Humility; The Unsung Leadership Quality

Humility; The unsung Leadership quality

Ask 50 people to define leadership and you are likely to get close to 50 different definitions. Likewise, ask them what the key qualities of a leader are, and you will be offered dozens; some, like integrity, resilience, adaptability, courage, confidence, strength, vision, and open communication are often talked about, however, humility is not.

I recently moderated a panel of 4 senior executives, each from different industries, Pharmaceuticals, Investment Banking, Media, and Fin/tech, each with very different backgrounds, operating business models, and market drivers. We were discussing Leadership Qualities, and the usual suspects, as mentioned above, were debated with examples and rationales. Refreshingly when humility was put forward, an interesting debate ensued.

A division arose, respectably, but still divisive. There were those that rated the more traditional performance-orientated qualities (E.g., persistence, decisiveness, strength, confidence, accountability) and some more the “softer”, more people-orientated qualities (E.g., empathy, self-awareness, open-mindedness, and humility). In particular 2 felt humility was one of the most valuable leadership qualities. No one knows everything, can be right all the time or can grow without feedback, being informed by those around them, or without taking others’ views into account.

I wondered at the time whether their difference of opinions was due to their preferences based on their own personal strengths, their growth experiences in their organizational culture, their mindset of how they view and approach their own Leadership responsibility based on their personal value system or a combination of all? I suspect the latter.

Consider the summation of humility as a leadership quality by Amy Y. Ou et al (2014), “Humility is manifested in self-awareness, openness to feedback, appreciation of others, low self-focus, and pursuit of self-transcendence. Humble people willingly seek accurate self-knowledge and accept their imperfections while remaining fully aware of their talents and abilities. They appreciate others’ positive worth, strengths, and contributions and thus have no need for dependency on entitlement or dominance over others.”

Reading and absorbing the positive intent in this summation of humility as a leadership quality, it is hard to argue against its value.

Leadership is a psychological construct, an individual’s hypothesized representation of their reality, and as such everyone’s own interpretation of Leadership informs their leadership behaviors. While my personal belief is everyone is entitled to their own opinion, if we would look at Leaders and the culture they create from the perspective of their teams, would their teams not rank the humility of their Leaders as a higher-level quality?

Ask yourself how your team would generally describe you and the culture you create. I am sure most of us would choose to be described as “with humility rather than with arrogance”.

As Leaders, your thoughts and behaviors set the tone for those that look up to you, and perhaps humility is something to aspire to rather than arrogance.

Simon Crockett

Founder and Head Coach

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1. Amy Y. Ou et al, Humble Chief Executive Officers’ Connections to Top Management Team Integration and Middle Managers’ Responses, Administrative Science Quarterly, Volume 59, January 8, 2014