みのるほど こうべをたれる いなほかな (minoruhodo koubewotareru inahokana)

* “J-WOTD” = “Japanese Word of the Day”

“Those ears of rice that bear the most grain (people in high positions) should be the ones that bow lowest”
This is a kotowaza.. Heard it used (sarcastically) today about an 偉そうな guy at work, who is supposedly a head of a division, but in fact often is found boasting to his subordinates about how many airline miles he earned on his 6 last business class work trips to the US, and how he often gets upgraded to first class because of how often he uses business class. In this sense, he should be the last person in the company to be saying anything to subordinates (who rarely get to go anywhere, let alone by business class) about how much of a “VIP of the sky” he is.