I grew up in Benin, in a culture where humility is highly valued. People who come across as boastful or arrogant are promptly criticized and ostracized.
Back then, I understood humility as the opposite of arrogance. Humility sounded like a sort of understatedness where the world is just and individuals need not self-advocate. For, what they deserve, they will get.
I only started to see the light much later in life with my first job in Germany and through coaching others later on.
Below are four stories of how “humility” failed and how self-advocacy won bigger salaries, bonuses and allowances.