“I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie.” In the story, young George Washington says this to his father about the cherry tree he has damaged.
The story first appeared in 1806, in the fifth edition of Mason Locke Weems’s The Life of Washington. The book first came out in 1800. Mount Vernon, Washington’s estate, calls the story a myth.
Benjamin Franklin’s list of virtues first had twelve entries. Then “a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud,” he wrote in his autobiography, “I added Humility to my list.” Its rule was: “Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”
Franklin judged the result himself. “I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it.”
James Kouzes and Barry Posner have asked people since at least 1987 which characteristics they admire in leaders. More than 75,000 people have answered, most of them in the United States. “In almost every survey, honesty has been selected more often than any other leadership characteristic.” It was chosen by 83 percent in 1987 and by 88 percent in 1995 and 2002.
In the Harvard Business Review of January 2001, Jim Collins described the executives who had transformed their companies. He called them Level 5 leaders. “Level 5 leaders blend the paradoxical combination of deep personal humility with intense professional will.”
In a 2007 study in Administrative Science Quarterly, Arijit Chatterjee and Donald Hambrick measured the narcissism of chief executives. One of five indicators was “the prominence of the CEO’s photograph in the company’s annual report.”
They found that “more narcissistic CEOs gravitate to bold and highly visible choices.” Their companies showed “higher highs and lower lows,” but on average they did no better and no worse.
In the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Ovul Sezer, Francesca Gino and Michael Norton studied humblebragging, a boast disguised as a complaint or as modesty. They found it “less effective than straightforward bragging.” It backfires because it is “seen as insincere.”
In the first episode of The Sopranos, broadcast by HBO on January 10, 1999, Tony Soprano says: “Whatever happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type. That was an American. He wasn’t in touch with his feelings. He just did what he had to do.” Sources differ slightly on the first words.
Two of the seven Army Values are Integrity and Selfless Service. Integrity: “Do what’s right, legally and morally.” It “requires that you do and say nothing that deceives others.” Selfless Service: “Put the welfare of the nation, the Army and your subordinates before your own.”
Let your work speak for itself. Do good work and say little about it.
Actions speak louder than words. What a person does counts more than what the person says.
Walk the walk. Live up to one’s words, not only talk the talk.
Act like you’ve been there before. Said to an athlete who celebrates too much after scoring.
Nobody likes a show-off. A rebuke first heard in childhood.
In 2012 Susan Cain published Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. She described an “Extrovert Ideal”: the belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha and comfortable in the spotlight. She called Harvard Business School one of its centers.
In her TED talk the same year, she said: “There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” The book became a long-running bestseller.
Its success suggests how strong the expectation to speak is, and how many Americans feel its cost.