The Power Of Leading With Humility
The Power Of Leading With Humility
What does humility in leadership look like to you?
High-achieving leaders have ambition, drive and resilience. They are confident, fight for their business, and push their teams to get the best results.
The best leaders balance these traits with humility.
High drive with equally high humility.
For leaders, the power of being humble is often overlooked. Traditionally, leadership has been the domain of the ‘strong leader’ and the ego. No place for humility and vulnerability.
Thankfully, being humble is no longer seen as a sign of weakness. In fact, humility has been found to be one of the essential qualities for successful managers today.
Yet knowing exactly what it looks like in practice and getting it right isn’t always easy.
Humility isn’t about self-deprecation or being timid. It is about seeing yourself for what you are, your strengths and your potential, and recognising the weaknesses and traits that hold you back. It means being open-minded, willing to listen, and grateful for others’ contributions. Humble leaders believe that they can become better than they are; a work in progress that is continuing to grow.
It also means showing compassion; for yourself and for those around you.
For those with a perfectionist streak who tend to be tough on themselves, that can be hard.
It takes courage to fail and admit to failing, especially if you believe that things should be perfect first time round.
Finding the sweet spot between confidence and humility is the key.
So, this week, to help you bring more humilty into your leadership style, here are six things to reflect on.
Reflect: If you’re a leader who doesn’t like to show too much emotion at work, thinking about how to be more open about your successes and failings can be uncomfortable. And being humble doesn’t mean being fake.
Take a moment and reflect:
What does humility in leadership mean to you?
What opportunities exist to bring more of that into the way you lead?
Learn: Learning requires accepting that there are things you don’t know. The leaders I work with are lifelong learners, they invest heavily in it for their teams and are passionate about creating learning organisations.
Very rarely however do executives proactively share their own professional learning plans with the people in their business, or talk with them about what they’re investing their time developing and why.
But being open, and vulnerable with your team about what you need to learn, can be an excellent way to role model humility whilst at the same time inspiring those you lead to invest in their growth.
Think about your leadership learning plan for the year ahead. What are your priorities and why?
What opportunities exist to share them with those around you?
What could that make possible?
Share: If you find it takes courage to fail and admit to failing, start small. Get in the habit of talking with your peers about what’s not going so well, in addition to your successes. Scheduled regular meetings provide a platform for leaders to show humility by talking about their challenges as well as their success and progress.
Set five minutes at the start of each meeting for participants to answer these three quick table questions:
What is one thing that has gone well?
What is one thing that is challenging you or that you need help with?
What is one thing you learned?
Listen: How do you stay humble whilst also proving your worth? This podcast deep dives into how to find a balance between the two and offers advice about how to develop the qualities that will earn you more respect.
Elevate: If you’re taking a step up or starting a new leadership role the pressure is on to show that you are confident leading at the next level. To help you do that in a way that demonstrates your humility too, this Inc.com piece has three suggestions to build into your strategy:
Ask: Adam Grant has two simple questions to ask interviewees during executive hiring to find out if a candidate has natural humility:
To whom do you owe your success?
Whom have you learned the most from in your career?
Take a moment and think about how you would answer them. They are simple questions but your answers will give clues about how humble you could be perceived as.
You can read Adam Grants’ comments here to find out how you score.
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