Note 
from Art: One of the true joys of my blogging experience comes from meeting and collaborating with some remarkable people. Mary Jo Asmus is one of those remarkable people. She writes an outstanding leadership blog offering powerful and relationship-focused perspectives on all things leadership. I don’t miss a post of hers and encourage you to check out her site and make certain to subscribe. We collaborated a few months ago for Two Voices on: The Words of a Leader, and enjoyed the experience and the reactions so much that we vowed to do it again.
Well, we’re back. Mary Jo reached out to me a few weeks ago and raised the topic of “Humility and the Leader,” and we were both so interested in exploring this issue that we went off to our separate corners and the output is reflected in the two posts below. While the posts don’t necessarily reflect a point-counterpoint perspective, they do bring two unique perspectives to what turned out to be a challenging issue. My gut indicates that we might even elicit some interesting feedback from the many thoughtful readers that frequent our respective blogs.
OK, enough of my blathering and time to get to the posts. Thanks, Mary Jo for your inspiration!
—
Humility and the Effective Leader-Mary Jo’s Thoughts
So often, when we think of leadership, we think in terms of the charismatic leader, or the bold leader. We think of leaders as bigger than life, exuding confidence and perhaps, arrogance.
For most, “humility” isn’t a word that comes to mind when considering the leaders we think we know. This is unfortunate, because the best leaders I know have been able to stay self confident without crossing the line into arrogance through the simple act of remaining humble. It isn’t easy, especially for leaders who’ve had big success.
When we are humble, we understand and invite the gifts that others bring to our effective leadership.
When we are humble, we invite participation by others.
When we are humble, we are open to new learning.
When we are humble, we have empathy and compassion.
Arrogance breeds behavior that isn’t inclusive, diverse of thought, creative, or enlightening. We know that we are not humble when we’ve become arrogant.
How do we know when we’ve crossed the line into arrogance?
Be vigilant. Listen to yourself. You’ve crossed the line into arrogance when:
- You take all the credit: real leaders know that their success is a group effort. When we are humble, credit goes to all who share in your success.
- You are the smartest person in the room: learning has ceased. You feel as if you have nothing new to learn from those around you. When we are humble, we are in a state of inquiry; not knowing all the answers, which allows us to continually learn.
- You judge those around you as “less” than yourself: you’ve put yourself on a pedestal. Nobody can do anything better than you can. It’s not important where you are in relation to everyone else. What is important is that we push our own edges outward to continually evolve.
- You’ve lost empathy and compassion: you just can’t seem to identify with those in a tough spot or feel sympathy for those in sorrow. When we are humble, we can walk in the shoes of others and we can reach out to them.
Are you staying humble, or have you crossed the line into arrogance? Spend some time thinking about this question and asking for feedback from those you trust on what they are observing in your behavior. And if you’ve crossed the line, call your executive coach to help you get back to humility.
—
Humility and the Effective Leader-Art’s Thoughts
I concede the dictionary war to all of you that will turn to the word “humility” and see a definition that says, “a modest or low view of one’s own importance; humbleness,” or, something as profound as “the quality or state of being humble.”
These are not definitions and words that you tend to associate with successful leaders, and yet, I cannot help but observe that many of the most impactful and successful individuals that I’ve worked with and around have an element of humility in their demeanor and an approach that exudes a quiet but positive self-confidence.
Is humility one of the secret ingredients of successful leaders?
To me, humility in a leader is best described as having the self-confidence borne of experience to be comfortable in your own leadership skin, without having to project to the world that you’re on top and in charge.
To be humble as a leader does not mean that you are weak, but rather that you are thoughtful, considerate and confident in the people around you and their ability to solve problems and learn and solve more problems.
It takes time and experience and self-awareness and raw courage to develop and project humility and confidence at the same time. Both are essential.
We generally don’t come into the leadership world with a sense of humility. Many of the mistakes of early leaders stem from a misguided belief that To Assert = To Lead.
Unfortunately, many carry this belief in assertion equals leadership with them as they climb the ladder. The earlier over-stated and over-projected self-confidence often evolves into arrogance and then hubris. The collateral damage from the leaders that follow this evolutionary path is huge.
The path towards confident humility is considerably more difficult and is filled with its own opportunities for derailment. Those that act humble may be misperceived as weak or uncertain. The To Assert =To Lead crowd likes to hire their own kind in some form of twisted Darwinian practice that ensures the survival of their kind, fully understanding that they may very well be hiring the individual that steps on their back in the climb up the ladder.
Alternatively, I submit that humble leaders are never weak. Like some martial arts experts, they have the skills to strike and defeat, but choose to use them only to defend or to fight for what is right. Fighting or striking out is the last resort of the incompetent who lack the wisdom and intellectual tools and substance to fight fair over concepts and ideas. One of the strengths of the humble leader is that everyone knows that he or she is capable of fighting and winning. This “walk softly and carry a big stick” approach buys the ability for the leader to cultivate his or her humility.
Like so many difficult tasks in life, there is no magic pill or simple guidance that anyone can offer on becoming an effective leader. You learn by doing and YOU choose your own style. I regard leadership both as a profession and as a journey and I encourage people that when they come to the fork in the road on choosing a leadership style, to turn away from the To Assert = To Lead path and start down the more difficult road and spiritual journey that focuses on others over self. I also encourage them to keep their eyes wide open and carry a big stick.
The Bottom Line:
Never underestimate the ability of the quietly confident and slightly humble leader to inspire others to move mountains.
Art, excellent post. I agree that being grounded and humble is a very important aspect of being to relate to your followers as a leader.
Hi Art– I full-heartedly agree with your view on humble leaders, because their followers, or, employees, will respect them much more if they are relatable and down to earth. More times than not, it has been my experience that leaders who are riding on their high horse tend NOT to get the respect that quiet leaders do who “carry big sticks.” As my parents always told me, those who talk more, and are more agressive with their opinions, etc. tend not to be as knowledgable, confident or educated. (A squacking bird that won’t be quiet always came to mind for some reason). I do see, however, when one is in a position of power or leadership, being humble is a conscience desision that requires work in itself.
Cecelia, very wise thoughts. It truly does take a conscious decision to remain humble. Thanks so much for reading and commenting!
Debbie, thanks for reading and sharing your agreement!
-Art
Art;
I fully agree with your opinion of leaders needing to be humble. Leaders who live with a high degree of humility are selfless. Not only that, but they are people you as an employee can feel comfortable around. They are people you feel comfortable around and won’t be intimidated to share your opinion to. Leaders who get too caught up in their own power and self image lose sight of what is really important, and that is setting a good example for those employees you are expected to lead. When you are a leader who lacks humility, employees almost view you as alien. You are viewed as someone who it is hard to communicate with; you don’t much about and are impossible to relate to. Bottom Line: leaders who lack humility are impossible to relate to and are useless within the work place.
Until next time, have a good one Art!
I love this post, but I find discussions of “humility” to be troublesome. In this discussion we’ve contrasted humility and arrogance, which makes it a kind of interpersonal behavior. But in the spiritual disciplines, humility is defined as “submissiveness,” making it a mental construct.
When Benjamin Franklin worked to develop the virtue of “humility,” he struggled to find a phrase that would guide him. He finally settled on” “Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”
Hi Art,
Nice post on this topic of humble leaders. I enjoyed getting yours and Mary Jo’s points of view. You guys both made excellent points. I liked Mary Jo’s thoughts on how to know when you’ve crossed the line into arrogance and I think you presented some really good analogies with the martial arts instructor as well as the “walk softly and carry a big stick” quote. I think this is a real important topic for leaders to understand, because humble leaders are the ones that are most respected within organizations, they are the people that someone like myself wants to work for. The thing that interests me is if it’s better to start more confident and borderline arrogant and work down into a humble role, or whether it is better to start off humble and build confidence. I wonder this since I myself have at times struggled with confidence and know that building confidence can be difficult. Thanks for the good read on this!
Art, great post. It also seems to be the case that when someone speaks of a leader that they have great respect for, they always open with “he or she is so down to earth.” Humility goes a long way, and it is something that everyone notices and appreciates.
Great post, Art and Mary Jo!
It seems that the leaders that get all the attention are the ones that are overly-charismatic and perhaps not humble. I don’t want to simply blame the media, but it is true that a story about an aggressive, in-your-face, egotistical leader is more interesting (and sells more books, magazines, newspapers, etc.) than one about a more humble leader. It’s easy to believe that humble and success don’t go together if you simply follow the leaders that get all the attention, but you two point out that’s not necessarily the case. Thank you for that!
Art and Mary Jo,
Great article and great points. I would submit that in today’s business world, the only way for a leader to truly be succeed is to be humble, give their workforce every tool that they need to suceed based on their tasks and abilities and get out of the way. Workers will actually respect their boss more than if the boss is constantly browbeating them and micromanaging. Workers will also enjoy their jobs more. This is the key to optimal production: employees’ satisfaction with their job.
In addition, I would say that while learning is important for workers to succeed, it is even more important for leaders. Leaders must set the agenda, goals, tone, and example for what they expect from their employees. They must then impart and apply this knowledge to their work force. Since the tone comes from leaders, it is most important that they must be able to learn. Their inclination to believe that they are the smartest people in the room must give way to humility to inspire their work force to the best results.
-Mark
Art,
This is a great insight! Working for a continually humble leader with an open mind is something I would love to get to do in my career.
However, it seems to me that most often leaders get less humble the longer they are in power. Perhaps the idea of being “the king” has gone to their heads, or perhaps they have just grown more and more sure in their own methods over time (likely due to positive experience). According to this post, a leader like that would be less effective than a humble leader. But isn’t it true that in order for one to be a leader for a long period of time one must also be successful? Why is it that long tenured leaders (who be definition must be successful) are often the least humble? Does this suggest that leaders who lack humility may be as successful as their more humble counterparts?
For many years the corporate community has engaged in annual self-appraisals that recognize our strengths and weaknesses building on our strengths and educating to over-come our weaknesses. We have labeled our “Subject Matter Experts” as leaders and placed them on pedestals with expectations that they will be able to set the pace for the future. Our SME’s tend to be more aggressive and more likely promoted to higher positions, evolving into our leaders though not necessarily change advocates for change may create an imbalance in the SME’s effectiveness. Humility is recognized in the revered knight in shining armor who sacrifices much to protect and serve. Yes, they are our best and most admired leaders but do we actually see this characteristic in our corporate leaders? Unfortunately humility is not often revealed until a mistake occurs or at the end of a long, drawn out proven point. Our quiet thinkers are often over-looked and disregarded as “tedious” or “not on board” with the quick fix, aggressive leadership we have cultivated.