Being A Humble Leader

By Hubert Saint-Onge

The most familiar image of effective leaders is that they are clear about what they want to happen. They are assertive and can be imposing at times. If they have strong egos, these leaders have difficulty seeing the changing nature of the context around them. They get caught up in their self-fulfilling loops. Even worse, the glaring light of their ego blinds them to their impact on people around them, making it difficult for them to empathize with others. Because they come across with such undeviating confidence, few people can surmise the courage it takes to express different perspectives. We can all readily recognize archetypal representatives of this type of leadership.

Humble leadership is the antithesis of this approach, yet it can just as powerfully galvanize people's resolve within an organization. I had the good fortune of personally experiencing working for a "humble leader" for several years. I was privileged to experience firsthand the effectiveness of this type of leadership.

As a member of the Learning Innovation Labs at Harvard, I had the good fortune of meeting Ed Schein, the author of several masterful books, including "The Humble Leader" and "Humble Consulting." Despite his many achievements and leadership at MIT, he was soft-spoken and projected genuine humility. People who interacted with him admired his path-breaking leadership and organization development work. As I write this article, I find myself walking in the footsteps of a 'humble' giant in the field.

This article articulates the underlying power of this alternate approach to leadership. The idea is to help you experiment with and eventually adopt practices that complement your leadership style in line with your aspirations.

1. What are the readily observable behaviours of a Humble Leader

In a previous article on Leadership Presence, I included several behaviors from the "The Humble Leader" perspective. For instance, I emphasized the importance of vulnerability and readily admitting mistakes. Humble leaders consciously keep their egos in check. They are self-aware and in control of their actions. They can see and adapt to context and act to serve the greater good. Their genuine authenticity comes not from consistency but from mindful responsiveness. Because they have a strong internalized sense of purpose, humble leaders are the calmest in the storm.

Here are some observable behaviours that will help you recognize humble leaders:

a. Modesty: They maintain a modest demeanour and avoid arrogance or self-promotion. They focus on the team goals and success rather than satisfying ego-driven needs.

b. Building Relationships: Humble leaders build strong, genuine relationships with their team members. They show empathy and understanding, which helps create a supportive work environment.

c. Encouraging Collaboration: They foster a collaborative environment where team members feel comfortable sharing ideas and working together towards common goals.

d. Active Listening: Humble leaders prioritize listening over speaking. They approach problems with an open mind, a willingness to listen, and a constant desire to learn. They seek diverse perspectives with curiosity and an open mind. They question their assumptions as they engage with frontline employees, customers, and external experts.

e. Admitting Mistakes: They openly acknowledge and take responsibility for their mistakes. This behaviour fosters a culture of transparency and trust within the team. They readily express vulnerability.

f. Dealing with Issues: Humble leaders approach problems with an open mind and a willingness to listen. They acknowledge that they don't have all the answers and actively seek input from their team members. This collaborative approach fosters a sense of ownership among employees and leads to more innovative solutions.

g. Sharing Credit: Humble leaders are quick to share credit for successes with their team. They recognize the contributions of others and celebrate team achievements rather than seeking personal accolades.

h. Seeking Feedback: They actively seek feedback from their peers, subordinates, and superiors. This openness to feedback demonstrates a commitment to personal and professional growth for themselves and others surrounding them.

i. Empowering Others: Humble leaders empower their team members by delegating authority and encouraging autonomy. They trust their team to make decisions and support them in their roles.

j. Continuous Learning: They show a strong desire to learn and grow. As leaders, they are open to new ideas and are willing to change their opinions based on new information. They are relentlessly curious about what others think.

k. Demonstrating Integrity:Humble leaders consistently act with integrity, aligning their actions with their values and principles. This consistency builds trust and respect around them

Humble leaders are often characterized by their ability to listen, collaborate, and empower others. They tend to prioritize the team's success over their own recognition, which can foster a positive and inclusive work environment. This leadership style is particularly effective in situations that require team cohesion, creativity, and long-term relationship building. For example, in a collaborative project where input from various stakeholders is crucial, a humble leader can facilitate open communication and ensure that all voices are heard. Despite what can be inferred from 'humility,' this list of characteristic behaviours doesn't imply professional invisibility or a lack of strength or influence. These characteristics bring a more substantial, engaging presence that can effectively mobilize people to achieve their goals.  

2.  The outcomes of Humble leadership

Humble leadership implies open-mindedness and reflection. When harnessed effectively, humility can contribute to building strong relationships and inspire teams. Humility enables leaders to have a distinctive impact on their organizations, as evidenced by how they handle issues, interact with people, resolve conflicts, build effective teams, think strategically, and develop the people around them. These are the observable outcomes of humble leadership in an organization:

a.  Create a positive, collaborative, productive work environment that encourages learning, growth and innovation.

b.  Genuinely seek to understand others' perspectives and encourage open dialogue, making team members feel valued and heard.

c.   Foster open discussions across the organization that give leaders a window into what people think. For instance, this allows them to identify weak disruption signals, such as supply chain issues or shifting customer preferences.

d.  Readily admit their limitations and learn from mistakes, contributing to developing a culture of continuous improvement by focusing on issues rather than assigning blame. They maintain a positive and constructive work environment even under demanding circumstances.

e.  Build highly effective teams: Humble leaders are skilled at building cohesive and high-performing teams. They recognize the strengths and contributions of each team member, fostering an environment where everyone feels appreciated and motivated. They cultivate a sense of collective achievement by empowering others and sharing credit for successes. Humble leaders also encourage diversity of thought and welcome different perspectives, enhancing team creativity and problem-solving. Their focus on team development and support helps build trust among team members.

f.  Manage stakeholders effectively: humble leaders excel in communication and stakeholder engagement, including interactions with clients and suppliers. Their communication style is often characterized by active listening, empathy, and openness, which fosters trust and transparency. By genuinely valuing the input and perspectives of others, humble leaders create an environment where stakeholders feel heard and respected. This approach not only strengthens relationships but also encourages collaboration and innovation.

g.  Become key enablers of proactive resilience by fostering cultures of curiosity, collaborative foresight, and psychological safety. They create a context where sharing information freely across teams and functions is possible without fear of adverse reactions. In times of crisis, humble leaders are often more transparent and communicative to help maintain trust and morale within the organization. Their ability to listen and empathize with their team members can create a supportive environment where individuals feel valued and motivated to contribute to the organization's recovery and growth. Researchers have found that higher humility scores, based on traits like openness to advice, also improve resilience in stressful or adverse circumstances. It stands to reason that humble leaders are more likely to seek diverse perspectives and question their assumptions: both attributes are critical for spotting weak signals of disruption. As a result, leaders who admit they "don't know everything" create cultures where early warnings surface and are not suppressed for fear of saying the wrong thing. This explains why humble leadership shapes cultures of openness and adaptability, both key to resilience.

3.  Developing a "humble" leadership practice

Should they align their practice to the "humble leader" profile, leaders must undertake learning projects that sharpen their existing skills or explore new ways to exercise leadership. It might also involve welcoming potential challenges with curiosity and focusing on how they can best support their team and others in their organization. New challenges continue to emerge in organizations, requiring leaders to re-examine aspects of their leadership practice and add new dimensions to their leadership approach. Leaders who want to build a leadership profile that is more aligned with the "humble leader" approach could consider the following development opportunities:

a.  Avoiding the 'Overconfidence Trap': McKinsey's research on decision-making biases warns that overconfident leaders often dismiss risks, whereas humble leaders are more likely to stress-test plans and consider 'black swan' scenarios.  For example, McKinsey found that during the 2008 financial crisis, banks led by humble CEOs were quicker to acknowledge vulnerabilities and adjust strategies. Furthermore, survey work conducted by McKinsey revealed that teams led by humble leaders were 30% more likely to allocate resources to long-term resilience.  

b. Proactive Takeaway: Humility drives leaders to ask, "What are we missing?" which helps them adopt proactive risk mitigation.  This might involve expanding their existing circle to include people with different views. Leaders who model curiosity always ask 'what if' questions, thereby institutionalizing future-focused thinking. Humble leaders are interested in learning what people are thinking. As a result, they tend to build systems where 'bad news' travels faster, allowing organizations to pivot pre-emptively.

c. Psychological Safety and Innovation: Amy Edmundson's highly influential work has brought psychological safety to the forefront of leadership thinking. McKinsey's research builds upon this work, tying leadership humility to psychological safety, which enables teams to explore and share new ideas about potential disruptions without fear of being summarily rejected for not aligning with mainstream thinking. Some of Amy Edmundson's work originated from Google's Project Aristotle, exploring what makes teams successful. It was in this original research that psychological safety was found to be linked to faster innovation cycles and greater adaptive capacity.  As I have reported in previous articles, it is becoming clear that this capacity is crucial for an organization operating in highly volatile markets.

d. Building Effective Teams: Humble leaders are skilled at building cohesive and high-performing teams. They recognize the strengths and contributions of each team member, fostering an environment where everyone feels appreciated and motivated. They cultivate a sense of collective achievement by empowering others and sharing credit for successes. Humble leaders also encourage diversity of thought and welcome different perspectives, enhancing team creativity and problem-solving. Their focus on team development and support helps build trust and loyalty among team members.

e. Resolving Conflicts: humble leaders excel at conflict resolution by prioritizing empathy and understanding: they listen to all parties involved, ensuring everyone feels heard and valued. This approach helps uncover the root causes of conflicts and address them effectively. Humble leaders are adept at facilitating open dialogue and encouraging compromise, which leads to mutually beneficial outcomes. Their ability to remain calm and composed under pressure sets a tone of respect and cooperation, making it easier to resolve disputes amicably.

f.  Learning Agility: Humble leaders are typically more self-aware and willing to acknowledge their limitations. This self-awareness allows them to seek out and leverage the strengths of their team, ensuring that the organization can draw on a diverse range of skills and experiences when facing adversity in the marketplace. By promoting continuous learning and development, they help build a skilled and adaptable workforce. Research shows that humble leaders prioritize continuous learning, a prerequisite for anticipating and responding to disruptions. For example, Satya Nadella's transformation of Microsoft from a "know-it-all" to a "learn-it-all" culture is credited for enabling proactive shifts to cloud computing and AI.

g. Developing People: Humble leaders are committed to the growth and development of their team members. They invest time in mentoring and coaching, providing constructive feedback and opportunities for professional development. By recognizing and nurturing potential, they help individuals reach their full capabilities. Humble leaders also encourage a learning culture, where mistakes are seen as opportunities for growth rather than failures. This focus on development enhances individual performance and contributes to the organization's overall success.

h. Decentralized structures: By decentralizing decision-making and prioritizing continuous learning, humble leaders institutionalize the capacity to anticipate and adapt to disruptions before they escalate. Proactive resilience requires distributing "sense-making" throughout the organization rather than centralizing it.  This may explain why research has identified that more decentralized organizations detect risks 40% faster than hierarchical ones.  

i. Collaborative Foresight: Humble leaders excel at collaborative foresight by leveraging collective intelligence rather than relying solely on top-down vision.  They enjoy engaging people in discussions about how they see the future unfold around the business. Based on McKinsey's "Three Horizons" framework (Horizon 1: current operations; Horizon 2: emerging opportunities; Horizon 3: future disruptions), humble leaders are more likely to invest time in Horizon 3 thinking than more directive leaders.  

j.  Strategic Thinking: Regarding strategy, humble leaders are forward-thinking and adaptable. They are unafraid to challenge the status quo and are open to new ideas and approaches. Their humility allows them to remain flexible and responsive to changing circumstances, crucial for strategic planning and execution in highly volatile contexts. By involving their team in the strategic process, they ensure that strategies are well-informed and aligned with the organization's goals. Humble leaders tend to excel at balancing short-term objectives with long-term vision, ensuring sustainable growth and success.

4.  Potential shortcomings of 'humble leaders' and ways to mitigate them

While possessing many strengths, humble leaders may face challenges or limitations, given their leadership approach. These leaders must find ways to complement their leadership practice by approaching these challenges without contradicting the principles they advocate. Here are some of these situations and ways to deal with them accordingly.

a.  Need for quick, assertive top-down decision-making: Because humble leaders often prioritize collaboration and input from their teams, they might struggle in scenarios where swift, unilateral decisions are necessary. In such a context, their focus on consulting and getting team input might sometimes be perceived as a lack of confidence or decisiveness, especially in high-pressure environments where strong, visible leadership is expected.

Complementary measure: Establish a formal mechanism where relevant players can be asked, on short notice, to attend a brief meeting on the issue at hand. Attendees then express their opinions on what's to be done without lengthy debates, knowing that the leader will weigh the pros and cons and decide based on the input received and their intuition about what needs to happen.  

b.  The leader's self-effaced style can be interpreted as a lack of courage. This mainly involves controversial decisions that need to be made quickly and where the leader has no choice but to own them and advocate for them.    

Complementary measure: The humble leader consults widely across the organization and makes decisions that judiciously meet the organization's needs. Once ready, the leader explains that, given the different options, a difficult choice was made to meet the different stakeholders' interests.     

c.  The difficulties of setting firm boundaries: The humble leader's empathetic nature and desire to maintain harmony sometimes make it difficult to impose their viewpoint. They tend to believe in the good nature of the people they work with.  

Complementary measure: Humble leaders often refer to values and principles that foster a positive and effective work environment. It will not be surprising for people to hear them emphasize the need to abide by these principles when directly addressing underperformance, conflict or a lack of discipline. They build a reservoir of trust and respect in the organization, allowing them to embed a clear sense of what is expected of them.

Humble leaders are typically more self-aware and willing to acknowledge their limitations. When a situation calls for assertiveness, they can draw on their self-awareness and their deep understanding of their team's strengths and weaknesses. This allows them to communicate their vision and expectations clearly and confidently. They can assert their ideas and decisions while still being open to feedback and collaboration, ensuring their assertiveness does not come across as domineering or dismissive.

Humble leaders might find it challenging to navigate highly competitive or aggressive corporate cultures where assertiveness and self-promotion are highly valued. Their preference for giving credit to others and focusing on team achievements rather than personal accolades might not align well with environments prioritizing individual recognition and assertive self-advocacy. Ideally, organizations should have the flexibility to accept different leadership styles with the flexibility to deal with a variety of situations.  

Humble leaders are capable of being assertive when necessary. While humility is often associated with being modest and unassuming, it does not preclude them from taking decisive action or standing firm on important issues. Humble leaders understand the importance of balancing humility with assertiveness to guide their teams and organizations effectively. They also know that constant and excessive assertiveness can wear thin after a while and lose effectiveness. My experience has shown that humble leaders are often skilled at building trust and respect within their teams, which can make their assertive actions more readily accepted and supported. Their ability to listen and empathize with others means that when they need to be assertive, it is often seen as being in the team's or organization's best interest rather than for personal gain. This balance of humility and assertiveness can be a powerful tool in navigating complex challenges and driving positive outcomes.

Humble leaders often handle interactions with highly assertive or ego-driven individuals quite effectively. Their approach is typically characterized by active listening, empathy, and a focus on collaboration rather than confrontation. The resulting interactions can help to resolve potential conflicts and foster a more cooperative environment. Humble leaders are usually adept at recognizing the strengths and contributions of others, which can help manage relationships with assertive or ego-driven people by making them feel valued and respected. Additionally, their ability to remain calm and composed under pressure can be an asset in navigating challenging interactions, ensuring that discussions remain productive and focused on achieving common goals.

5. Conclusion

For many reasons, humble leaders are gradually replacing the dominance of strong, uncompromising, and intimidating leaders. Today's organizations must be highly resilient to handle unprecedented complexity and volatility. Overall, the humility of these leaders can enhance an organization's resilience by fostering a flexible, innovative, and united culture in the face of challenges. In summary, humble leaders are effective because they prioritize collaboration, empathy, and continuous learning. Their ability to listen, adapt, and empower others creates a positive and productive work environment, resulting in successful conflict resolution, strategic innovation, and team development.

Humble leaders are effective because they prioritize collaboration, empathy, continuous learning and innovation to optimize performance. Their ability to listen, adapt, and empower others creates a positive and productive work environment, leading to successful team development, conflict resolution and strategic agility.