrangement. And though we have followed separate career paths since we worked at that company, we remain in touch and good friends to this day.

Arrogance vs. Humility

I’ve worked with my share of arrogant people and humble people. I’ve been arrogant and I’ve been humble. There is a clear contrast between the two attitudes and the results each produces.

People don’t want to be around arrogant people, and they definitely don’t want to work with them. They ooze condescension and the attitude that “I’m better than you,” including sometimes to their own boss and senior leadership.

I’ve never seen that type of behavior encouraged or rewarded. While some good-natured ribbing can be fun and foster team camaraderie, true arrogance is totally different and damages team dynamics and the quality of their output. Someone like Devon may not care if his team does well, preferring instead to hunker down and produce independently; but, regardless of how technically smart Devon may be or how strong his output, someone like him will generally end up stuck in that place of arrogant solitude, never being given roles with greater responsibility, as they would require trusted working relationships that he never cultivated. And he will likely spend his days frustrated and bitter, wondering why no one can see and reward the brilliance he so obviously exudes.

Having said all that, there are, of course, many arrogant people who are indeed high up in leadership, but that doesn’t mean they got there by being arrogant. They may have hidden it well at first, or they may have become arrogant after reaching their prestigious positions. It’s definitely harder to remain humble as you advance and achieve greater success. But without that humility, no matter how high you climb, you will limit your ability to climb even higher for all the reasons mentioned above.

Also, when you think you can do no wrong, there is no self-reflection or hesitation about the work you’re performing. Something will get missed (as it did when I installed the tax update) and may even lead to a big fall either by angering the wrong senior leader or making a significant blunder that, at a higher level, can’t be easily fixed (I’ve seen this, too). If this happens and you have communicated a consistent pattern of arrogance, there may be no one around to defend or support you. In fact, your coworkers may be all too quick to revel in your failure.

The reverse is also true. If you consistently show humility—especially at higher levels—by respecting others and their viewpoints without acting as if you’re the smartest person in the room (even if you are), your colleagues will be more gracious when you make a mistake. You’re more likely to be quickly forgiven and allowed to keep your position.

How Do You Do It?

As previously mentioned, humility is an attitude—a choice—demonstrated by the words we use and our actions. It may not always be an easy choice to make, especially at first, but it really is as simple as understanding that you are human, you are not perfect, and everyone else around you is imperfect, too. You can choose to embrace this truth and all your shortcomings, which will open you to greater growth and learning. Humility allows you to respect others’ viewpoints, which you can show by speaking less about your own ideas and solutions, asking others for their input, actively listening and considering their ideas, and letting those ideas improve your own. You might also ask for help in areas you’re unfamiliar with—anything that demonstrates you value others’ perspectives as well as your own. Doing all these things will prevent you from suffering the sad fate of Devon. Instead, it will communicate a humble attitude, making you more likable and easy to work with. You will be more trusted by your coworkers and leadership to work well with others and perform more carefully, being fully aware of your own weaknesses. This will strengthen you, improving your odds of achieving positions of greater authority and, therefore, greater financial rewards, professional freedom, and personal satisfaction. You will also be more likely to positively impact the lives of those you work with and become a mentor of younger employees who would look up to you and learn valuable lessons from you, which is incredibly rewarding.

Humility will make you a better employee, for sure, but more importantly, it will make you a better person.

You just have to choose it.